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California ReLeaf

California Releaf's mission is to empower grassroots efforts and build strategic partnerships that preserve, protect and enhance California's urban and community forests.

$160k
Granted FY2025still arriving
10
Grants FY2025still arriving
1
States reached
$10k
Largest
01What you fundRead
02The needRead
03Your edgeRead
04Your fieldRead
05Through PlinthRead
01What you fund
0196% classified

What you funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.

Environment$3.7MRecreation & Sports$230kCommunity Improvement$147kHuman Services$139kEducation$99kFood & Nutrition$54kArts & Culture$48kReligion$47kOther$0
02FY2025 · 10 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

The 10 grants below total $79,940 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $160,440 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $80,500 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.

By grant size · FY2025

  • Under $10k6 grants · $40k
  • $10k–50k4 grants · $40k
$8,696
Median grant
1
States reached
$709k
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
United Latinos$10,189
Sustainable Claremont$10,017
Social and Environmental Entr$10,000
Community Action for Sustaina$10,000
Ventura Tree Alliance$8,696
Little Manila Foundation$8,000
Canopy$6,500
Butte Environmental Council$6,430
Rebuilding Together Petaluma$5,086
Koreatown Youth & Community$5,022
02The need
03

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 (FY18–25, $137k) land where the poverty rate runs at 17%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 10%SistersWE: $6k → 14%North Coast Opportunities: $88k → 18%SanBernardino Fatherhood: $12k → 14%North Coast Opportunities: $12k → 18%Pomona Community Foundation: $15k → 14%Koreatown Youth & Community: $5k → 14%0%20%40%50%more need →
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 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.

04

Where the work is directed

The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.

About 21% of California ReLeaf’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, 100% of the giving stays in CA; read by stated purpose it is 69% — less of the work is directed home than the recipients' locations suggest.

California ReLeaflessmore of its giving
Placed by recipient address · 31% directed abroad (not shown)

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.

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.

86%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.
$3.2M · 40 repeat orgs$513k to everyone else

40 repeat relationships — 2 still active in FY2025, 38 since wound down; 8 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

40
25

Total granted

$3.2M
$449k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+24%
+64%

Still filing today

65%
56%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 21% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $63k went to new ones.

50%100%’17’18’20’21’22’23’24’25
RenewedFirst-time

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

’17’18’20’21’22’23’24’25
EnvironmentHuman ServicesHousing & ShelterRecreation & SportsEducationEmploymentOther

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

  • SC
    Sustainable Claremont
    8× · 2017–2025 · $233k · revenue +457% · 33% of their budget
  • AD
    AMIGOS DE LOS RIOS
    5× · 2017–2024 · $227k · revenue +56%
  • NE
    North East Trees Inc
    7× · 2017–2024 · $169k · revenue +248%

Funded once

  • Earth Island Institute Incgraduated
    one grant, 2020 · $83k · revenue +148%
  • AC
    A CLEANER GREENER EAST LA
    one grant, 2020 · $33k
  • FO
    FRIENDS OF SANTA ANA ZOOgraduated
    one grant, 2020 · $33k · revenue +100%

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
Plant Tomorrow

Starting and planting trees for reforestation and urban areas. Reducing carbon emissions to reduce impacts of global warming.

—
2
Smart Yards Education

To improve the living standards of low income, unskilled workers in silicon valley by offering education in ecological landscaping and cooperative business models

Environment
3
Sustainable Conservation

Sustainable Conservation advances the collaborative stewardship of Californias land, air, and water for the benefit of nature and people. For over three decades, Sustainable Conservation has built coalitions of people with different…

Environment
4
Communities for Sustainable Monterey County

Recruiting and training volunteers that implement changes in the cities of Monterey County that include the establishment and operation of Community Gardens; the planting of tees on urban street; teaching citizens how to reduce the amount…

Environment
5
Urban Tilth

Urban Tilth is a California nonprofit organization committed to educate diverse communities about organic gardening and to support a network of gardens dedicated to sustainable, local food production. Urban Tilth insipires, hires, and…

Environment
6
Oregon Urban Rural and Community Forestry Dba Our Community Forestry

To restore, protect, and build resilient urban tree canopies in Oregon, with a focus on underserved and climate-vulnerable communities. The organization provides tree planting, preservation, education, workforce development, and long-term…

Environment
7
Community Conservation Solutions

Develop integrated and science-based solutions to complex environmental problems to protect natural lands, water, wildlife and human communities.

—
8
Sonoma Botanical Garden
—
9
Sustainable Contra Costa

Sustainable Contra Costa conducts educational outreach campaigns workshops and events to help people and communities live sustainably and build healthy communities.

Environment
10
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
11
Tuolumne River Preservation Trust dba Yosemite Rivers Alliance

At Yosemite Rivers Alliance, we unite conservation and community to protect and restore the three rivers that ?ow through the Yosemite Regionthe Tuolumne, Stanislaus, and Merced.

—
12
Tree Davis

The mission of Tree Davis is to improve the health and resilience of our communities by enhancing and expanding Climate-Ready Trees and Landscapes through direct action, community engagement, and advocacy.

Unclassified

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Sustainable Solano Inc and the most unlike its peers is Butte Environmental Council. 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 24 years old; the field is 13. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.

THE FIELDby orgYOUR GRANTEESby number24%2%<5yr15%13%5–10yr20%28%10–20yr17%34%20–35yr11%19%35–55yr12%4%55yr+
THE FIELDby orgYOUR MONEYby value24%2%<5yr15%18%5–10yr20%28%10–20yr17%26%20–35yr11%22%35–55yr12%4%55yr+

The field is 24% startups (under 5 years old) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 2% of your money.

Closures · last 5 years

The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% lost their exemption, against 14% of the field you don’t fund.

orgs you fund
3%2/67
the rest of the field
14%
16,895/122,203

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

52 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. 52 of the 75 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.

3
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
18
Early backer (in before they grew)
47/52
Grantees still filing
32/52
Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

Sustainable Claremont — $233,023 · EnvironmentSustainable ClaremontNorth East Trees Inc — $169,374 · EnvironmentNorth East Trees IncCalifornia ReLeaf — $156,408 · EnvironmentCalifornia ReLeafCOMMON VISION — $138,473 · EnvironmentCOMMON VISIONTREEPEOPLE INC — $117,523 · EnvironmentTREEPEOPLE INCButte Environmental Council — $113,549 · EnvironmentButte Environmental CouncilEarth Island Institute Inc — $82,758 · EnvironmentEarth Island Institute IncWATSONVILLE WETLANDS WATCH — $78,060 · EnvironmentTree Fresno — $71,195 · EnvironmentTREE SAN DIEGO — $64,410 · EnvironmentEARTHTEAM — $50,542 · EnvironmentCALIFORNIA CLIMATE ACTION NOW — $50,247 · Environment+9 more — $152,432 · Environment+9 moreGrants to Orgs Under 5000 — $136,328 · OtherGrants to Orgs Under 5000CLEAN & GREEN POMONA — $116,435 · OtherCLEAN & GREEN POMONACalifornia Climate Action Now — $87,975 · OtherCalifornia Climate Action NowChicana Directors Initiative — $83,111 · OtherChicana Directors InitiativeOROVILLE BOTANIC GARDEN AND EDUCATIONAL CENTER — $79,721 · OtherCalipatria Chamber of Commerce — $74,918 · OtherFROM LOT TO SPOT — $69,104 · OtherMadera Coalition of Community Justice — $62,339 · OtherPARADISE RECREATION AND PARK DISTRICT — $61,428 · OtherCenter for Regenerative Agriculture — $58,399 · OtherSOUTHEAST FRESNO COMMUNITY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ASSN — $62,076 · Other+30 more — $645,866 · Other+30 moreSOCIAL GOOD FUND INC — $194,208 · EducationGreen Technical Education and Employment — $43,995 · Education+1 more — $6,639 · EducationAMIGOS DE LOS RIOS — $226,658 · PhilanthropyCIRCUIT RIDER COMMUNITY SERVICES — $104,999 · EmploymentURBAN CORPS OF SAN DIEGO COUNTY — $72,222 · EmploymentREDDING PARKS FOUNDATION — $121,389 · Recreation & SportsOakland Parks and Recreation Foundation — $47,330 · Recreation & SportsNORTH COAST OPPORTUNITIES INC — $99,965 · Human ServicesPomona Community Foundation — $14,563 · Human ServicesSAN BERNARDINO FATHERHOOD — $12,130 · Human ServicesSisters in Birth — $5,500 · Human ServicesKOREATOWN YOUTH AND COMMUNITY CENTER — $5,022 · Human Services
Environment$1,477,994Other$1,537,700Education$244,842Philanthropy$226,658Employment$177,221Recreation & Sports$168,719Human Services$137,180

Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$100k$1.0M$10Mgrantee revenue →↑ your share of their budgetSustainable Claremont — $233,023 over 8y, 33% of budgetAMIGOS DE LOS RIOS — $226,658 over 5y, 4.0% of budgetSOCIAL GOOD FUND INC — $194,208 over 4y, 0.1% of budgetNorth East Trees Inc — $169,374 over 7y, 3.0% of budgetCalifornia ReLeaf — $156,408 over 2y, 5.9% of budgetCOMMON VISION — $138,473 over 5y, 7.7% of budgetREDDING PARKS FOUNDATION — $121,389 over 4y, 12% of budgetTREEPEOPLE INC — $117,523 over 3y, 0.4% of budgetButte Environmental Council — $113,549 over 4y, 30% of budgetCIRCUIT RIDER COMMUNITY SERVICES — $104,999 over 4y, 5.9% of budgetNORTH COAST OPPORTUNITIES INC — $99,965 over 2y, 0.3% of budgetEarth Island Institute Inc — $82,758 over 1y, 0.5% of budgetWATSONVILLE WETLANDS WATCH — $78,060 over 3y, 2.7% of budgetCalipatria Chamber of Commerce — $74,918 over 2y, 59% of budgetURBAN CORPS OF SAN DIEGO COUNTY — $72,222 over 2y, 0.3% of budgetTree Fresno — $71,195 over 3y, 8.4% of budgetTREE SAN DIEGO — $64,410 over 2y, 9.9% of budgetMadera Coalition of Community Justice — $62,339 over 2y, 2.3% of budgetSOUTHEAST FRESNO COMMUNITY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT ASSN — $62,076 over 3y, 25% of budgetCenter for Regenerative Agriculture — $58,399 over 2y, 22% of budgetEARTHTEAM — $50,542 over 2y, 8.2% of budgetEpiscopal Impact Fund FKA Episcopal Charities — $47,437 over 2y, 3.9% of budgetOakland Parks and Recreation Foundation — $47,330 over 2y, 1.7% of budgetGreen Technical Education and Employment — $43,995 over 3y, 3.3% of budgetYUBA SUTTER REGIONAL ARTS COUNCIL — $35,836 over 3y, 4.0% of budgetFRIENDS OF SANTA ANA ZOO — $33,072 over 1y, 3.3% of budgetPacific Housing Inc — $30,753 over 2y, 0.5% of budgetOUR CITY FOREST — $30,483 over 1y, 1.5% of budgetFathers and Families of San Joaquin — $26,957 over 1y, 1.3% of budgetENVIRONMENTAL CENTER OF SAN LUIS OBISPO — $24,983 over 2y, 4.5% of budgetLUMBERCYCLE — $23,991 over 2y, 11% of budgetREGIONAL PARKS FOUNDATION — $18,387 over 1y, 0.4% of budgetEmpowerment Works Inc — $15,417 over 1y, 1.3% of budgetPomona Community Foundation — $14,563 over 1y, 12% of budgetTHE WATERSHED PROJECT — $13,775 over 1y, 2.1% of budgetSAN BERNARDINO FATHERHOOD — $12,130 over 1y, 9.9% of budgetSUSTAINABLE SOLANO INC — $8,136 over 1y, 1.4% of budgetEL DORADO COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTER — $7,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetThe Climate Center — $6,639 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetCanopy — $6,500 over 1y, 0.3% of budgetSAN JOAQUIN RIVER PARKWAY & CONSERVATION TRUST — $6,164 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetSisters in Birth — $5,500 over 1y, 1.6% of budgetFood Exploration and Discovery — $5,500 over 1y, 2.4% of budgetREBUILDING TOGETHER PETALUMA INC — $5,086 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetKOREATOWN YOUTH AND COMMUNITY CENTER — $5,022 over 1y, 0.0% of budget
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.

PatagoniaorgThe San Francisco Fou…National Arbor Day Fo…The Rose Foundation f…East Bay Community Fo…The California Endowm…Resources Legacy FundLiberty Hill Foundati…Clif Family FoundationKaiser Foundation Hos…Marin Community Found…The California Wellne…
PatagoniaorgCA20× affinity9 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Patagoniaorg · The San Francisco Foundation · National Arbor Day Foundation · The Rose Foundation for Communities the Environment · East Bay Community Foundation · The California Endowment · Resources Legacy Fund · Liberty Hill Foundation · Clif Family Foundation · Kaiser Foundation Hospitals · Marin Community 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 ReLeaf 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
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%4%15%34%60%your share of their income ↑0%25%50%75%100%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    17report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    typical government reliance, FY20–25

    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.

    05Through Plinth

    Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

    How do I get to California ReLeaf?

    Find your warmest path to California ReLeaf 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.

    On method. Every financial figure here is read directly from IRS e-file XML — your own 990/990-PF and the multi-year returns of the 75 grantees we resolved across every year we hold, several hundred filings in all (a different count from the grant rows on the cover, which are one fiscal year)— each linked to its source. Grantee achievements and outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III); we read these as association with sustained funding — the foundation is one of several forces — suppress low-confidence name matches rather than guess, and say so where a figure rests on a single grant or filing. Not everything on this page is a filed figure, and the difference matters. Filed is what you reported on your return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears. How we build these →

    Generated from your IRS Form 990 e-file return for fiscal year 2025, released 2025. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

    More from the funding graph

    The unnamed billions
    grants reported with no recipient in the public record
    The regranting layer
    51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer
    The DAF merry-go-round
    $9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds
    The camps
    funders cluster by geography, not ideology
    By state
    where grant money is based, and what stays home
    State money flows
    the interactive map of money crossing state lines