· Private foundation
Brutten Family Foundation
Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k17 grants · $52k
- $10k–50k8 grants · $136k
- $50k–250k7 grants · $505k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| THE SAN DIEGO FOUNDATION | $150,000 |
| THE VANGUARD SCHOOL OF LAKE WALES FORIDA INC | $100,000 |
| USD BURNHAM-MOORES CENTER | $54,700 |
| USD BURNHAM-MOORES CENTER MILITARY SCHOLARSHIP | $50,000 |
| SAN DIEGO RESCUE MISSION | $50,000 |
| OCEANA INC | $50,000 |
| FOCUSING PHILANTHROPY | $50,000 |
| VOICES FOR CHILDREN INC | $27,500 |
| SCRIPPS HEALTH FOUNDATION | $25,000 |
| SHARP HEALTHCARE FOUNDATION | $25,000 |
| THE VANGUARD SCHOOL | $18,156 |
| UNIVERSITY OF SAN DIEGO | $10,500 |
| BARRIO LOGAN COLLEGE INSTITUTE | $10,000 |
| OUTDOOR OUTREACH | $10,000 |
| FEEDING SAN DIEGO | $10,000 |
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 (FY17–24, $63k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 4% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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 11% of Brutten 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, 56% of the giving stays in CA; read by stated purpose it is 48% — 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +32% since the first grant, against +20% for the ones you funded once.
44 repeat relationships — 16 still active in FY2024, 28 since wound down; 13 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 54% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $247k 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
- VFVOICES FOR CHILDREN7× · 2017–2024 · $350k · revenue +44%
- FPFOCUSING PHILANTHROPY INC3× · 2021–2024 · $272k · revenue +61%
- USUC SAN DIEGO FOUNDATION3× · 2019–2021 · $200k · revenue +106%
Funded once
- AHAmerican Heart Association Incgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $50k · revenue +53%
- UWUNITED WAY OF UTAH COUNTYone grant, 2019 · $50k
- NDNATIONAL DEFENSE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION INCone grant, 2022 · $50k · revenue +23%
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 support and further the research, education and community service objectives of san diego state university.
The san diego municipal employees association (sdmea) is dedicated to being a strong and effective advocate for san diego city employees. sdmea is united to improve employees' standard of living and promote their fair treatment by…
To support the social, recreational, cultural and education programs and facilities, both on campus and in the community, and to advocate for student interests, provide leadership opportunities and participate in shared governance.
To drive visitor demand to economically benefit the san diego region.
San Diego Jewish Academy empowers each student to learn for life, guided by Jewish values and rooted in strength of community.
The california dental association is committed to the success of our members in service to their patients and the public.
Mission: the mission of san diego opera is to deliver exceptional performances and exciting, accessible programs to diverse audiences, focusing on community partnerships, and the transformative and expressive power of the human voice. as…
The mission of the san diego county bar association is to be the representative of the san diego county legal profession, serving the prblic and the profession by enhancing the legal system and promoting justice, professional excellence,…
The policy & innovation center's (pic) mission is to unlock the region's potential by cultivating and building partnerships. our niche is to address intractable issues that can only be solved with cross-sector, multi-jurisdictional…
Connect is an innovation instigator established to cultivate san diego's life science and tech communities. a trusted partner for more than 30 years, we propel our region's entrepreneurs as they create and scale their companies from…
Jewish federation of san diego county is dedicated to building a vibrant, caring, connected, and enduring jewish community.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The San Diego Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Kgsa Foundation. 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 30 years old; the field is 13. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 24% startups (under 5 years old) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% lost their exemption, against 15% 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.
67 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. 67 of the 103 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 SAN DIEGO FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds VOICES FOR CHILDREN ↗
- Who funds FOCUSING PHILANTHROPY INC ↗
- Who funds UC SAN DIEGO FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE NEW CHILDRENS MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds Sharp Healthcare Foundation ↗
- Who funds VANGUARD SCHOOL OF LAKE WALES FLORIDA INC ↗
- Who funds NATURAL HIGH ↗
- Who funds OCEANA INC ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF SAN PASQUAL ACADEMY INC ↗
- Who funds CUREBOUND ↗
- Who funds VALLEY FORGE EDUCATIONAL SERVICES ↗
- Who funds SAN DIEGO RESCUE MISSION INC ↗
- Who funds American Heart Association Inc ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL DEFENSE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds BARRIO LOGAN COLLEGE INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds SCRIPPS HEALTH ↗
- Who funds CENTURY CLUB OF SAN DIEGO ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF SAN DIEGO ↗
- Who funds SERVING SENIORS ↗
- Who funds ECOVIVARIUM ↗
- Who funds The Houston Food Bank ↗
- Who funds DEL MAR FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds KGSA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds COACHING CORPS ↗
- Who funds EGYPTIAN THEATRE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds PANCREATIC CANCER ACTION NETWORK INC ↗
- Who funds TERI 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 San Diego Foundation · Walter J & Betty C Zable Foundation · Rancho Santa Fe Foundation · Sempra Foundation · David C Copley Foundation · Jewish Community Foundation of San Diego · The Conrad Prebys Foundation · The Nordson Corporation Foundation · The Cushman Foundation · Price Philanthropies Foundation · The Parker Foundation · French Fund Samuel Katherine Tua
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 Brutten 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.