· Private foundation
The Wendell and Celia Ellis Family Foundation
Its FY2024 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2018–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- $10k–50k2 grants · $25k
- $50k–250k5 grants · $440k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| AUBURN UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION | $200,000 |
| LESTER MEMORIAL UNITED METHODIST CHURCH | $60,000 |
| LESTER MEMORIAL UNITED METHODIST CHURCH | $60,000 |
| LESTER MEMORIAL UNITED METHODIST CHURCH | $60,000 |
| LESTER MEMORIAL UNITED METHODIST CHURCH | $60,000 |
| ONEONTA PUBLIC LIBRARY | $15,000 |
| BLOUNT COUNTY CHILDREN'S CENTER | $10,000 |
Do your dollars go where the need is?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, then read against the area’s typical level.
Your human-services grants (FY20–21, $69k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 3% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty linein the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP; grantee ZIP can differ from where services are delivered.
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are actually delivered. Need from public data — U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.
Who you back again
Which organizations you funded more than once, and which you funded a single time. Each grantee is matched to its own filings.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +41% since the first grant, against +40% for the ones you funded once.
5 repeat relationships — 3 still active in FY2024, 2 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Median revenue growth · since first grant
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2024, 97% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $15k went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
First-time = a grantee’s first year in your filing window; renewed = funded in an earlier year too. As a portfolio matures the renewed share naturally climbs — once funded, an org stays “renewable” — so the signal is the years that buck it (a new-grantee intake wave). The earliest year is left-censored: relationships that predate the data read as “new.” Theme is the grantee’s IRS cause.
Backed again, and grew
- AUAUBURN UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION4× · 2018–2024 · $206k · revenue +99%
- GGGods Garage Inc2× · 2020–2021 · $67k · revenue +16%
UNITED WAY OF CENTRAL ALABAMA INC2× · 2018–2022 · $3k · revenue +41%
Funded once
- SPSAMARITAN'S PURSEgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $10k · revenue +40%
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2021 · $5k
- UMUNITED METHODIST CHILDREN'S HOMEone grant, 2021 · $2k · revenue +7%
Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
The map has a center of gravity: the average direction from the rest of the sector toward the organizations the foundation funds — the shape of its giving. Scoring every nonprofit along that direction surfaces the ones that look most like the portfolio. These are the closest matchesthat aren’t grantees — a resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.
Children at heart ministries is a family of christian ministries that exists to honor god and build a better world by serving children and strengthening families.
Christian Mission for the United Nations Community is a ministry aimed at leading the head of every nation and other top leaders to faith in Jesus Christ and helping them to walk in dependence upon God as they discharge the…
Methodist childrens homes seeks to bring restoration to children and youth who have been neglected or abused. by the end of their time with us, we hope to see that they find reconciliation with their biological families, love within an…
Empowering children and families to experience the transforming love of christ through evidence-based care and holistic services
To provide a positive and safe living environment for hurting, abused, neglected and at-risk children placed privately and by the north carolina department of social services
Texas baptist children's home embraces children and families in need in order to empower and equip them for a promising future.
Lubbock christian university is a christ-centered, academic community of learners, transforming the hearts, minds, and hands of students for lives of purpose and service.
The mission of christian services for children in alabama is to show the love of christ by providing counseling and other related services to children and their families.
As a ministry of jesus christ, agape's mission is that vulnerable and orphaned children find permanency in safe, nurturing families.
Christian mission offering hope to the forgotten children of africa and training leaders and teachers for african children.
We are a k-12 christian school founded under the following (4) pillars: academics: we provide an amazing accredited academic program utilizing 100% certified teachers. schedule: we provide our students and their families an opportunity on…
Reaching out to children in east africa living in destitute circumstances, both physically and with the gospel of jesus christ, to enable them to grow and develop in a secure environment.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Heart of Christ-Corazon De Cristo Inc and the most unlike its peers is Gods Garage Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
8 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.
Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue from every source. Association, dated; never a causal claim.
Counted here: distinct organizations you funded across 2017–2025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 8 of the 15 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile; the rest are funded organizations whose filings we could not track year by year.
Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee
Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing
Go grantee by grantee — a decade per org, and how each moved after you funded them
A decade per grantee — revenue shaded, your grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.
- Who funds AUBURN UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Gods Garage Inc ↗
- Who funds BLOUNT COUNTY CHILDRENS CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds SAMARITAN'S PURSE ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF CENTRAL ALABAMA INC ↗
- Who funds UNITED METHODIST CHILDREN'S HOME ↗
- Who funds LEGACY PREPARATORY CHRISTIAN ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds HEART OF CHRIST-CORAZON DE CRISTO INC ↗
The grantmakers whose grantees overlap with yours far more than size alone predicts. Each orbits closer the stronger the alignment; the arcs between them show where they also fund each other. Here it reads as a tightly interlocked camp — most of these funders back each other's grantees too.
Open a dossier: Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile Foundation
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. A research starting point: overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.
Government reliance of your grantees
Every dot is one organization The Wendell and Celia Ellis Family Foundation funds. Left–right is the share of its income from government; up–down is the share from you. Bigger dots raise more. Filter to federal or a single department — and drag the year to watch it move.
Government income is each org’s traced federal awards (USASpending — grants and contracts) plus state payments (open checkbooks) as a share of its total revenue (IRS Form 990); the self-reported government-grant line (990 line 1e) is carried for cross-check: a grantee that reports government grants we could not trace to a source is left off the chart rather than shown as receiving none. An association, not a claim that your grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first — a floor, not a census; state records exist for 9 states, so a grantee outside them shows no state figure (dimmed) rather than a false zero. Federal award amounts are obligations, which can span years, so a single-year share is indicative. 990 filings lag 12–24 months.