Skip to content
Plinth
Foundation Dossiers
Plinth

· Private foundation

Bickerstaff Family Foundation

Its FY2025 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

$1.1M
Granted FY2025still arriving
11
Grants FY2025still arriving
5
States reached
$300k
Largest
01What you fundRead
02The needRead
03Your edgeRead
04Your fieldRead
01What you fund
01100% classified

What you funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.

Human Services$2.4MEducation$1.9MHousing & Shelter$1.7MHealth$1.3MInternational$934kPhilanthropy$495kCommunity Improvement$259kReligion$134kOther$0
02FY2025 · 11 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

By grant size · FY2025

  • $10k–50k6 grants · $135k
  • $50k–250k4 grants · $624k
  • $250k+1 grant · $300k
$40,000
Median grant
5
States reached
$2.0M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
GLOBAL EMPOWERMENT MISSION INC$300,000
CIVIC SOUL$234,000
ILLUMINATION FOUNDATION$225,000
ETHAN'S SMILE FOUNDATION$100,000
THE MIRACULOUS LOVE KIDS$65,000
HEADS UP YOUTH FOUNDATION$40,000
CHRISTIAN MISSIONARY FELLOWSHIP INTERNATIONAL$34,000
HEROIC HEARTS$21,000
REAL TIME RESCUE$20,000
FIRST STEP HOUSE ORANGE COUNTY$10,000
CATHOLIC CHARITIES OF ORANGE COUNTY$10,000
02The need
03

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.

show:

Your human-services grants (FY18–25, $1.6M) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 3% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.

area typical 11%WOMEN IN NEED INC: $5k → 17%CATHOLIC CHARITIES OF ORANGE COUNTY: $10k → 10%ILLUMINATION FOUNDATION: $525k → 10%ILLUMINATION FOUNDATION: $160k → 10%ILLUMINATION FOUNDATION: $115k → 10%ILLUMINATION FOUNDATION: $85k → 10%ILLUMINATION FOUNDATION: $25k → 10%ILLUMINATION FOUNDATION: $240k → 10%ILLUMINATION FOUNDATION: $225k → 10%THE BUCKET LIST PROJECT FOUNDATION: $50k → 14%ILLUMINATION FOUNDATION: $162k → 10%WOMEN IN NEED: $10k → 10%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

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

WA
IL
NY
IN
CA
UT
VA
MD
TN
FL

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.

04

Where the work is directed

The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.

About 10% of Bickerstaff 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, 89% of the giving stays in CA; read by stated purpose it is 80% — less of the work is directed home than the recipients' locations suggest.

Bickerstaff Family Foundationlessmore of its giving
Placed by recipient address

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.

03Your edge
repeat funding

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.

94%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.
$8.8M · 21 repeat orgs$587k to everyone else

21 repeat relationships — 7 still active in FY2025, 14 since wound down; 4 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

21
15

Total granted

$8.8M
$496k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+12%
+29%

Still filing today

62%
53%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 91% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $91k went to new ones.

50%100%’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25
RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25
EducationHuman ServicesPhilanthropyHealthInternationalPublic Safety & DisasterOther

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

  • IH
    Illumination Health Home formerly The Illumination Foundation
    8× · 2018–2025 · $1.5M · revenue +317%
  • LB
    LONG BEACH STATE FOUNDATION
    7× · 2017–2023 · $620k · revenue +160%
  • GE
    GLOBAL EMPOWERMENT MISSION INC
    4× · 2021–2025 · $505k · revenue +369%

Funded once

  • TE
    THE ELIZABETH TAYLOR AIDS FOUNDATIONgraduated
    one grant, 2017 · $135k · revenue +91%
  • IG
    Individual grant recipient
    one grant, 2022 · $85k
  • FL
    FOSTER LOVE INC
    one grant, 2024 · $75k

Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Your field

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.

1
Laural Foundation
—
2
The Silver Lining Foundation
Philanthropy
3
The Firefly Foundation
Recreation & Sports
4
Jolie-Pitt Foundation
Philanthropy
5
Colette Louise Tisdahl Foundation
Human Services
6
Amy Gallagher Foundation
—
7
The Star Foundation
Philanthropy
8
Natalie Giorgi Sunshine Foundation
Health
9
Nancy Langhorne Foundation
Health
10
Angel Foundation
Philanthropy
11
Star Foundation
Philanthropy
12
Sarah Foundation
Philanthropy

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Women in Need and the most unlike its peers is The Nagourney Institute. 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 19 years old; the field is 13. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.

THE FIELDby orgYOUR GRANTEESby number24%7%<5yr16%21%5–10yr20%29%10–20yr18%21%20–35yr11%7%35–55yr11%14%55yr+
THE FIELDby orgYOUR MONEYby value24%8%<5yr16%3%5–10yr20%54%10–20yr18%26%20–35yr11%1%35–55yr11%8%55yr+

The field is 24% startups (under 5 years old) — 7% of your grantees by number, and just 8% of your money.

Closures · last 5 years

The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% lost their exemption, against 14% of the field you don’t fund.

orgs you fund
3%1/29
the rest of the field
14%
15,448/108,103

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.

05the grantee network

27 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. 27 of the 41 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.

7
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
3
Early backer (in before they grew)
25/27
Grantees still filing
16/27
Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

Individual grant recipient — $2,260,000 · OtherIndividual grant recipientCSU FULLERTON — $620,000 · OtherCSU FULLERTONMY FRIEND'S PLACE — $150,000 · Other+17 more — $789,000 · Other+17 moreIllumination Health Home formerly The Illumination Foundation — $1,536,500 · Human ServicesIllumination Health…+4 more — $75,000 · Human ServicesVANGUARD CANCER FOUNDATION — $1,150,000 · HealthVANGUARD CANC…+2 more — $23,900 · HealthLONG BEACH STATE FOUNDATION — $620,000 · EducationLONG BEACH ST…CSU FULLERTON AUXILIARY SERVICES CORPORATION — $250,000 · EducationCSU FULLERTON…ETHAN'S SMILE FOUNDATION — $250,000 · EducationETHAN'S SMILE…JOHN MALLINGER CHARITABLE FOUNDATION — $40,000 · Education+1 more — $11,000 · EducationCivic Soul — $259,000 · PhilanthropyCivic SoulTHE NAGOURNEY INSTITUTE — $250,000 · PhilanthropyTHE NAGOUR…ENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY FOUNDATION — $200,000 · PhilanthropyENTERTAINM…THE ELIZABETH TAYLOR AIDS FOUNDATION — $135,000 · PhilanthropyTHE ELIZAB…+1 more — $10,000 · PhilanthropyGLOBAL EMPOWERMENT MISSION INC — $505,000 · Public Safety & DisasterMIRACULOUS LOVE KIDS — $287,500 · InternationalWater Underground — $120,000 · International
Other$3,819,000Human Services$1,611,500Health$1,173,900Education$1,171,000Philanthropy$854,000Public Safety & Disaster$505,000International$407,500

Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$100k$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ your share of their budgetIllumination Health Home formerly The Illumination Foundation — $1,536,500 over 8y, 1.1% of budgetVANGUARD CANCER FOUNDATION — $1,150,000 over 3y, 56% of budgetLONG BEACH STATE FOUNDATION — $620,000 over 7y, 0.7% of budgetGLOBAL EMPOWERMENT MISSION INC — $505,000 over 4y, 0.1% of budgetMIRACULOUS LOVE KIDS — $287,500 over 8y, 65% of budgetCivic Soul — $259,000 over 2y, 18% of budgetCSU FULLERTON AUXILIARY SERVICES CORPORATION — $250,000 over 2y, 0.3% of budgetETHAN'S SMILE FOUNDATION — $250,000 over 3y, 34% of budgetTHE NAGOURNEY INSTITUTE — $250,000 over 2y, 47% of budgetENTERTAINMENT INDUSTRY FOUNDATION — $200,000 over 2y, 0.2% of budgetTHE ELIZABETH TAYLOR AIDS FOUNDATION — $135,000 over 1y, 6.5% of budgetWater Underground — $120,000 over 5y, 15% of budgetSTARLIGHT CHILDREN'S FOUNDATION — $65,000 over 2y, 0.3% of budgetThe Bucket List Project Foundation — $50,000 over 1y, 38% of budgetFIRST STEP HOUSE OF ORANGE COUNTY INC — $45,000 over 3y, 8.7% of budgetJOHN MALLINGER CHARITABLE FOUNDATION — $40,000 over 2y, 10% of budgetaxeALS Foundation — $25,000 over 1y, 2.7% of budgetPATROL BASE ABBATE — $25,000 over 1y, 2.6% of budgetCameron Siemers Foundation for Hope — $20,000 over 1y, 96% of budgetREAL TIME RESCUE INC — $20,000 over 1y, 30% of budgetPATHWAYS TO GRAD SCHOOL INC — $11,000 over 1y, 14% of budgetWOMEN IN NEED — $10,000 over 1y, 2.4% of budgetCATHOLIC CHARITIES OF ORANGE COUNTY INC — $10,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetWOMEN IN NEED INC — $5,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INC — $3,900 over 1y, 0.0% of budget
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.

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.

Paypal Charitable Giv…The Bank of America C…Vanguard Charitable E…Fidelity Investments …American Online Givin…Donor Advised Charita…Amazonsmile Foundation
Paypal Charitable Giving FundDC7.7× affinity7 shared granteesties to 6 of 6Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Paypal Charitable Giving Fund · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Amazonsmile Foundation

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 Bickerstaff 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.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%5%19%42%75%your share of their income ↑0%13%25%38%50%share of the org’s income from government →median 0%
  • Global Empowerment Mission Inc — 0% of income from government
no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
0get no government money at all
1report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
0rely on government for over half their income
⤢ axis zoomed · 0–50%
typical government reliance, FY20–25

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.

On method. Every financial figure here is read directly from IRS e-file XML — your own 990/990-PF and the multi-year returns of the 41 grantees we resolved across every year we hold, several hundred filings in all (a different count from the grant rows on the cover, which are one fiscal year)— each linked to its source. Grantee achievements and outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III); we read these as association with sustained funding — the foundation is one of several forces — suppress low-confidence name matches rather than guess, and say so where a figure rests on a single grant or filing. Not everything on this page is a filed figure, and the difference matters. Filed is what you reported on your return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears. How we build these →

Generated from your IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2025, released 2025. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Source object · view filing

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions
grants reported with no recipient in the public record
The regranting layer
51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer
The DAF merry-go-round
$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds
The endowment market
who holds foundation money, and what just moved
The camps
funders cluster by geography, not ideology
By state
where grant money is based, and what stays home