How much does Vin and Caren Prothro Foundation give?

Vin and Caren Prothro Foundation reported 30 grants totaling $536,955 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 20 and 37 organizations a year over FY2020 to FY2024.

What does Vin and Caren Prothro Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2020 to FY2025, its largest causes are Environment (32%), Education (26%), Public Benefit (14%).

Who are Vin and Caren Prothro Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2020 to FY2025: Southern Methodist University ($664k), The George W Bush Foundation ($323k), United Way of Metropolitan Dallas Inc ($183k).

Does Vin and Caren Prothro Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 15% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Vin and Caren Prothro Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

Which funders back the same organizations as Vin and Caren Prothro Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Perkins-Prothro Foundation, The Addy Foundation, Texas Instruments Foundation.

Where is Vin and Caren Prothro Foundation based?

Vin and Caren Prothro Foundation is based in TX.

Vin and Caren Prothro Foundation

Vin and Caren Prothro Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

Vin and Caren Prothro Foundation

Its FY2025 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

$537k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$284k

Largest

01What it funds

0199% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2020 to 2024.

Environment$723kEducation$598kPublic Benefit$314kPhilanthropy$180kHealth$168kArts & Culture$138kHuman Services$75kReligion$16kOther$0

02FY2025 · 30 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k22 grants · $72k
$10k–50k6 grants · $110k
$50k–250k1 grant · $71k
$250k+1 grant · $284k

$5,000

Median grant

States reached

$6.4M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
Yale University	$284,000
Southern Methodist University	$71,420
Southern Methodist University	$25,000
Trinity Park Conservancy	$25,000
UT Southwestern Medical Center	$20,000
Southern Methodist University	$20,000
United Way of Metropolitan Dallas	$10,000
George W Bush Foundation	$10,000
Uplift Education	$7,500
ATT Performing Arts Center	$5,334
Southwestern Medical Foundation	$5,000
Southern Methodist University	$5,000
SM Wright Foundation	$5,000
Methodist Health System Foundation	$5,000
Southern Methodist University	$5,000

02The need

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Its human-services grants (FY20–25, $44k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

How this is measured

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.

Which US states its grants reach

How this is measured

US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.

Where the work is directed

The same grants placed two ways: where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose sends the money.

About 11% of Vin and Caren Prothro Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked for a different county than the recipient’s own address. By recipient address, 66% of the giving stays in TX; by stated purpose, 36%.

Vin and Caren Prothro Foundationlessmore of its giving

Placed by recipient address · 29% directed abroad (not shown)

How this is measured

Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the funder’s own 990 grant descriptions.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

97%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$2.7M · 37 repeat orgs$93k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +24% since the first grant, against +23% for those funded once.

37 repeat relationships: 17 still active in FY2025, 20 since wound down; 5 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$2.7M

$55k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+24%

+23%

Still filing today

70%

65%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 93% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $39k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

Arts & CultureEducationHuman ServicesHealthEnvironmentPhilanthropyOther

How this is measured

First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

Southern Methodist University
6× · 2020–2025 · $664k · revenue +26%
PF
PARKLAND FOUNDATION
3× · 2020–2022 · $60k · revenue +30%
SW
SM Wright Foundation
6× · 2020–2025 · $41k · revenue +17%

Funded once

SM
St Michaels and All Angles Episcopa
one grant, 2022 · $8k
SM
Saint Michael and All Angels Episco
one grant, 2021 · $8k
AS
AUSTIN STREET CENTER
one grant, 2021 · $5k · revenue -60%

How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

The Shakespeare Festival of Dallas dba Shakespeare Dallas

Using Shakespeare's works as a cornerstone, Shakespeare Dallas serves the Southwest region with fun and accessible indoor and outdoor theatre, integrated school programs, and cultural enrichment for people of all ages and backgrounds.

—

Dallas Citizens Council

To lead and serve in the moments that matter the most for the people of dallas.

—

The University of TexasTexas a&M Investment Management Company

To generate superior long-term investment returns to support The University of Texas and Texas A&M University systems as they provide world-class teaching, push the boundaries of discovery, and achieve excellence in patient healthcare for…

Education

Dallas County Medical Society

The mission of the dallas county medical society is to promote public health and advocate for physicians and their relationship with patients, while upholding professionalism in the practice of medicine.

—

Witte Museum

The witte museum inspires people to shape the future of texas through transformative and relevant experiences in nature, science and culture.

Arts & Culture

Downtown Dallas Inc

Downtown Dallas, Inc. (DDI), is the champion of a clean and safe Downtown and of the economic development and vibrancy of this community of diverse, unique neighborhoods. DDI: Mobilizes and amplifies the services of public agencies.…

—

Dallas Contemporary

Dallas contemporary presents art in a forum that cultivates artists, ignites learning and inspires the community. dallas contemporary is a non-collecting art museum presenting new and challenging ideas from regional, national and…

Arts & Culture

Dallas International University

As a christian university, we provide education and research opportunities preparing global leaders to partner with local communities.

Education

Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council

The mission of the Dallas-Fort Worth Hospital Council is to drive evidence-based improvement in patient care and health equity throughout the region.

—

Dallas College Foundation Inc

Dallas college foundation enhances the level of achievement and excellence of dallas college by providing scholarships, eliminating barriers that prevent students from attending and graduating, and supporting innovation.

Education

Dallas Regional Chamber

Together, with our business leaders and community partners, we will help lead the dallas region to become the best place in the united states for all people to live, work, and do business.

—

Dallas Bar Association

The Dallas Bar Association is a nonprofit corporation chartered by the State of Texas to protect and advance the professional interests of persons licensed to practice law in the Dallas area, to improve the relations between the Bench, the…

—

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Dallas Foundation; the most unlike its peers is Wake Forest University. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

05the grantee network

51 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 51 of the 70 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

49/51

Grantees still filing

31/51

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$1,326,559Education$1,060,171Philanthropy$189,836Arts & Culture$68,619Health$66,000Human Services$44,000Community Improvement$41,250

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Perkins-Prothro FoundationTX41.1× affinity17 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Perkins-Prothro Foundation · The Addy Foundation · Texas Instruments Foundation · The Dallas Foundation · The Perot Foundation · The Eugene McDermott Foundation · Communities Foundation of Texas Inc · Kline Family Foundation · Meadows Foundation Inc · The Baldridge Foundation · Ben E Keith Foundation Trust Xxxxx0005 · The Rosewood Foundation

How this is measured

Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Vin and Caren Prothro Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Vin and Caren Prothro Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

0get no government money at all

12report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–75%

typical government reliance, FY20–25

How this is measured

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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to Vin and Caren Prothro Foundation?

Find your warmest path to Vin and Caren Prothro Foundation 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.

Play a game based on Vin and Caren Prothro’s filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions

grants reported with no recipient in the public record

The regranting layer

51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer

The DAF merry-go-round

$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds

The endowment market

who holds foundation money, and what just moved

The camps

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

By state

where grant money is based, and what stays home