· Private foundation
A R K a Family Foundation
Its FY2023 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 FY2017–2023.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2023
- Under $10k24 grants · $55k
- $10k–50k5 grants · $95k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MUSEUM OF ART (LACMA) | $40,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $25,000 |
| UCLA FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| STAND WITH US | $10,000 |
| FIDF | $10,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $9,000 |
| SHELTER PARTNERSHIP | $7,500 |
| HILLEL OF SAN DIEGO | $3,600 |
| ST MARY'S FOOD BANK | $2,650 |
| ST VINCENT MEALS ON WHEELS | $2,500 |
| LOS ANGELES JEWISH HOME | $2,500 |
| SHRINERS HOSPITAL FOR CHILDREN | $2,500 |
| SOJOURNER CENTER | $2,500 |
| SALVATION ARMY | $2,500 |
| BEIT T'SHUVAH | $2,500 |
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 (FY19–23, $6k) 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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 100% of A R K a Family Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another. Read by recipient address, 85% of the giving stays in CA; read by stated purpose it is 0% — less of the work is directed home than the recipients' locations suggest.
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 foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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.
52 repeat relationships — 22 still active in FY2023, 30 since wound down; 7 grantees were first funded in FY2023 (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 FY2023, 71% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $44k 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
- UOUNIVERSITY OF SAN DIEGO6× · 2017–2022 · $97k · revenue +60%
- MAMUSEUM ASSOCIATES4× · 2017–2020 · $50k · revenue +89%
- SPSHELTER PARTNERSHIP INC6× · 2017–2023 · $22k · revenue +63%
Funded once
- CHCALIFORNIA HIGHWAY PATROLone grant, 2019 · $10k
- EMEisenhower Medical Centergraduatedone grant, 2020 · $10k · revenue +66%
- TJTHE JEWISH FEDERATIONone grant, 2022 · $10k
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.
The ucla foundation is the giving, receiving, and investing arm of the ucla campus. the foundation enables private donors to help build, sustain and advance one of the world's finest academic and research institutions. private philanthropy…
The central mission of the university of southern california is the development of human beings and society as a whole through the cultivation and enrichment of the human mind and spirit. the principal means by which our mission is…
Based on jewish values, the jewish federation of greater los angeles convenes and leads the community and leverages its resources to assure the continuity of the jewish people, support a secure state of israel, care for jews in need here…
Assist banner health complete its mission to make health care easier so life can be better by providing integrated & coordinated care & population health management.
Biu produces students who excel in the sciences, humanities, law, engineering, business & the arts.
The organization is a non-partisan, membership based speakers' forum that connects business leaders, community members, and engaged individuals with shared interest in local, national, and global affairs. it provides an open and accessible…
The anti-recidivism coalition (arc) works to end mass incarceration in california. to ensure our communities are safe, healthy, and whole, arc empowers formerly and currently incarcerated people to thrive by providing a support network,…
The mission of the university of california, irvine foundation (uc irvine foundation) is to raise and manage private funds to support uc irvine's broader mission of excellence in teaching, research and public service. to this end, the uc…
The hammer museum at ucla believes in the promise of art and ideas to illuminate our lives and build a more just world.
The mission of lapf is to create partnerships to provide resources and programs that help the police perform at their highest level and to enhance lapd-community relations.(see schedule o)
Bje enhances the quality of, increases access to, and encourages participation in jewish education throughout the jewish communities of greater los angeles. bje is an advocate, planner, catalyst, and creative leader for strengthening and…
To offer programs and training that resource individuals and organizations in self-awareness, self-regulation, effective communication and to promote structures of belonging, utilizing council and other practices, to encourage social…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Sojourner Center and the most unlike its peers is California Highway Patrol. 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 43 years old; the field is 12. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 26% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% lost their exemption, against 16% 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.
36 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. 36 of the 78 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 UNIVERSITY OF SAN DIEGO ↗
- Who funds MUSEUM ASSOCIATES ↗
- Who funds SHELTER PARTNERSHIP INC ↗
- Who funds PACIFIC COUNCIL ON INTERNATIONAL POLICY ↗
- Who funds Beit T'Shuvah ↗
- Who funds ISRAEL EMERGENCY ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds The Rand Corporation ↗
- Who funds CALIFORNIA HIGHWAY PATROL ↗
- Who funds Eisenhower Medical Center ↗
- Who funds LOS ANGELES PHILHARMONIC ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds CONCERN FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SOJOURNER CENTER ↗
- Who funds HILLEL OF SAN DIEGO ↗
- Who funds ST MARY'S FOOD BANK ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds WALLIS ANNENBERG CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS ↗
- Who funds TOWER CANCER RESEARCH FOUNDATION ↗
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: Steven Lawrence Kaplan Foundation · Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles · California Community Foundation · The Stanley & Joyce Black Family Foundation · The Ralph M Parsons Foundation · American Endowment Foundation · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Network for Good · National Philanthropic Trust · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Paypal Charitable Giving Fund · American Online Giving 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 A R K a Family 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 A R K a Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to A R K a Family 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.