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Big Fish Foundation at a glanceMostly funded, not a grantmaker: see who funds it →

· Public charity

Big Fish Foundation

To support veterans in taking back ownership of their narrative & mental health through education and training in the campaign against suicide; to mentor veterans through transition and struggle by creating opportunities for public service, social connection, and physical activity; to reconstitute service values and increase personal…

$29k
Granted FY2025still arriving
3
Grants FY2025still arriving
2
States reached
$12k
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its granteesRead
04Its fieldRead
05Through PlinthRead
01What it funds
01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2021 to 2024.

Health$75kAnimals$36kPublic Benefit$16kEmployment$6k
02FY2025 · 3 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

  • Under $10k1 grant · $6k
  • $10k–50k2 grants · $22k
$10,000
Median grant
2
States reached
$143k
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
ALLEGIANCE RANCH & EQUINE$12,000
UNCOMMON HEROES FOUNDATION$10,000
WARRIOR SABER$6,000
02The need
03

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY21–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 86% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 8%UNCOMMON HEROES FOUNDATION: $10k → 10%THE 22 PROJECT: $20k → 11%SHIELDS & STRIPS: $30k → 10%WARRIOR SABER: $6k → 7%ALLEGIANCE RANCH & EQUINE: $12k → 9%PB ABBATTE: $10k → 7%SHIELDS & STRIPS: $15k → 10%WARRIOR SABER: $6k → 7%ALLEGIANCE RANCH & EQUINE: $12k → 9%SHIELDS & STRIPS: $10k → 10%ALLEGIANCE RANCH & EQUINE: $12k → 9%ALLEGIANCE RANCH & EQUINE: $6k → 9%ALLEGIANCE RANCH & EQUINE: $6k → 9%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount
How this is measured
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.
How this is measured
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.
03Its grantees
repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

71%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$115k · 3 repeat orgs$46k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +108% since the first grant, against -25% for those funded once.

3 repeat relationships: 2 still active in FY2025, 1 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

3
3

Total granted

$115k
$36k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+108%
-25%

Still filing today

100%
100%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 64% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $10k went to new ones.

50%100%’21’22’23’24’25
RenewedFirst-time

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

’21’22’23’24’25
Public BenefitHealthAnimalsHuman ServicesOther
How this is measured
First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

  • SA
    SHIELDS AND STRIPES INC
    3× · 2022–2024 · $55k · revenue +113%
  • AR
    ALLEGIANCE RANCH AND EQUINE RESCUE
    5× · 2021–2025 · $48k · revenue +108%
  • WS
    WARRIOR SABER
    2× · 2024–2025 · $12k · revenue -5% · 43% of their budget

Funded once

  • T2
    THE 22 PROJECT INCgraduated
    one grant, 2023 · $20k · revenue +55%
  • PB
    PATROL BASE ABBATE
    one grant, 2022 · $10k · revenue -25%
  • HF
    HEROES FOR HEROES
    one grant, 2023 · $6k · revenue -32% · 29% of their budget
How this is measured

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

04Its field
04the grantee network

7 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

2
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
3
Early backer (in before they grew)
7/7
Grantees still filing
3/7
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

SHIELDS AND STRIPES INC: $55,000 · HealthSHIELDS AND STRIPES INCTHE 22 PROJECT INC: $20,000 · HealthTHE 22 PROJECT INCALLEGIANCE RANCH AND EQUINE RESCUE: $48,000 · AnimalsALLEGIANCE RANCH AND EQUINE RESCU…WARRIOR SABER: $12,000 · Public BenefitWARRIOR SABERUNCOMMON HEROES FOUNDATION: $10,000 · Public BenefitUNCOMMON HEROES FOUNDA…PATROL BASE ABBATE: $10,000 · Public BenefitPATROL BASE ABBATEHEROES FOR HEROES: $6,000 · Human Services
Health$75,000Animals$48,000Public Benefit$32,000Human Services$6,000

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$100k$1.0Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetSHIELDS AND STRIPES INC: $55,000 over 3y, 8.5% of budgetALLEGIANCE RANCH AND EQUINE RESCUE: $48,000 over 5y, 14% of budgetTHE 22 PROJECT INC: $20,000 over 1y, 4.9% of budgetWARRIOR SABER: $12,000 over 2y, 43% of budgetPATROL BASE ABBATE: $10,000 over 1y, 0.8% of budgetHEROES FOR HEROES: $6,000 over 1y, 29% of budget
Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Big Fish Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Big Fish Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 10%3%13%28%50%funder's share of their income ↑0%1%3%4%5%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    1get no government money at all
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–5%
    typical government reliance, FY20–25
    How this is measured
    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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.
    05Through Plinth

    Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

    How do I get to Big Fish Foundation?

    Find your warmest path to Big Fish 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.

    On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 7 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

    How this is measured
    Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its 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.

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

    Source object · view filing

    Play a game based on Big Fish’s filings →

    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