· Private foundation
Arthur M James Family 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
66% of Arthur M James Family Foundation’s FY2021 grant dollars went to Schwab Charitable Fund, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2021 names 3 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2020, the last year Arthur M James Family Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 9 organizations, $60k. 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 $10k10 grants · $40k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $20k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| FARESTART | $10,000 |
| SHRINERS HOSPITAL PORTLAND | $10,000 |
| NORTH COAST LAND CONSERVANCY | $5,000 |
| SOUTH CLATSOP FOOD BANK | $5,000 |
| HOMER COMMUNITY FOOD PANTRY | $5,000 |
| JEFFERSON LAND TRUST | $5,000 |
| SOUTH PENINSULA HAVEN HOUSE | $5,000 |
| NORTH OLYMPIC LAND TRUST | $5,000 |
| NORTHWEST HARVEST EMM | $3,000 |
| CASA LATINA | $3,000 |
| NORTHWEST IMMIGRANT RIGHTS PROJECT | $3,000 |
| RAINIER VALLEY COOPERATIVE PRESCHOO | $1,000 |
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.
Your human-services grants (FY17–20, $12k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 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.
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.
6 repeat relationships — 5 still active in FY2020, 1 since wound down; 10 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, 5% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $258k 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
- NONORTH OLYMPIC LAND TRUST2× · 2020–2021 · $18k · revenue +173%
- CLCASA LATINA2× · 2018–2020 · $8k · revenue +31%
- NINORTHWEST IMMIGRANT RIGHTS PROJECT2× · 2018–2020 · $8k · revenue +81%
Funded once
- LALOAVES AND FISHES CENTERSone grant, 2017 · $11k
- FHFISHER HOUSE FOUNDATION INCgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $11k · revenue +32%
- DRDuwamish River Cleanup Coalition - TAGgraduatedone grant, 2018 · $10k · revenue +371%
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.
Oregon agricultural trust partners with farmers and ranchers to protect agricultural lands for the benefit of oregons economy, communities, and landscapes.
Preserve in perpetuity the natural habitats, rural landscapes, and open spaces of the great peninsula of washington's puget sound.
The minnesota land trust protects and restores minnesota's most vital natural lands in order to provide wildlife habitat, clean water, outdoor experiences and scenic beauty for generations to come.
Acquire and manage land and conservation easements through purchase and donation to ensure long term conservation of clean water, fish and wildlife habitat, and other community values.
Amazon conservation unites science, people, and innovation to protect the amazon - the greatest wild forest on earth. as guardians of the most iconic forest on the planet, we bring together the power of the latest science and technology…
To establish and promote programs to protect the global climate, forests, wildlife and the natural environment, through research, advocacy, and investigation.
Eastern national promotes the public's understanding and support of america's national parks and other public trust partners by providing quality educational experiences, products and services.
Protect Connecticuts farmland for agricultural use by purchasing and accepting donations of agricultural conservation easements
The washington area community investment fund (wacif) is a nonprofit community loan fund focused on increasing equity and economic opportunity in the washington, dc area's underserved communities. wacif's mission is driven is driven by…
Protecting our shrub-steppe and connecting people to this vanishing landscape.
To lead, serve and collaborate to mobilize enduring philanthropy for a better arizona.
To preserve and enhance the quality of life at home, with dignity and care.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Jefferson Land Trust and the most unlike its peers is Race Md. 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 34 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 4% 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.
22 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. 22 of the 30 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 Homer Foundation ↗
- Who funds BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF WHITMAN COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN ENDOWMENT FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ↗
- Who funds DONOR ADVISED CHARITABLE GIVING INC ↗
- Who funds COLUMBIA LAND TRUST ↗
- Who funds RACE MD ↗
- Who funds NORTH OLYMPIC LAND TRUST ↗
- Who funds FARESTART ↗
- Who funds JEFFERSON LAND TRUST ↗
- Who funds FISHER HOUSE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Duwamish River Cleanup Coalition - TAG ↗
- Who funds SETTING SCOLIOSIS STRAIGHT FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CASA LATINA ↗
- Who funds NORTHWEST IMMIGRANT RIGHTS PROJECT ↗
- Who funds North Coast Land Conservancy Inc ↗
- Who funds HOMER COMMUNITY FOOD PANTRY ↗
- Who funds SOUTH PENINSULA HAVEN HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds MACDONALD CENTER ↗
- Who funds Clatsop Community Action ↗
- Who funds NORTHWEST HARVEST EMM ↗
- Who funds ALBERTINA KERR CENTERS ↗
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 Oregon Community Foundation · M J Murdock Charitable Trust · Seattle Foundation · Land Trust Alliance Inc · Meyer Memorial Trust · The US Charitable Gift Trust · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · National Philanthropic Trust · 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 Arthur M James 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, a single department, or state — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Albertina Kerr Centers — 74% of income from government
- Clatsop Community Action — 26% of income from government
- North Coast Land Conservancy Inc — 6% 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.