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· Public charity
VA FOUNDATION FOR INDEPENDENT COLLEGES
Advance the distinctive values and strengths of our sixteen smaller enrollment, undergraduate, residential virginia member colleges.
$2.2M
Granted FY2024
16
Grants
1
Communities
$157k
Largest
01What you fund
0180% classified
What you funded, over time
Every grant clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2018–2024.
Education$9.3MOther$2.3M
02FY2024 · 16 grants
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
$129,191
Median grant
1
States reached
$41M
Total assets
Largest grants
- MARYMOUNT UNIVERSITY$156,576
- SHENANDOAH UNIVERSITY$154,251
- UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND$144,832
- VIRGINIA WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY$144,509
- BRIDGEWATER COLLEGE$142,717
- HOLLINS UNIVERSITY$132,356
- EMORY & HENRY COLLEGE$129,982
- RANDOLPH-MACON COLLEGE$129,191
- WASHINGTON & LEE UNIVERSITY$128,488
- UNIVERSITY OF LYNCHBURG$128,459
- MARY BALDWIN UNIVERSITY$126,720
- RANDOLPH COLLEGE$119,807
- SWEET BRIAR COLLEGE$117,871
- ROANOKE COLLEGE$114,192
- HAMPDEN-SYDNEY COLLEGE$110,467
02The need
03
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.
show:
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY18–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 12% — the area typically sits at 8%. 74% of your dollars reach neighborhoods with above-average need. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in 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, United Way ALICE — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.
03Your edge
repeat funding
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.
100%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.
$12M · 16 repeat orgs$0 to everyone else
16 repeat relationships — 16 still active in FY2024, 0 since wound down.
How the two cohorts compare
Re-uppedFunded once
Organizations
16
0
Total granted
$12M
$0
Still filing today
94%
0%
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2024, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.
RenewedFirst-time
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
- UOUNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND7× · 2018–2024 · $880k · revenue +5%
- MUMARYMOUNT UNIVERSITY7× · 2018–2024 · $799k · revenue +3%
- VWVIRGINIA WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY7× · 2018–2024 · $792k · revenue +15%
Funded once
Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
04Your field
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.
1
Washington College
Washington college challenges and inspires emerging citizen leaders to discover lives of purpose and passion.
Education
2
Wartburg College
Wartburg college provides educational programs and experiences that challenge and nurture students for lives of leadership and service as a spirited expression of their faith and learning.
Education
3
Franklin & Marshall College
A residential college dedicated to excellence in undergraduate liberal arts education.
Education
4
Roberts Wesleyan University
A community of learners committed to historic christianity, rwu seeks to prepare thoughtful, spiritually mature, service-oriented people who will transform society.
Education
5
Washington University
The washington university is a co-educational, nondenominational university with a long and distinguished history of teaching, research and (cont'd on schedule o)
Education
6
Randall University
An accredited post-secondary institution of higher education. the university offers several degree programs, offers six sports programs, and currently enrolls approximately 350 students.
Education
7
William Peace University
Prepare students for careers in the organizations of tomorrow.
Education
8
Sarah Lawrence College
Sarah lawrence college is a four-year liberal arts college (continued on schedule o) offering select graduate programs on its main campus in bronxville, ny and 4 undergraduate global studies programs.
Education
9
Westminster College
Four-year, undergraduate liberal arts college.
Education
10
William Penn University
William penn university provides the opportunity for an educational experience with a focus on leadership, technology, and the quaker principles of simplicity, peace-making, intergrity, community and equality.
Education
11
Meredith College
Founded in 1891, meredith is one of the largest women's colleges in the southeast. meredith offers comprehensive liberal arts and professional studies for undergraduate women. at the graduate level, meredith offers co-educational mba,…
Education
12
Union University
Union University provides Christ-centered education that promotes excellence and character development in service to church and society.
Education
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Emory & Henry College and the most unlike its peers is Bridgewater College. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
04the grantee network
16 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2018–2025.
Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue.
1
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
1
Early backer (in before they grew)
15/16
Grantees still filing
10/16
Grew since you first funded
Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee
Education$9,324,153Other$2,263,795
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 UNIVERSITY OF RICHMOND ↗
- Who funds BRIDGEWATER COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds MARYMOUNT UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds VIRGINIA WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds SHENANDOAH UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF LYNCHBURG ↗
- Who funds ROANOKE COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds WASHINGTON & LEE UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds EMORY & HENRY COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds RANDOLPH-MACON COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds MARY BALDWIN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds HAMPDEN-SYDNEY COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds RANDOLPH COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds HOLLINS UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds SWEET BRIAR COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds VIRGINIA UNION UNIVESITY ↗
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.
Lettie Pate Whitehead Foundation IncGA22.5× affinity8 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →
Open a dossier: Lettie Pate Whitehead Foundation Inc · Tulsa Community Foundation · National Collegiate Athletic Association · Verizon Foundation · Hughes Memorial Home · Jessie Ball duPont Religious Charitable · Charlottesville Area Community · The Mary Morton Parsons Foundation · Community Foundation Serving Western · Enterprise Holdings Foundation · American Endowment Foundation · Folds of Honor 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 organisation VA FOUNDATION FOR INDEPENDENT COLLEGES 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.
2023
’20’21’22’23
no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
0get no government money at all
0rely on government for over half their income
⤢ axis zoomed · 0–40%
typical government reliance, FY20–23
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. 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.
05Through Plinth
Through Plinth
Your grantmaking, live and operational
This dossier was generated cold from public filings. In Plinth it’s a working system — every applicant assessed and every grant monitored. Here’s a taste, run on one of your grantees: RANDOLPH COLLEGE.
Agentic due diligence · confidence × risk
Financial management
low risk
~9 months of operating runway; revenue contracted over 6 filed years.
Track record & reputation
low risk
6 years of Form 990 filings, still active.
Legal standing
low risk
US 501(c)(3); EIN 540505941 on file with current IRS Form 990 filings.
Governance
Live in Plinth
Board composition & governance documents — verified live in Plinth from the applicant.
Compliance & sanctions
Live in Plinth
OFAC / UN sanctions screening — run live in Plinth at assessment.
Program capacity
Live in Plinth
Staffing, M&E and activity alignment — assessed live in Plinth from submitted proposals.
Live · Plinth’s real DD engine
Run the actual assessment on RANDOLPH COLLEGE, cold from public data.
Generated live from public IRS filings + open web sources by Plinth’s agentic engine. Shown as an illustration of the product, not a formal assessment.
Post-award monitoring · continuous checks
- On trackFinancial stability— Roughly 9 months of cash on hand.
- WatchSustained operations— Filing through 2023; revenue contracted over the period.
- On trackReliance on your funding— Your grants peaked at 0% of their budget — diversified.
- Awaiting reportEvidence of delivery— Plinth collects the grantee's own monitoring reports post-award.
What you see here is static and public. In Plinth it’s operational — the full six-pillar framework on every applicant (with their own documents + live registry and sanctions checks), monitoring dashboards on every award, custom board reports, and eligibility routing for intake.
Agentic due diligenceMonitoring dashboardsCustom board reportsEligibility routing
Preview generated from this grantee’s public IRS filings and independent reporting. Pillars marked “live in Plinth” require the applicant’s submitted documents. Shown as illustration, not a formal assessment.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPro
How do I get to Va Foundation for Independent Colleges?
Find your warmest path to Va Foundation for Independent Colleges through people who sit on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the introduction across shared trustees and officers.
Every link is a documented governance overlap in public IRS 990 filings — not a personal network — and each hop carries its own confidence tier. Low-confidence or distant paths are held back rather than guessed.
More from the funding graph
The regranting layer
51% of grant dollars pass through an intermediary
The DAF merry-go-round
$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds
Strange bedfellows
the named clusters of US funding
The camps
funders cluster by geography, not ideology
By state
where grant money is based, and what stays home
State money flows
the interactive map of money crossing state lines