· Private foundation
Arenstein Foundation
Its FY2021 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Read this first · the figures below need context
98% of Arenstein Foundation’s FY2021 grant dollars went to The Community Foundation Inc, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2021 names 1 organization directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2020, the last year Arenstein Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 22 organizations, $39k. It is dated, not current.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2021.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2020
- Under $10k28 grants · $17k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $23k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Individual grant recipient | $12,500 |
| VIRGINIA REPERTORY THEATRE | $10,000 |
| JEWISH COMMUNITY FEDERATION OF RICHMOND | $6,000 |
| VIRGINIA CAPITAL FOUNDATION | $2,000 |
| VISUAL ARTS CENTER OF RICHMOND | $1,290 |
| TEMPLE BETH EL | $500 |
| HOUSING OPPORTUNITIES MADE EQUAL OF VIRGINIA INC | $500 |
| HOLOCAUST SURVIVORS FOUNDATION USA INC | $500 |
| RICHMOND SYMPHONY | $500 |
| VIRGINIA CENTER FOR ADDICTION MEDICINE | $500 |
| HELP HOPE LIVE | $500 |
| WOMEN FOR WOMEN INTERNATIONAL | $360 |
| YWCA OF RICHMOND | $300 |
| LIVE ARTS | $250 |
| HANOVER ROTARY CLUB FOUNDATION | $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 (FY17–20, $2k) land where the poverty rate runs at 22%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 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 5% of Arenstein 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.
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.
29 repeat relationships — 17 still active in FY2020, 12 since wound down; 11 grantees were first funded in FY2020 (too recent to call). Read against FY2020, the last year this funder named its own grantees directly; its giving has since run through a sponsor, which reports no donor behind each grant.
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 FY2021, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
- JCJEWISH COMMUNITY FEDERATION OF RICHMOND4× · 2017–2020 · $35k · revenue +19%
- TVTHE VISUAL ARTS CENTER OF RICHMOND4× · 2017–2020 · $24k · revenue +165%
MEDICAL COLLEGE OF VA FOUNDATION3× · 2017–2019 · $15k · revenue +131%
Funded once
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2017 · $5k
- ACAmerican Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Virginiagraduatedone grant, 2017 · $3k · revenue +530%
- MFMONTICELLO FOUNDATION INCgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $1k · revenue +52%
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.
To establish an effective, long-term and resilient political infrastructure that advocates for and delivers public policy victories which reflect the values held in common by our members.
To provide investment and investment management and related services to the rector and the board of visitors of virginia commonwealth university (vcu), and/or to the private and independent foundations and other entities affiliated with…
The foundation determines the patentability and obtains patents on virginia commonwealth university (vcu) inventions and markets and licenses such inventions to commerical entities. the foundation's activities promote research efforts at…
Virginia community action partnership (vacap) is the statewide membership association for virginia's thirty-one non-profit and public community action agencies. vacaps mission is to build the capacity and competencies of virginias…
The university of virginia investment management company (uvimco) is organized to invest funds on behalf of the rector and visitors of the university of virginia (the university or uva) and university-associated organizations (uaos).
The mission of the edward via college of osteopathic medicine (vcom) is to prepare globally-minded, community-focused physicians to meet the needs of rural and medically underserved populations and promote research to improve human health.
Vipc grows and diversifies virginia's economy by investing in and accelerating innovation commercialization and entrepreneurship.
Vcpp operates wrir 97.3 lpfm, a community low power fm radio station serving citizens of the city of richmond, virginia, and surrounding counties. the station covers a listening area of approximately 5-7 miles. wrir broadcasts news, views…
The mission of the virginia center for health innovation (vchi) is to facilitate innovation by convening key stakeholders and securing the resources to accelerate value-driven models of wellness and health care throughout virginia.
Lead virginia connects leaders to shape the commonwealth's future through an annual program of educational forums and regional session visits to six diverse regions of virginia. framed around social capital theory and curriculum themes of…
Chamberrva is the trusted voice for modern business in the richmond virginia region. we are change agents, rallying to do the hard things that will create a more connected, prosperous, health and equitable community.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Virginia Repertory Theatre and the most unlike its peers is Monticello Foundation Inc. 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 18. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 19% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 11% 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.
41 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. 41 of the 59 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 COMMUNITY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds VIRGINIA REPERTORY THEATRE ↗
- Who funds JEWISH COMMUNITY FEDERATION OF RICHMOND ↗
- Who funds THE VISUAL ARTS CENTER OF RICHMOND ↗
- Who funds Virginia Capitol Foundation ↗
- Who funds MEDICAL COLLEGE OF VA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds VIRGINIA PUBLIC ACCESS PROJECT ↗
- Who funds THE RICHMOND SYMPHONY ↗
- Who funds THE JEWISH FEDERATION OF GREATER WASHINGTON INC ↗
- Who funds RICHMOND JEWISH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds VPM MEDIA CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds Richmond Hebrew Day School ↗
- Who funds American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Virginia ↗
- Who funds CADENCE THEATRE COMPANY INC ↗
- Who funds VOICES FOR VIRGINIA'S CHILDREN ↗
- Who funds YWCA RICHMOND ↗
- Who funds THE VALENTINE MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds MONTICELLO FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds LIVE ARTS INC ↗
- Who funds HANOVER ROTARY CLUB FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Virginia Health Care Foundation ↗
- Who funds The Virginia Holocaust Museum ↗
- Who funds TANDEM FRIENDS SCHOOL OF CHARLOTTESVILLE ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN JEWISH WORLD SERVICE INC ↗
- Who funds CROHN'S & COLITIS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds DC ABORTION FUND ↗
- Who funds HOUSING OPPORTUNITIES MADE EQUAL OF VIRGINIA INC ↗
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 Inc · Robins Foundation · Dominion Energy Charitable Foundation · Carmax Foundation · Virginia Nonprofit Housing Coalition · The Mary Morton Parsons Foundation · The Reinhart Foundation · Herndon Foundation · Richmond Memorial Health Foundation · Pga Tour Charities Inc · Charlottesville Area Community Foundation · Kathryn & W H Schwarzschild Fund
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 Arenstein 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.
- Anacostia Watershed Society Inc — 15% 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.