· Public charity
California Communications Access Foundation Dba Ability Central
The mission of california communications access foundation (ccaf) is to serve as an educator, convener and resource that works collaboratively to ensure communications and information access in service of individuals who are deaf or disabled.
What you funded, over time
Every grant clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- $10k–50k5 grants · $190k
- $50k–250k7 grants · $631k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| LEONARDO THE INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR THE ARTS SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY | $100,000 |
| KIDPOWER TEENPOWER FULLPOWER INTERNATIONAL | $100,000 |
| DISABILITY VOICES UNITED | $99,853 |
| WORLD INSTITUTE ON DISABILITY | $98,281 |
| RADY CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL-SAN DIEGO | $98,068 |
| SOCIETY FOR THE BLIND | $72,614 |
| CALIFORNIA POLICY CENTER FOR INTELLECTUAL AND DEVELOPMENTAL DISABILITIES | $62,656 |
| THE CENTER FOR INDEPENDENT LIVING | $45,000 |
| HEARTS FOR SIGHT FOUNDATION | $42,100 |
| GOODWILL OF ORANGE COUNTY | $41,700 |
| THE BLACK DEAF PROJECT | $34,290 |
| PACIFIC HEARING CONNECTION | $26,500 |
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 (FY17–25, $2.4M) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 74% 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.
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 16% of California Communications Access Foundation Dba Ability Central’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, 99% of the giving stays in CA; read by stated purpose it is 83% — 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 +18% since the first grant, against +10% for the ones you funded once.
35 repeat relationships — 8 still active in FY2025, 27 since wound down; 4 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (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 FY2025, 73% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $222k 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
- KTKIDPOWER TEENPOWER FULLPOWER International6× · 2020–2025 · $445k · revenue +37%
- CCCasa Colina Hospital and Centers for Healthcare4× · 2017–2021 · $441k · revenue +18%
- TBThe Bridge School4× · 2019–2023 · $426k · revenue +58%
Funded once
- ANALS Networkgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $100k · revenue +79%
- SFSAN FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATIONone grant, 2024 · $100k · revenue -25%
- UOUNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN FRANCISCOone grant, 2020 · $100k
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.
The california disability services association champions options and access for the idd community by connecting, representing, and empowering the providers who support them.
To promote independent living and full access for people with disabilities through advocacy education and action in our communities.
The center provides diagnostic evaluations, client coordination and lifelong planning of services for persons with developmental disabilities and their families in accordance with the lanterman developmental disabilities act.
It is wrc's mission to support people with developmental disabilities, their families, and communities of choice by facilitating access to person-centered, culturally responsive services and resources.
The center provides advocacy, assessment, information, and coordinated services that support individuals with developmental disabilities and their families in making informed choices and leading self-directed lives.
SVILC builds disability identity, culture, pride, creating opportunities for personal and community transformation, and partnering with others to ensure that civil and human rights are protected.
Community support for Developmentally Disabled Adults, with a main emphasis on helping people to obtain and maintain real jobs in local businesses.
The center's mission is to help individuals with developmental disabilities, and children at risk, to reach their goals.
South central los angeles regional center, (sclarc), believes special needs deserve special attention. we are committed to the provision of culturally sensitive services which enhance the inherent strengths of the family and enable…
Golden gate regional center, inc. (the center) is a not-for-profit corporation chartered by the state of california. the center administers programs for developmentally disabled persons and their families, which include diagnosis,…
assist developmentally disabled individuals.
Regional Center of the East Bay, Inc. (The "Center"), a California NonProfit Public Benefit Corporation under contract with the state of California Department of Developmental Services ("DDS"), was formed in 1975 to administer programs for…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Disability Rights California and the most unlike its peers is The Smith-Kettlewell Eye Research Institute. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 43 years old; the field is 13. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 25% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 1% lost their exemption, against 14% 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.
76 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. 76 of the 81 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 KIDPOWER TEENPOWER FULLPOWER International ↗
- Who funds Casa Colina Hospital and Centers for Healthcare ↗
- Who funds The Bridge School ↗
- Who funds THE UNIVERSITY CORPORATION SAN FRANCISCO STATE ↗
- Who funds EXCEPTIONAL PARENTS UNLIMITED INC ↗
- Who funds Disability Voices United ↗
- Who funds BENEFICENT TECHNOLOGY INC ↗
- Who funds SOCIETY FOR THE BLIND INC ↗
- Who funds DEAF COUNSELING ADVOCACY & REFERRAL AGENCY ↗
- Who funds DISABILITY RIGHTS CALIFORNIA ↗
- Who funds LIGHTHOUSE FOR THE BLIND AND VISUALLY IMPAIRED ↗
- Who funds GOODWILL INDUSTRIES OF ORANGE COUNTY CALIFORNIA ↗
- Who funds PARENTS HELPING PARENTS INC ↗
- Who funds IGNITE COLLECTIVE INC ↗
- Who funds HEARING AND SPEECH CENTER OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA ↗
- Who funds WORLD INSTITUTE ON DISABILITY ↗
- Who funds Support for Families of Children with Disabilities ↗
- Who funds International Society for Arts Science and Technology DBA LeonardoISAST ↗
- Who funds Center for Innovation and Resources Inc ↗
- Who funds DOWN SYNDROME CONNECTION OF THE BAY AREA ↗
- Who funds CALIFORNIA LUTHERAN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR INDEPENDENT LIVING ↗
- Who funds Supported Life Institute ↗
- Who funds Autism Society Inland Empire Inc ↗
- Who funds CALIFONIA STATE UNIVERSITY EAST BAY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Project Miracle ↗
- Who funds NOAH HOMES INC ↗
- Who funds TEAM OF ADVOCATES FOR SPECIAL KIDS ↗
- Who funds ALS Network ↗
- Who funds SAN FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Institute for Exceptional Care ↗
- Who funds NORCAL SERVICES FOR DEAF & HARD OF HEARING ↗
- Who funds THE UNIVERSITY CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds THE SMITH-KETTLEWELL EYE RESEARCH INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds RADY CHILDREN'S HEALTH ↗
- Who funds PAINTED BRAIN ↗
- Who funds THE CAMPANILE FOUNDATION ↗
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: Kaiser Foundation Hospitals · Frank Nigro Columbian Foundation Supporting People With Intellectual Disabi · With Foundation · California Foundation for Independent Living Centers · California Community Foundation · Silicon Valley Community Foundation · San Jose Mercury News Wish Book Fund Inc · The San Francisco Foundation · Horizons Foundation · California Foundation for Stronger Communities · Dignity Health · Public Health Institute
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 California Communications Access Foundation Dba Ability Central 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.