· Private foundation
The Wortham Foundation Inc
Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k2 grants · $12k
- $10k–50k8 grants · $190k
- $50k–250k6 grants · $675k
- $250k+3 grants · $2.1M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| HOUSTON SYMPHONY SOCIETY | $1,000,000 |
| HOUSTON GRAND OPERA | $850,000 |
| SAN JACINTO GIRL SCOUTS | $250,000 |
| CHILDREN'S MUSEUM | $175,000 |
| DA CAMERA SOCIETY | $150,000 |
| HOUSTON PUBLIC MEDIA FOUNDATION | $100,000 |
| HOBBY CENTER | $100,000 |
| STAGES REPERTORY THEATRE | $100,000 |
| MEMORIAL PARK CONSERVANCY | $50,000 |
| GALVESTON HISTORICAL FOUNDATION | $40,000 |
| SPARK | $40,000 |
| HEALTH MUSEUM | $40,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $25,000 |
| CLASSICAL THEATRE COMPANY | $15,000 |
| DIVERSE WORKS | $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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY24–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, against an area that typically sits at 14%. 100% of your dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-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 +28% since the first grant, against -8% for the ones you funded once.
65 repeat relationships — 14 still active in FY2024, 51 since wound down; 5 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, 86% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $430k 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
- HGHouston Grand Opera Association Inc7× · 2017–2024 · $9.8M · revenue +28%
- HSHouston Symphony Society7× · 2017–2024 · $8.6M · revenue +43%
- ATALLEY THEATRE6× · 2017–2023 · $4.1M · revenue +107%
Funded once
- TFTHE FOUNDATION FOR JONES HALLone grant, 2022 · $2.0M · revenue -19%
- JHJONES HALL, FOUNDATIONone grant, 2023 · $1.0M
- WMWILLIAM MARSH RICE UNIVERSITY-SHEPHERD SCHone grant, 2018 · $500k
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.
Harmonia Stellarum is an ensemble of professional vocalists and instrumentalists specialized in historically informed performance practice who seek to inspire, entertain, and enlighten audiences with meaningful, historically informed…
See Schedule OHouston Arts Alliance (HAA) is a local arts and culture organization whose principal work is implementing the City of Houston's vision, values, and goals for its arts grantmaking and civic art investments. HAA conducts work…
Plant, protect and promote trees all over the greater Houston area.
To create theater that challenges its audience to think and its artists to grow. We accomplish this by presenting an articulate and compelling product in an intimate setting, creating employment for Houston-based artists, and memorable…
To completely restore Houston Freedmen's Town as a heritage district that provides America with its only Freedmen's Town.
The Houston Local Information Initiative, Inc. provides public service journalism that reflects the civic needs of the diverse communities comprising Greater Houston.
The Hobby Center for the Performing Arts deepens understanding of our shared humanity. We serve as a connector, convenor and incubator for all Houston audiences, artmakers and arts organizations. By presenting engaging performances and…
Arts Connect Houston unites with the greater Houston community to ensure access to high-quality arts education in creative writing, dance, music, theater, and the visual arts for every student, beginning with Houston ISD.
Art Colony Association provides art experiences and education for the greater Houston community by bringing diverse artists to urban Bayou City Art Festivals and supporting local non-profit organizations.
Hermann Park Conservancy is a citizens organization dedicated to the stewardship and improvement of Hermann Park - today and for generations to come.
Houston MediaSource aspires to be the community media center for the City of Houston. HMS provides public access to media platforms that promote citizen engagement, protect the right to free expression, and provide opportunities to advance…
The mission of the Houston Academy of Medicine is to support the community service, education, scientific, and charitable programs for physicians, their patients, and the community at large in Harris County.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Performing Arts Houston and the most unlike its peers is Northland Christian School. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 45 years old; the field is 11. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 30% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 1% lost their exemption, against 19% of the field you don’t fund.
Age = years since IRS exemption (a founding proxy). “Closed” = auto-revocation for 3 years of non-filing — a floor on closure, not proof, and bigger established orgs lapse least. Association, not causation.
68 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. 68 of the 102 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 Houston Grand Opera Association Inc ↗
- Who funds Houston Symphony Society ↗
- Who funds Houston Museum of Natural Science ↗
- Who funds ALLEY THEATRE ↗
- Who funds Houston Golf Association Inc ↗
- Who funds Theatre Under the Stars Inc ↗
- Who funds THE FOUNDATION FOR JONES HALL ↗
- Who funds Stages ↗
- Who funds Houston Botanic Garden ↗
- Who funds PERFORMING ARTS HOUSTON ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN'S MUSEUM INC ↗
- Who funds THE MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS HOUSTON ↗
- Who funds Contemporary Arts Museum Houston ↗
- Who funds Menil Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds Houston Public Media Foundation ↗
- Who funds Houston Municipal Golf Association Inc ↗
- Who funds Houston Arboretum & Nature Center ↗
- Who funds Lone Star Flight Museum ↗
- Who funds HOUSTON CENTER FOR CONTEMPORARY CRAFT ↗
- Who funds United Way of Greater Houston ↗
- Who funds GALVESTON HISTORICAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SPARK ↗
- Who funds THE CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS AT THE WOODLANDS ↗
- Who funds Galveston Bay Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds HOUSTON FIRE MUSEUM INC ↗
- Who funds 1894 INC ↗
- Who funds HOLOCAUST MUSEUM HOUSTON ↗
- Who funds Lawndale Art & Performance Center ↗
- Who funds THE ENSEMBLE THEATRE ↗
- Who funds Miller Theatre Advisory Board Inc ↗
- Who funds RONALD MCDONALD HOUSE CHARITIES GREATER HOUSTON 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: The Brown Foundation Inc · Houston Endowment Inc · Houston Arts Alliance · Greater Houston Community Foundation · Albert & Ethel Herzstein Charitable Foundation · Shell USA Company Foundation · The Elkins Foundation · John P McGovern Foundation · The Powell Foundation · The Cullen Trust for the Performing Arts · Mechia Foundation · The Humphreys 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 Wortham Foundation Inc 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to The Wortham Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to The Wortham Foundation Inc through trustees and officers whose names appear on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the shortest route it can evidence.
Each link is a name appearing on two organizations’ public IRS 990 filings, matched on that name and, where the filings support it, on location. A same-state match has geographic support, which is a second matching feature rather than confirmation that the two are one person; a cross-state one is the likeliest to be two people who share a name. Every hop shows its tier, low-confidence and distant paths are held back rather than guessed, and it is worth confirming the person before you use the introduction.