· Public charity
California Institute for Biodiversity
Create and publish educational materials, conduct professional development, promote awareness, and sponsor research on the spectacular biological diversity of the State of CA.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2022–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k1 grant · $5k
- $10k–50k12 grants · $374k
- $50k–250k11 grants · $1.2M
- $250k+4 grants · $1.5M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Regents of University Cal Santa Cr | $551,331 |
| Society Preservation of Natural His | $354,480 |
| Natural History Museum of Los Angel | $306,469 |
| Regents of University Cal Riverside | $273,600 |
| Regents of University Cal Davis | $177,956 |
| CDFA Plant Pest Diagnostics Center | $159,193 |
| Mongabay | $150,000 |
| University of Arizona | $147,931 |
| Mycota Lab | $123,531 |
| VT Research Contracting Services | $105,765 |
| Willamette University | $79,927 |
| Fungal Diversity Survey | $78,090 |
| Silicon Valley Barcode of Life | $76,456 |
| San Diego Natural History Museum | $74,621 |
| Cal State Long Beach | $54,861 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY22–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 85% of your 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.
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 +1% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
18 repeat relationships — 16 still active in FY2025, 2 since wound down; 11 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, 67% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $1.0M 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
- CACALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES4× · 2022–2025 · $2.6M · revenue +1%
- LALOS ANGELES COUNTY MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY FOUNDATION3× · 2022–2025 · $1.4M · revenue +7%
- SDSAN DIEGO SOCIETY OF NATURAL HISTORY4× · 2022–2025 · $550k · revenue +6%
Funded once
- ROREGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT BERKELEYone grant, 2024 · $562k
- HMHOOSIER MUSHROOM SOCIETY INCORPORATEDone grant, 2024 · $438k
- TRThe Regents of the Universityone grant, 2023 · $205k
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 San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory is dedicated to the conservation of birds and their habitats through science and outreach.
The institute for bird populations enables science-based conservation of species and habitats by studying the abundance, demography, and ecology of birds and other wildlife.
Create and publish educational materials, conduct professional development, promote awareness, and sponsor research on the spectacular biological diversity of the State of CA.
The organization provides professional investment management services for endowed gifts and financial assets entrusted to the ucsf foundation.
To advance the science and practice of conserving earth's biological diversity.
To connect all people with wildlife, inspire caring for nature, and advance conservation action.
To further the scientific, literary, educational and charitable purposes of california state university, monterey bay, including fundraising, development, endowment management, financial assistance, public relations and other support.
The new york botanical garden is a museum of plants and a scientific research center devoted to the study of plants and their uses. it is the garden's mission to improve public understanding of the natural world, horticulture, and the…
The uc santa barbara foundation actively works to further the goals of the university of california, santa barbara. the foundation seeks to maintain and nurture the university's quality and distinction. on behalf of the campus, the…
The following three guiding principles are the foundation for all of the santa barbara museum of natural history's activities: inspiring an awe for nature and a thirst for discovery; promoting sustainability; and connecting our…
The sacramento zoo inspires appreciation, respect and a connection with wildlife and nature through education, recreation and conservation.
Claremont Graduate University prepares individuals to be leaders for positive change in the world. Unique in its transdisciplinary approach, the University is dedicated to the creation, dissemination, and application of new knowledge and…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is San Diego Society of Natural History and the most unlike its peers is Hoosier Mushroom Society Incorporated. 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 65 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) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% 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.
26 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. 26 of the 47 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 CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES ↗
- Who funds LOS ANGELES COUNTY MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds FUNGAL DIVERSITY SURVEY INC ↗
- Who funds SAN DIEGO SOCIETY OF NATURAL HISTORY ↗
- Who funds HOOSIER MUSHROOM SOCIETY INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds SAVENATUREORG ↗
- Who funds SOCIETY FOR THE PRESERVATION OF NATURAL ↗
- Who funds A Greener World ↗
- Who funds MONGABAY ORG CORP ↗
- Who funds WESTERN FOUNDATION OF VERTEBRATE ZOOLOGY ↗
- Who funds John Carroll University ↗
- Who funds MAGIC INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds WILLAMETTE UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds CAL STATE EAST BAY EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY LONG BEACH RESEARCH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds POINT REYES BIRD OBSERVATORY ↗
- Who funds SANTA BARBARA BOTANIC GARDEN ↗
- Who funds ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF SAN DIEGO ↗
- Who funds YOSEMITE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds RANCHO SANTA ANA BOTANIC GARDEN ↗
- Who funds University of San Francisco ↗
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: Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy Inc · American Chemical Society · The San Diego Foundation · Silicon Valley Community Foundation · Cal Poly Pomona Foundation Inc · University Corporation at Monterey Bay · California State University Foundation · Foundation for California Community Colleges · Ibm International Foundation · President and Fellows of Harvard College · Santa Barbara Foundation · The California Wellness Foundation
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 Institute for Biodiversity 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.
- Willamette University — 1% of income from government
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 Institute for Biodiversity?
Find your warmest path to California Institute for Biodiversity 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.