gleantree

the weekly digest

The funders worth knowing, from the public record

Week of 1 Jul 2026 Nonprofit · Alabama

The Note · a weekly column

Why I started gleantree

I've spent about thirty years working with data — building the pipelines and models that turn raw records into something people can actually act on. Over that time I've come to realize: there's an enormous amount of untapped value in public datasets, and most people never realize it — either because they don't think to look, or because the data isn't in a form they can use. Form 990s are a perfect example. Every nonprofit and foundation files one with the IRS each year — who gives, how much, to whom, and how it's changed. Tens of thousands of them. Public, free, and in theory searchable.

In practice, nobody looks. The interesting parts are buried in scanned PDFs and giant data dumps, so the information is available without being accessible. That gap — between public and usable — is the opportunity I started gleantree to close.

We call the things we pull out of that gap Gleanings: a fact that was always there, that nobody bothered to find, framed so it's useful to you. Most weeks this email brings a handful — a foundation making its largest grant in a decade, a funder that's quietly gone dormant, a giving pattern that just moved. Each one traces back to a real filing you can check yourself.

I'll also use this space each week to step back from the specific findings and talk about the bigger picture — how to read a 990 without getting fooled, how gleantree examines where nonprofit money is really moving, and now and then a story from someone who used a Gleaning or the Non-profit Workbench to land a grant. Please reply with any feedback or suggestions you have — I personally read every email.

— Kevin, gleantree

This issue

Drawn from the most recent 990 filings on record (fiscal year 2025), this issue surfaces two Alabama private foundations with substantial, documented in-state grantmaking histories — each recording a major gift well above its typical grant size — alongside a third Alabama-based foundation that has been building its balance sheet and may be worth watching as a future prospect.
Gleaning · 01 Major gift

Wiregrass Foundation — Made a large grant

Dothan, AL · funds Human Services, Mental Health & Crisis Intervention · gives in Alabama, Georgia · typically ~$5K per grant (all years)

THE FACT

Wiregrass Foundation has put $21.3M into Alabama organizations across 604 grants in its filings on record — a giving history concentrated in the Dothan region, with past recipients including Wiregrass United Way and Dothan City Schools. Its median grant runs $5,000, and it reached 57 distinct recipients over the past five years.

THE SIGNAL

The 2025 filing includes one $500,000 grant to the City of Dothan, listed as "WIREGRASS PUBLIC SAFETY CENTER" — a commitment 100 times the foundation's median disbursement and the largest single grant visible in its record. That outlier sits alongside a recent three-year pace of roughly 150 grants, signaling a funder that writes frequent small checks while occasionally deploying capital at a much larger scale.

THE RELEVANCE

For a grant writer raising money in Alabama, Wiregrass Foundation's $21.3M cumulative track record across 604 in-state grants makes it a meaningful prospect — particularly for organizations in the Dothan area, where its giving is concentrated. The approachable median of $5,000 and 57 recipients over five years suggest a funder open to a broad range of applicants, not one that reserves its capacity for a handful of large relationships.

Source: Form 990-PF, Part XV.

Source — IRS Form 990 · EIN 20-0897153

Gleaning · 02 Major gift

Crampton Trust #1255000731 Regions Bank Trustee — Made a large grant

MOBILE, AL · funds Arts, Culture & Humanities, Health Care · gives in Alabama · typically ~$10K per grant (all years)

THE FACT

Crampton Trust #1255000731 (Regions Bank Trustee), an Alabama private foundation, has put $6.9M into Alabama organizations across 300 grants in its filings on record — a sustained in-state grantmaking record anchored by recipients including University of South Alabama, University of South Alabama College of Medicine, and Ums-Wright Preparatory School (990-PF, Part XV).

THE SIGNAL

The foundation's median grant runs $10,000, and it has reached 55 distinct recipients over the past five years across 128 grants — a pace and breadth that signals consistent, accessible grantmaking rather than concentrated giving to a handful of institutions. The 2025 filing also includes one $100,000 grant to National Maritime Museum of the Gulf of Mexico in Mobile, AL, listed as "JIMMY BUFFETT EXHIBIT" — the largest single disbursement in the current filing and a notable departure from the foundation's typical grant scale.

THE RELEVANCE

For a grant writer working Alabama nonprofits, Crampton Trust belongs in the Alabama edition because virtually its entire disclosed grantmaking history runs to in-state organizations — $6.9M across 300 grants on record. The $10,000 median and 55-recipient breadth over five years suggest a funder that distributes widely across the state rather than concentrating support, making it a realistic prospect for Alabama organizations operating at a range of budget sizes.

Source: Form 990-PF, Part XV.

Source — IRS Form 990 · EIN 63-6181261

Gleaning · 03 Financial strength

Kennon & Ruby Tuck Foundation — Net assets grew 20%+ year-over-year

Pike Road, AL

THE FACT

Kennon & Ruby Tuck Foundation reported net assets of $1.31M at the end of fiscal year 2025, up from $651K at the end of fiscal year 2024 (Form 990, Part X, Line 33).

THE SIGNAL

The $660K three-year balance-sheet gain places this foundation at the 99th percentile on net asset growth among 5,662 peers. A working-capital ratio of 77.75 and months-of-cash coverage of 933 reflect a foundation holding assets almost entirely in reserve relative to current liabilities — consistent with a private foundation accumulating grantmaking capacity rather than deploying it at scale. The expense-to-revenue ratio of 0.05 confirms that operating costs consumed only a small fraction of inflows in fiscal year 2025.

THE RELEVANCE

For a grant writer or development officer tracking Alabama funders, this Alabama-based private foundation is building a balance sheet that could support meaningful future grantmaking in the state — but its filings on record show no grants directed to Alabama organizations to date. The program expense ratio of 89% signals that when distributions do occur, the foundation channels the large majority of its spending to program activity rather than overhead, a useful data point for anyone sizing up its grantmaking posture ahead of an approach.

Source: Form 990, Part X.

Source — IRS Form 990 · EIN 84-2834785

Foundation Spotlight

The Joseph Treadwell Charitable Foundation C/O Trustmark National Bank

EIN 57-0880131 · MOBILE, AL

Featured this period: made a $357K grant to University of South Alabama (AL) (2025).

Giving trajectory

Giving trajectory
2021–2025 $717.7K in 2025
Typical grant $5,000 – $22,000
Grants (last 3 yrs) 84
Recipients (5 yrs) 18
Funds (causes) Education
Arts, Culture & Humanities
Mental Health & Crisis Intervention
Gives in Alabama
Usually funds $1M–$5M orgs
Repeat grantees 65%

Largest recent grants in Alabama

University of South Alabama 2025 $357.5K

Repeat granteeAL

University of Mobile 2024 $124.5K

AL

The Visitation Monastery 2024 $111K

AL

Thomas Hospital Foundation 2025 $50K

Repeat granteeALHealth Care$1M–$5M

Camp Rap-A-Hope 2024 $50K

AL

In the Workbench, you can find funders like this one that match your organization on any of these criteria - cause, geography, grant size, and more. Find foundations that fund orgs like yours that you might not already know.

Source — IRS Form 990 · EIN 57-0880131 · full profile in the Workbench →

See the whole funder picture - search and rank every foundation by who they fund, where, and how much, in the gleantree Workbench.

Explore funders in the Workbench →

Written for the people who raise the money - the funders worth approaching and the field shifts worth tracking, surfaced the week they appear.

Reply to this email with a Gleaning we missed, or just to tell us what landed - a real person reads every reply.

Sourced from IRS Form 990 filings via ProPublica and the IRS bulk XML release. Every Gleaning is traceable to a primary filing.

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Gleanings from the public record. Nonprofit · Alabama.
2026-07-01 · alabama nonprofit vertical Manage subscription · unsubscribe