· Private foundation
Washington 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.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k56 grants · $230k
- $10k–50k30 grants · $597k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| NASHVILLE SYMPHONY ASSOCIATION | $42,000 |
| THE BRANCH OF NASHVILLE | $37,500 |
| SECOND HARVEST FOOD BANK OF MID TN | $34,000 |
| SALVATION ARMY | $31,000 |
| FAITH FAMILY MEDICAL CLINIC | $30,000 |
| SILOAM HEALTH | $27,500 |
| MEN OF VALOR | $25,000 |
| NASHVILLE RESCUE MISSION | $25,000 |
| THE STORE | $25,000 |
| LIPSCOMB UNIVERSITY | $22,500 |
| CUMBERLAND HEIGHTS | $22,500 |
| CHURCH OF CHRIST DISASTER RELIEF | $20,000 |
| ARTISTS IN CHRISTIAN TESTIMONY | $19,500 |
| TENNESSEE PERFORMING ARTS CENTER | $18,250 |
| NASHVILLE REPERTORY THEATRE | $18,250 |
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 (FY17–25, $442k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 100% of those 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.
Which US states your grants reach
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 +38% since the first grant, against +30% for the ones you funded once.
122 repeat relationships — 82 still active in FY2025, 40 since wound down; 2 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (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 FY2025, 97% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $27k 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
- NSNashville Symphony Association9× · 2017–2025 · $339k · revenue +29%
- MOMEN OF VALOR9× · 2017–2025 · $250k · revenue +283%
- LULIPSCOMB UNIVERSITY9× · 2017–2025 · $221k · revenue +44%
Funded once
- CCCHICO CHURCH OF CHRISTone grant, 2018 · $34k
GLOBALGIVING FOUNDATION INCgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $25k · revenue +34%
United Way of Greater Houstonone grant, 2017 · $25k · revenue +5%
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.
Nashville public radio's mission is to be the most trusted & independent nashville voice, connecting our communities through non-partisan journalism, compelling storytelling, civil conversation and music discovery.
Union university provides christ-centered education that promotes excellence and character development in service to church and society.
King's academy is a pre-k-8th grade independent christian school in nashville, tennessee, providing a classically inspired education to a racially and socioeconomically balanced student body.
Nashville inner city ministry is a christ-centered community organization dedicated to empowering the spiritual, educational and vocational development of at-risk youth and their families.
Nashville banner is a locally owned, community supported, civic news organization. we exist to empower the people of nashville to make informed decisions by providing non-partisan journalism from an independent, nonprofit newsroom. we are…
The mission of houston christian university is to provide a learning experience that instills in students a passion for academic, spiritual, and professional excellence as a result of our central confession, "jesus christ is lord."
Christ-centered school educating children of diverse racial & socioeconomic backgrounds by establishing a biblical worldview & preparing each child to flourish academically, emotionally, socially & spiritually.
Open table of nashville is a non-profit, interfaith, community that disrupts the cycles of poverty, journeys with the marginalized and provides education about issues of homelessness.
To prepare students to lead and serve with distinction while representing christ and his kingdom in all areas of home, church, society and culture.
Methodist Medical Center provides quality healthcare, in alignment with Covenant Health's mission to serve the community by improving the quality of life through better health regardless of a patient's ability to pay.
Nashville cares exists to end the hiv epidemic, promote comprehensive sexual health and end sexual health stigmatization and discrimination through prevention, education, treatment, support, advocacy, and strategic partnership.
Lead public schools exists to prepare all our students with the knowledge and skills to succeed in college and in life.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Nashville Rescue Mission and the most unlike its peers is Ultimate Escape. 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 34 years old; the field is 13. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 25% startups (under 5 years old) — 1% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 1% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
82 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.
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 2017–2026, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 82 of the 141 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 Nashville Symphony Association ↗
- Who funds FAITH FAMILY MEDICAL CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds MEN OF VALOR ↗
- Who funds LIPSCOMB UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds SECOND HARVEST FOOD BANK OF MIDDLE TN INC ↗
- Who funds NASHVILLE RESCUE MISSION ↗
- Who funds SILOAM HEALTH ↗
- Who funds MARTHA O'BRYAN CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds ALIVE HOSPICE INC ↗
- Who funds TENNESSEE PRISON OUTREACH MINISTRY INC ↗
- Who funds NASHVILLE REPERTORY THEATRE INC ↗
- Who funds TENNESSEE PERFORMING ARTS CENTER (TPAC) MANAGEMENT CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds NASHVILLE OPERA ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds Christian Community Services Inc ↗
- Who funds NASHVILLE BALLET ↗
- Who funds ENCOURAGEMENT MINISTRIES INC ↗
- Who funds HEALING HANDS INTERNATIONAL INC ↗
- Who funds YOUTH ENCOURAGEMENT SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds TENNESSEE CHILDREN'S HOME INC ↗
- Who funds THE BRANCH OF NASHVILLE INC ↗
- Who funds CHRISTIAN EDUCATION INC ↗
- Who funds LAKESHORE ESTATES INC ↗
- Who funds American National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches ↗
- Who funds THE NEXT DOOR INC ↗
- Who funds CHURCHES OF CHRIST DISASTER RELIEF EFFORT INC ↗
- Who funds Habitat for Humanity ↗
- Who funds Vanderbilt University ↗
- Who funds NASHVILLE CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS INC ↗
- Who funds Belmont University ↗
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 Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee Inc · Hca Healthcare Foundation · Memorial Foundation Inc · The Frist Foundation · Dorothy Cate and Thomas F Frist Foundation · Ezell Foundation Inc · Dettwiller Foundation · Stephens' Christian Trust · Servant Foundation · Nashville Predators Foundation · United Way of Middle Tennessee Inc · The Steven & Laurie Eskind Family 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 Washington 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Washington Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Washington 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.