· Private foundation
William M Backer Foundation Inc
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 $10k39 grants · $87k
- $10k–50k10 grants · $147k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $160k
- $250k+1 grant · $256k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| PIEDMONT ENVIRONMENTAL COUNCIL | $256,000 |
| AFRO-AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION OF FAUQUIER COUNTY | $110,000 |
| CAMPAIGN LEGAL CENTER | $50,000 |
| CITIZENS FOR FAUQUIER COUNTY | $32,000 |
| PIEDMONT JOURNALISM FOUNDATION | $25,000 |
| FAUQUIER FREE CLINIC | $17,500 |
| WINDY HILL FOUNDATION | $12,500 |
| VIRGINIA LEAGUE FOR PLANNED PARENTHOOD | $10,000 |
| GRAYSON-JOCKEY CLUB RESEARCH FDN | $10,000 |
| OUR CHILDREN FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| GRACE EPISCOPAL CHURCH | $10,000 |
| JUST NEIGHBORS | $10,000 |
| PLANNED PARENTHOOD | $10,000 |
| GIFFORDS LAW CENTER | $5,000 |
| SEVEN LOAVES | $5,000 |
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 (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 50% of your dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants spread fairly evenly across need levels.
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.
73 repeat relationships — 51 still active in FY2025, 22 since wound down; 1 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, 98% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $10k 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
- TPTHE PIEDMONT ENVIRONMENTAL COUNCIL8× · 2017–2025 · $2.0M · revenue +161%
THE CAMPAIGN LEGAL CENTER INC9× · 2017–2025 · $291k · revenue +144%- AHAFRO-AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION OF FAUQUIER COUNTY9× · 2017–2025 · $168k · revenue +207%
Funded once
- TNTHE NATIONAL SPORTING LIBRARY AND MUSEUMone grant, 2019 · $25k · revenue +24%
- VTVIRGINIA THEOLOGICAL SEMINARYone grant, 2021 · $13k
- APAMERICAN PRESS INSTITUTE INCgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $10k · revenue +241%
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.
Promoting for the benefit of the general public, the preservation, protection and enjoyment of our natural resources, principally in the lower james, york, rappahannock and chowan rivers and surrounding watersheds.
To conserve the rural, natural, and cultural heritage of the new river region, protecting farms, forests, open spaces, and historic places.
Vfa promotes stewardship and wise use of the commonwealth's forest resources for the economic and environmental benefits of all virginians.
Alliance for the shenandoah valley informs and engages people to protect the natural resources, cultural heritages, and rural character of our region.
Virginias United Land Trusts was founded to promote conservation statewide and to coordinate conservation planning and green infrastructure. The Organization offers training and educational programs, like our annual Virginia Land…
Represent the agriculture, forestry, and agribusiness community in virginia.
To assist rural virginians in developing and advancing their agricultural, economic and social interests to enhance their quality of life.
Protecting and connecting virginia's wild places.
Northern neck land conservancy's mission is to preserve the rural heritage of the northern neck and essex county by conserving their lands, water, economies and culture for future generations. the land conservancy assists landowners who…
The mission of the james river association is to be guardian of the james river. we provide a voice for the river and take action to promote conservation and responsible stewardship of its natural resources.
The endowment's mission is to improve the quality of the environment by using its capital, expertise, and resources to fund projects and programs that encourage all sectors to work together to prevent pollution, improve water quality,…
Maintenace and management of said resource, educate, encourage and solicit active participation
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Environment America Inc and the most unlike its peers is Citizens for Fauquier County. 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 35 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 23% startups (under 5 years old) — 6% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% 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.
56 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. 56 of the 88 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 THE PIEDMONT ENVIRONMENTAL COUNCIL ↗
- Who funds THE CAMPAIGN LEGAL CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds AFRO-AMERICAN HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION OF FAUQUIER COUNTY ↗
- Who funds WINDY HILL FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds VIRGINIA TECH FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds GRAYSON-JOCKEY CLUB RESEARCH FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds PIEDMONT JOURNALISM FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds FAUQUIER FREE CLINIC INC ↗
- Who funds CITIZENS FOR FAUQUIER COUNTY ↗
- Who funds UPPERVILLE COLT & HORSE SHOW INC ↗
- Who funds SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds VIRGINIA PUBLIC ACCESS PROJECT ↗
- Who funds THE PLAINS COMMUNITY LEAGUE ↗
- Who funds VIRGINIA EQUINE ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds THE NATIONAL SPORTING LIBRARY AND MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds VIRGINIA PIEDMONT HERITAGE AREA ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds FAUQUIER HABITAT FOR HUMANITY INC ↗
- Who funds GOOSE CREEK ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds VIRGINIA LEAGUE FOR PLANNED PARENTHOOD INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds OCH CONSERVATION FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Virginia Interfaith Center For Public Policy ↗
- Who funds MOC BEAGLES INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL PARK FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE CLIFTON INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds Sustainable Harvest International ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds VIRGINIA THOROUGHBRED ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds OCEAN CONSERVANCY ↗
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: Dun Foundation · The Luminescence Foundation Inc · Fauquier Health Foundation Dba the Path Foundation · Wise Foundation · Awa Family Foundation · Northern Piedmont Community Foundation · Msa Family Fund · The Principato Family Foundation Inc · McGraw Foundation · Frank Mangano Foundation · The Jesse and Rose Loeb Foundation Inc · The Hall Family Foundation Inc
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 William M Backer 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.
- Chesapeake Bay Foundation Inc — 2% of income from government
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.
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How do I get to William M Backer Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to William M Backer 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.