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CALIFORNIA FIRE SAFE COUNCIL INC

Foundation Dossiers Also receives grants — funding profile →

· Public charity

CALIFORNIA FIRE SAFE COUNCIL INC

To lead california communities in wildfire risk eduction and resiliency.

$14M

Granted FY2024

69

Grants

2

Communities

$958k

Largest

01What you fundRead

03Your edgeRead

04Your fieldRead

05Through PlinthRead

01What you fund

01

What you funded, over time

By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).

A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 46% of CALIFORNIA FIRE SAFE COUNCIL INC’s grantee dollars go to organizations outside the IRS cause taxonomy (common for large international and research funders), so a chart would be mostly “unclassified” and misrepresent the portfolio.

02beneath the categories

Past the labels — and the year it shifted

Beneath the NTEE codes, this is what the grant descriptions actually say.

…and in their own words, year by year

2018

protection pre-firepre-fire planningplanning hazardoushazardous fuelsreduction monitoringmonitoring fire-protectionfire-protection mitigation

2019

protection pre-firepre-fire planningplanning hazardoushazardous fuelsreduction monitoringmonitoring fire-protectionfire-protection mitigation

2020

protection pre-firepre-fire planningplanning hazardoushazardous fuelsreduction monitoringmonitoring fire-protectionfire-protection mitigation

2021

protection pre-firepre-fire planningplanning hazardoushazardous fuelsreduction monitoringmonitoring fire-protectionfire-protection mitigation

2022

protection pre-firepre-fire planningplanning hazardoushazardous fuelsreduction monitoringmonitoring fire-protectionfire-protection mitigation

2023

preventionsantaprotectrcdsafetywatershedsan

2024

preventionprotectsafetyrcdoessantawatershed

Words distinctive to each year’s grant purposes (TF-IDF) · event-driven terms in cyan.

03FY2024 · 69 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

By grant size · FY2024

Under $10k1 grant · $6k
$10k–50k7 grants · $225k
$50k–250k42 grants · $5.6M
$250k+19 grants · $7.9M

$156,000

Median grant

2

States reached

$6.6M

Total assets

Largest grants

SPATIAL INFORMATICS GROUP- NATURAL ASSETS LABORATORY$958,373
CENTRAL VENTURA FIRE SAFE COUNCIL$583,722
COUNTY OF HUMBOLDT$525,000
SAN MATEO COUNTY$505,000
LASSEN COUNTY FSC$494,219
COUNTY OF MADERA$460,488
LAKE COUNTY RCD$445,269
COUNTY OF TUOLUMNE$425,866
EL DORADO COUNTY FIRE SAFE COUNCIL$381,625
COUNTY OF SOLANO$345,000
MOUNTAIN RIM FSC$344,607
RCDG SAN DIEGO$337,500
SANTA BARBARA COUNTY FIRE SAFE COUNCIL$331,863
SANTA BARBARA COUNTY PLANNING AND DEVELOPMENT$331,067
COUNTY OF SANTA CRUZ$325,427

02The need

04

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 (FY21–23, $321k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15% — the area typically sits at 10%. 86% of those dollars reach neighborhoods with above-average need. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

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 line in 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, United Way ALICE — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.

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.

88%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.

$37M · 94 repeat orgs$4.9M to everyone else

And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +144% since the first grant, against +24% for the ones you funded once.

94 repeat relationships — 44 still active in FY2024, 50 since wound down; 20 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

94

44

Total granted

$37M

$2.2M

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+144%

+24%

Still filing today

49%

32%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 81% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2.6M went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

Public Safety & DisasterEnvironmentHuman ServicesEmploymentPhilanthropyEducationOther

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

SI
Spatial Informatics Group Natural Assets Lab
3× · 2022–2024 · $2.1M · revenue +2287% · 50% of their budget
NC
Napa Communities Firewise Foundation
5× · 2020–2024 · $1.6M · revenue +6353%
BC
Butte County Fire Safe Council
5× · 2017–2024 · $1.4M · revenue +1870% · 27% of their budget

Funded once

SI
SIGNAL(SPATIAL INFROMATICS GROUP -NATIONAL ASSETS LAB)
one grant, 2021 · $626k
SB
SANTA BARBARA COUNTY FIRE DEPT
one grant, 2021 · $150k
NC
NORTHERN CALIFORNIA RESOURCE CENTER
one grant, 2017 · $136k · revenue +23%

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

Mariposa Fire Safe Council Inc

Promote fire safety in Mariposa County through educating home owners about clearing PRC Section 4291 defensible space, coordinating efforts with various agencies to clear PRC Section 4291 defensible space, etc. Obtain/administer/manage…

Public Safety & Disaster

2

Calaveras Foothills Fire Safe Council

Fire prevention and safety

Public Safety & Disaster

3

Oak to Timberline Fire Safe Council

Promote fire safety by providing information, education, support incentives and projects that encourage fire safety in a service area in eastern Fresno and Tulare counties.

Public Safety & Disaster

4

Community Wildfire Planning Center

Philanthropy

5

Sierra Foothill Conservancy

Protect, manage and preserve lands and wildlife having unique natural resources and cultural qualities within and near the foothills of the sierra nevada range.

Environment

6

Lookout-Glasgow Rangeland Protection Ass

Rangeland Fire Protection

Public Safety & Disaster

7

Timber Cove Volunteer Fire Department

Fire suppression, rescue and emergency medical first responders in this remote, rural coastal area. sonoma county service area #25.

—

8

Bell Canyon Volunteer Wildland Fire Dept

Suppression and prevention of brush fires in bell canyon

Public Safety & Disaster

9

Manton Fire Safe Council

Public Safety & Disaster

10

Roaring Fork Valley Wildfire Collaborative

Our mission is to reduce wildfire risk by identifying, prioritizing, and implementing strategic cross-boundary plans and projects aimed at creating fire-resilient landscapes and fire-adapted communities.

Environment

11

Upper Snowmass Creek Caucus

Fire safety

Community Improvement

12

Fire Adapted Bailey

Wildfire mitigation and preparation

Public Safety & Disaster

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Napa Communities Firewise Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Tides Center. 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 23 years old; the field is 14. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.

The field is 24% startups (under 5 years old) — 7% of your grantees by number, and just 4% of your money.

Closures · last 5 years

The orgs you fund almost never close — 1% lost their exemption, against 12% of the field you don’t fund.

orgs you fund

1%2/154

the rest of the field

12%

22,288/186,824

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

70 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2017–2025.

Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue.

29

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

37

Early backer (in before they grew)

64/70

Grantees still filing

56/70

Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

Other$19,062,339Public Safety & Disaster$15,662,476Environment$4,820,831Employment$908,517Education$419,763Human Services$360,333Philanthropy$183,500Community Improvement$93,988

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.

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.

California Fire FoundationCA84.7× affinity43 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: California Fire Foundation · Public Health Institute · Coalitions & Collaboratives Inc · National Fish and Wildlife Foundation · Essential Access Health · Foundation for California Community · California Air Pollution Control · Kaiser Foundation Hospitals · Mattress Recycling Council Inc · Center for Technology and Civic Life · National Forest Foundation · California Cupa Forum

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 organisation CALIFORNIA FIRE SAFE COUNCIL INC 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

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

0get no government money at all

0rely on government for over half their income

typical government reliance, FY20–24

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. 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.

05Through Plinth

Through Plinth

Your grantmaking, live and operational

This dossier was generated cold from public filings. In Plinth it’s a working system — every applicant assessed and every grant monitored. Here’s a taste, run on one of your grantees: Del Norte Fire Safe Council.

Agentic due diligence · confidence × risk

Financial management

insufficient risk

Limited financial data in public filings.

Track record & reputation

high risk

2 years of Form 990 filings, no recent filing.

Legal standing

medium risk

US 501(c)(3); EIN 943413884 on file with current IRS Form 990 filings.

Governance

Live in Plinth

Board composition & governance documents — verified live in Plinth from the applicant.

Compliance & sanctions

Live in Plinth

OFAC / UN sanctions screening — run live in Plinth at assessment.

Program capacity

Live in Plinth

Staffing, M&E and activity alignment — assessed live in Plinth from submitted proposals.

Live · Plinth’s real DD engine

Run the actual assessment on Del Norte Fire Safe Council, cold from public data.

Generated live from public IRS filings + open web sources by Plinth’s agentic engine. Shown as an illustration of the product, not a formal assessment.

Post-award monitoring · continuous checks

Awaiting reportFinancial stability— Runway not derivable from filings.
FlagSustained operations— No recent filing on record.
WatchReliance on your funding— Your grants peaked at 99% of their budget — load-bearing; a dependency Plinth would track.
Awaiting reportEvidence of delivery— Plinth collects the grantee's own monitoring reports post-award.

What you see here is static and public. In Plinth it’s operational — the full six-pillar framework on every applicant (with their own documents + live registry and sanctions checks), monitoring dashboards on every award, custom board reports, and eligibility routing for intake.

Agentic due diligenceMonitoring dashboardsCustom board reportsEligibility routing

Preview generated from this grantee’s public IRS filings and independent reporting. Pillars marked “live in Plinth” require the applicant’s submitted documents. Shown as illustration, not a formal assessment.

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPro

How do I get to California Fire Safe Council Inc?

Find your warmest path to California Fire Safe Council Inc through people who sit on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the introduction across shared trustees and officers.

Every link is a documented governance overlap in public IRS 990 filings — not a personal network — and each hop carries its own confidence tier. Low-confidence or distant paths are held back rather than guessed.

More from the funding graph

The regranting layer

51% of grant dollars pass through an intermediary

The DAF merry-go-round

$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds

Strange bedfellows

the named clusters of US funding

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

where grant money is based, and what stays home

State money flows

the interactive map of money crossing state lines