Oakville, ON · Private foundation
The Samuel Family Foundation
THE SAMUEL FAMILY FOUNDATION is a private foundation that provides gifts to various charitable organizations as determined by the directors.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- C$50k–250k9 grants · C$1.4M
- C$250k+6 grants · C$2.6M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| SAMUEL CENTRE FOR SOCIAL CONNECTEDNESS | C$936,860 |
| SPECIAL OLYMPICS CANADA | C$500,000 |
| MCMASTER UNIVERSITY | C$375,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | C$265,000 |
| PARTNERS IN HEALTH CANADA | C$250,000 |
| HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH CANADA | C$250,000 |
| TAMARACK INSTITUTE FOR COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT | C$225,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA | C$210,000 |
| VOLUNTEER CANADA | C$200,000 |
| HELPAGE CANADA | C$150,000 |
| CANADIAN RED CROSS SOCIETY | C$150,000 |
| TAKINGIT GLOBAL | C$150,000 |
| VANCOUVER ISLAND UNIVERSITY | C$130,000 |
| COMMUNITY FOOD CENTRES CANADA | C$100,000 |
| THE STOP COMMUNITY FOOD CENTRE | C$75,000 |
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.
13 repeat relationships — 10 still active in FY2024, 3 since wound down; 5 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 82% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; C$730k went to new ones.
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.”
Backed again, and grew
- SCSAMUEL CENTRE FOR SOCIAL CONNECTEDNESS7× · 2017–2024 · C$6.3M · revenue ×18 · 100% of their budget
- SOSPECIAL OLYMPICS CANADA7× · 2017–2024 · C$4.7M · revenue +36%
- MUMCMASTER UNIVERSITY6× · 2017–2024 · C$3.0M · revenue +39%
Funded once
- MUMcGill Universitygraduatedone grant, 2017 · C$250k · revenue +41%
- VIVANCOUVER ISLAND UNIVERSITYone grant, 2021 · C$100k · revenue -24%
- YCYale Centre for Environmental Lawone grant, 2017 · C$89k
Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent CRA 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 matches that aren’t grantees — a resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.
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The University of Victoria is a comprehensive research university offering a wide range of undergraduate graduate and continuing studies programs.
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Mental Health Research Canada (MHRC) is a national charitable organization that is dedicated to improving the lives of all Canadians by advancing mental health knowledge. Our vision is to create a Canada with better mental health for all…
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For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Synergos Institute Canada and the most unlike its peers is The Stop Community Food Centre. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
16 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2024.
Each one resolved to its own CRA 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 2017–2024, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 16 of the 21 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.
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 SAMUEL CENTRE FOR SOCIAL CONNECTEDNESS ↗
- Who funds SPECIAL OLYMPICS CANADA ↗
- Who funds MCMASTER UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds PARTNERS IN HEALTH CANADA ↗
- Who funds TAKINGIT GLOBAL ↗
- Who funds HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH CANADA ↗
- Who funds The Synergos institute Canada ↗
- Who funds THE STOP COMMUNITY FOOD CENTRE ↗
- Who funds TAMARACK INSTITUTE FOR COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT ↗
- Who funds McGill University ↗
- Who funds VOLUNTEER CANADA ↗
- Who funds HELPAGE CANADA ↗
- Who funds CANADIAN RED CROSS SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds VANCOUVER ISLAND UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FOOD CENTRES CANADA ↗
- Who funds VANCOUVER ISLAND 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 J W McConnell Family Foundation/La Fondation de la Famille J W McConnell · Vancouver Foundation · Toronto Foundation · Ottawa Community Foundation / Fondation Communautaire d'Ottawa · BenefAction Foundation · Raymond James Canada Foundation · United Way British Columbia · Strategic Charitable Giving Foundation · Abundance Canada · Rbc Foundation/Rbc Fondation · United Way East Ontario / Centraide Est de L'Ontario · Charities Aid Foundation Canada
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.