· Community foundation
California Foundation for Stronger Communities
To provide financial grants or other financial support or benefits to nonprofit organizations, foundations, and corporations to strengthen and enhance charitable activities throughout the state of california.
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
- Under $10k4 grants · $30k
- $10k–50k145 grants · $3.4M
- $50k–250k51 grants · $4.4M
- $250k+1 grant · $265k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| THE CALIFORNIA FIRE FOUNDATION | $265,000 |
| THE FORAGER SCHOOL | $205,000 |
| OLIVE CREST | $185,000 |
| RODEO BASEBALL ASSOCIATION | $175,000 |
| MAYA'S MUSIC THERAPY | $165,000 |
| THE RESPITE INN | $145,000 |
| VISTABILITY | $140,000 |
| CALIFORNIA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | $140,000 |
| YOUTH HOMES INCORPORATED | $135,000 |
| BABY2BABY | $120,000 |
| SFR COMMUNITY FUND INC | $108,000 |
| WHITE PONY EXPRESS | $105,000 |
| LAS TRAMPAS SCHOOL INC | $100,000 |
| OPERATION SAFE HOUSE INC | $100,000 |
| SKYHOOK FOUNDATION | $100,000 |
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 (FY17–25, $7.8M) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 73% 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.
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 63% of California Foundation for Stronger Communities’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, 98% of the giving stays in CA; read by stated purpose it is 38% — 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 +23% since the first grant, against +13% for the ones you funded once.
235 repeat relationships — 95 still active in FY2025, 140 since wound down; 99 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, 49% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $3.9M 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
- RFRAINBOW FAMILY INC9× · 2017–2025 · $460k · revenue +20% · 59% of their budget
- OCOLIVE CREST8× · 2017–2025 · $380k · revenue +158%
- VVISTABILITY2× · 2024–2025 · $305k · revenue +19%
Funded once
- LALOS ANGELES BROTHERHOOD CRUSADE - BLACK UNITED FUND INCgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $81k · revenue +45%
- RNROBYNES NESTgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $78k · revenue +29%
- PSPROJECT SELF-SUFFICIENCYone grant, 2022 · $78k · revenue -31%
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.
Casa is a refuge, providing protection and education for people caught in the cylces of domestic violence, sexual assault and child assault. Casa is a healing community where women and children can receive the nurturing and support…
The mission is to end relationship and sexual violence by being a catalyst for caring communities and social justice. the vision is for all people to live full, free, expressive, and empowered lives in a safe, healthy, vibrant, and…
Address the homeless crisis in California.
San Francisco CASA transforms the lives of children and youth traumatized and displaced in the foster care and related systems by providing one consistent, caring volunteer advocate, trained to address each childs needs in the court and…
California Alliance of Caregivers represents the voices of relative and non-relative caregivers to promote the well-being of children in foster care. California Alliance of Caregivers provides training information support and advocacy for…
We make it possible for people in marin to achieve well-being by providing the vital services they need. together, we break down the barriers that get in the way of fair and lasting change in service to better outcomes for all.
The mission of Wayfinder Family Services is to ensure that children, youth and adults facing challenges always have a place to turn. Founded in 1953 as the Foundation for the Junior Blind, the organization initially enabled visually…
All children need a childhood. Allies for Every Child brings together and strengthens families, cultivating conditions for children to succeed in life. (Continues on Schedule O)
To provide safety, compassion, and respect as we educate, empower, and advocate for individuals, families, and young people.
Consejo brings healing, health, and hope to communities through holistic, culturally, and linguistically competent behavioral health services and advocacy.
The mission of the st. vincent de paul society of san francisco (svdp-sf) is to offer hope and service on a direct person-to-person basis, working to break the cycles of homelessness and domestic violence.
La Casa de las Madres' mission is to respond to calls for help from DV victims, of all ages, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. We give survivors the tools to transform their lives. We seek to prevent future violence by educating the…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Families Forward and the most unlike its peers is Oscar De La Hoya Foundation. 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 29 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 3% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 1% 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.
709 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. 709 of the 759 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
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
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 OSCAR DE LA HOYA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds RAINBOW FAMILY INC ↗
- Who funds OLIVE CREST ↗
- Who funds VISTABILITY ↗
- Who funds CALIFORNIA FIRE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Las Trampas School Inc ↗
- Who funds SECOND HARVEST FOOD BANK OF ORANGE COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds Project Ride Inc ↗
- Who funds The Forager School ↗
- Who funds OPERATION SAFE HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds CHILD ADVOCATES OF CONTRA COSTA COUNTY ↗
- Who funds THE SAN DIEGO FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SPECIAL OLYMPICS SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA INC ↗
- Who funds SECOND HARVEST OF THE GREATER VALLEY ↗
- Who funds GRANDMA'S HOUSE OF HOPE ↗
- Who funds Lincoln ↗
- Who funds PRIDE Industries ↗
- Who funds Lincoln Community Foundation ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF FIELDWORKERS INC ↗
- Who funds CAL STATE FULLERTON PHILANTHROPIC FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds RODEO BASEBALL ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds LOS ANGELES REGIONAL FOOD BANK ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY ACTION PARTNERSHIP OF ORANGE COUNTY ↗
- Who funds COALITION TO ABOLISH SLAVERY & TRAFFICKING ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY ACTION PARTNERSHIP OF SAN BERNARDINO COUNTY ↗
- Who funds SKYHOOK FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MAYA'S MUSIC THERAPY FUND ↗
- Who funds XENOPHON THERAPEUTIC RIDING CENTER ↗
- Who funds Lighthouse Counseling and Family Resource Center ↗
- Who funds SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY CHILD ABUSE PREVENTION COUNCIL ↗
- Who funds The Respite Inn ↗
- Who funds COVENANT HOUSE CALIFORNIA ↗
- Who funds HOME AGAIN LOS ANGELES ↗
- Who funds CALIFORNIA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ANAHEIM COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Legion Community Foundation ↗
- Who funds Youth Homes Inc ↗
- Who funds SOUTHWESTERN LAW SCHOOL ↗
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: In-N-Out Burgers Foundation · Kaiser Foundation Hospitals · Teichert Foundation · Calfoods Logistics · California Association of Food Banks · California Court Appointed Special Advocate Association · The PG&E Corporation Foundation · Sisters of St Joseph Healthcare Foundation · Sacramento Region Community Foundation · California Physicians' Service Fdn Dba Blue Shield of California Fdn · Dignity Health · Mufg Union Bank Foundation Ag
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 Foundation for Stronger Communities 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to California Foundation for Stronger Communities?
Find your warmest path to California Foundation for Stronger Communities 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.