Skip to content
Plinth
Foundation Dossiers
Plinth

· Private foundation

Castagnola Family Foundation

Its FY2025 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

$7k
Granted FY2025still arriving
5
Grants FY2025still arriving
2
States reached
$3k
Largest
01What you fundRead
02The needRead
03Your edgeRead
04Your fieldRead
01What you fund
0179% classified

What you funded, over time

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

Arts & Culture$192kEducation$26kScience & Tech$23kPublic Safety & Disaster$7kHuman Services$4kEnvironment$4kInternational$2kAnimals$1kOther$0
02FY2025 · 5 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

$1,250
Median grant
2
States reached
$58k
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
THE LAND TRUST FOR SANTA BARBARA COUNTY$2,500
MONTECITO RETIREMENT ASSOCIATION ( CASA DORINDA)$2,400
LOTUSLAND$1,250
SAVE VENICE INC$500
MONASTERY OF POOR CLARES$200
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:

Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 100% of your dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 11%SANTA BARBARA MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY: $10k → 14%SAVE VENICE INC: $1k → 17%INTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN FOR TIBET: $1k → 14%SANTA BARBARA MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY: $10k → 14%SAVE VENICE INC: $500 → 17%SANTA BARBARA MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY: $5k → 14%SAVE VENICE: $500 → 17%SANTA BARBARA SCHOLARSHIP FOUNDATION: $500 → 14%EXPLORERS CLUB: $465 → 17%EXPLORERS CLUB: $465 → 17%UCSB - SEDGWICK RESERVE: $1k → 14%FRIENDS OF KITP: $10k → 14%UC REGENTS - UCSB: $10k → 14%FRIENDS OF KITP: $2k → 14%KAVLI INSTITUTE FOR THEORETICAL PHYSICS (KITP): $2k → 14%LAGUNA BLANCA SCHOOL: $1k → 14%LOTUSLAND: $20k → 14%MUSIC ACADEMY OF THE WEST: $20k → 14%MUSIC ACADEMY OF THE WEST: $13k → 14%MUSIC ACADEMY OF THE WEST: $10k → 14%MUSIC ACADEMY OF THE WEST: $4k → 14%CASA DORINDA: $3k → 14%MONTECITO RETIREMENT ASSOCIATION ( CASA DORINDA): $2k → 14%MOXI THE WOLF MUSEUM OF EXPLORATION INNOVATION: $6k → 14%MONTECITO RETIREMENT ASSOCIATION ( CASA DORINDA): $2k → 14%OPERA SANTA BARBARA: $4k → 14%LOTUSLAND: $1k → 14%THE LAND TRUST FOR SANTA BARBARA COUNTY: $3k → 14%LOTUSLAND: $1k → 14%OPERA SANTA BARBARA: $2k → 14%LOTUSLAND: $1k → 14%OPERA SANTA BARBARA: $1k → 14%LOTUSLAND: $1k → 14%LOBURO THEATRE FOUNDATION: $1k → 14%LOTUSLAND: $1k → 14%LOBURO THEATRE FOUNDATION: $500 → 14%LOTUSLAND: $1k → 14%LOBERO THEATRE: $500 → 14%SOCIAL SKILLS AMERICA: $575 → 14%GRANADA SANTA BARBARA CENTER FOR PERFORMING ARTS: $500 → 14%LOTUSLAND: $500 → 14%CASA DORINDA: $500 → 14%SANTA BARBARA MIDDLE SCHOOL: $10k → 14%SANTA BARBARA MIDDLE SCHOOL: $9k → 14%COMMUNITY ARTS MUSIC ASSOCIATION: $3k → 14%SANTA BARBARA ZOO: $500 → 14%SANTA BARBARA ZOO: $500 → 14%COMMUNITY ARTS MUSIC ASSOCIATION: $400 → 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.

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.

51%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.
$154k · 19 repeat orgs$151k to everyone else

And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +52% since the first grant, against +5% for the ones you funded once.

19 repeat relationships — 4 still active in FY2025, 15 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

19
26

Total granted

$154k
$148k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+52%
+5%

Still filing today

63%
35%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 64% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $3k went to new ones.

50%100%’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25
RenewedFirst-time

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

’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25
Arts & CultureInternationalEducationAnimalsEnvironmentHousing & ShelterOther

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

  • SB
    SANTA BARBARA MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY
    2× · 2020–2021 · $25k · revenue +52%
  • MT
    MOXI THE WOLF MUSEUM OF EXPLORATION INNOVATION
    2× · 2017–2018 · $10k · revenue +20%
  • SB
    Santa Barbara Bucket Brigade
    3× · 2019–2022 · $7k · revenue +56%

Funded once

  • ET
    ENSEMBLE THEATRE COMPANY OF SANTA BARBARA INC
    one grant, 2017 · $105k · revenue +21%
  • SB
    SANTA BARBARA MIDDLE SCHOOLgraduated
    one grant, 2017 · $19k · revenue +83%
  • UR
    UC REGENTS - UCSB
    one grant, 2018 · $10k

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
Santa Barbara Education Foundation

Santa Barbara Education Foundation (SBEF) provides and supports programs that enrich the academic, artistic, and personal development of all students in the Santa Barbara Unified School District.

Education
2
Santa Barbara Maritime Museum

Creating excellent exhibits and educational experiences that celebrate the santa barbara channel and illuminate our rich connections with the sea.

Arts & Culture
3
Santa Barbara Channelkeeper Inc

The organization was established to protect and restore the santa barbara channel and its watersheds through science-based advocacy, education, field work, community engagement, and citizen enforcement of environmental laws.

Environment
4
Santa Barbara Public Library Foundation

The santa barbara public library foundation supports the long-term health and sustainability of the santa barbara public library through public-private partnerships.

Public Benefit
5
Santa Barbara Historical Museum

To inspire meaningful connections to santa barbara history.

Arts & Culture
6
Uc Santa Barbara Foundation

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…

Education
7
Santa Barbara Museum of Art

To integrate art into the lives of people, fostering imagination, stimulating thought, and creating personally rewarding experiences.

Arts & Culture
8
Santa Lucia Conservancy

To protect and steward in perpetuity the unique natural, cultural, and asthetic resources of the preserve and serve as a model of ecologically sustainable development to committees outside the preserve.

Environment
9
Santa Barbara Foundation

The mission of the santa barbara foundation (sbf) is to mobilize collective wisdom and philanthropic capital to build empathetic, inclusive and resilient communities.

Philanthropy
10
San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory

The San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory is dedicated to the conservation of birds and their habitats through science and outreach.

Environment
11
Santa Barbara County Trails Council

Our mission is to protect public trail access build and maintain safe and sustainable trails and promote public engagement in land stewardship and trail use for all types of outdoor recreation.

Recreation & Sports
12
Balboa Park Conservancy

Balboa Park Conservancy (the Conservancy) was organized on November 3, 1923. The Conservancy is the City of San Diegos (the City) partner and advocated for the greater good of Balboa Park (the Park). The Conservancy collaborated with and…

—

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Santa Barbara Museum of Natural History and the most unlike its peers is Nuclear Age Peace Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

04the grantee network

24 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. 24 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.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
3
Early backer (in before they grew)
23/24
Grantees still filing
15/24
Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

ENSEMBLE THEATRE COMPANY OF SANTA BARBARA INC — $105,000 · Arts & CultureENSEMBLE THEATRE COMPANY OF SANTA BARBARA INCMUSIC ACADEMY OF THE WEST — $46,000 · Arts & CultureMUSIC ACADEMY OF THE WESTSANTA BARBARA MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY — $25,000 · Arts & CultureSANTA BARBARA MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORYOPERA SANTA BARBARA — $6,550 · Arts & Culture+2 more — $5,031 · Arts & CultureLOTUSLAND — $27,275 · OtherLOTUSLANDIndividual grant recipient — $12,000 · OtherIndividual grant recipientUC REGENTS - UCSB — $10,000 · OtherUC REGENTS - UCSBMOXI THE WOLF MUSEUM OF EXPLORATION INNOVATION — $10,000 · OtherMOXI THE WOLF MUSEUM OF EXPL…MONTECITO RETIREMENT ASSOCIATION ( CASA DORINDA) — $4,225 · OtherMONTECITO RETIREMENT ASSOCIA…Individual grant recipient — $3,500 · Other+23 more — $10,288 · Other+23 moreSANTA BARBARA MIDDLE SCHOOL — $19,000 · EducationSANTA BAR…FOUNDATION FOR SANTA BARBARA HIGH SCHOOL — $5,000 · EducationFOUNDATIO…LAGUNA BLANCA SCHOOL — $1,000 · EducationSanta Barbara Bucket Brigade — $7,300 · Public Safety & DisasterSAVE VENICE INC — $2,500 · InternationalINTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN FOR TIBET — $1,150 · InternationalNUCLEAR AGE PEACE FOUNDATION — $250 · InternationalHIMALAYAN CATARACT PROJECT INC — $217 · InternationalTHE LAND TRUST FOR SANTA BARBARA COUNTY — $2,500 · EnvironmentHEAL THE OCEAN INC — $450 · EnvironmentSANTA BARBARA ZOOLOGICAL FOUNDATION — $1,000 · AnimalsCheetah Conservation Fund — $250 · Animals
Arts & Culture$187,581Other$77,288Education$25,000Public Safety & Disaster$7,300International$4,117Environment$2,950Animals$1,250

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

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10Mgrantee revenue →↑ your share of their budgetENSEMBLE THEATRE COMPANY OF SANTA BARBARA INC — $105,000 over 1y, 4.0% of budgetMUSIC ACADEMY OF THE WEST — $46,000 over 4y, 0.2% of budgetSANTA BARBARA MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY — $25,000 over 2y, 0.2% of budgetSANTA BARBARA MIDDLE SCHOOL — $19,000 over 1y, 0.3% of budgetMOXI THE WOLF MUSEUM OF EXPLORATION INNOVATION — $10,000 over 2y, 0.2% of budgetSanta Barbara Bucket Brigade — $7,300 over 3y, 0.6% of budgetOPERA SANTA BARBARA — $6,550 over 3y, 0.3% of budgetFOUNDATION FOR SANTA BARBARA HIGH SCHOOL — $5,000 over 1y, 0.4% of budgetCOMMUNITY ARTS MUSIC ASSOCIATION OF SANTA BARBARA INC — $3,400 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetSAVE VENICE INC — $2,500 over 5y, 0.0% of budgetTHE LAND TRUST FOR SANTA BARBARA COUNTY — $2,500 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetLOBERO THEATRE FOUNDATION — $1,631 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetINTERNATIONAL CAMPAIGN FOR TIBET — $1,150 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetSANTA BARBARA ZOOLOGICAL FOUNDATION — $1,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetLAGUNA BLANCA SCHOOL — $1,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetTHE EXPLORERS CLUB — $930 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetMontecito Community Foundation — $500 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetHEAL THE OCEAN INC — $450 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetCheetah Conservation Fund — $250 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetNUCLEAR AGE PEACE FOUNDATION — $250 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetSANTA BARBARA RESCUE MISSION — $250 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetHIMALAYAN CATARACT PROJECT INC — $217 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetCALIFORNIA RANGELAND TRUST — $60 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.

Santa Barbara Foundat…Ann Jackson Family Fo…Hutton Foundation Dba…Www FoundationMosher FoundationThe Leslie S and Phil…Schlinger Chrisman Fo…The Kirby-Jones Found…Williams-Corbett Foun…California Community …Giles 2000 Tr Dba Gil…Tony and Kyra Rogers …
Santa Barbara FoundationCA31.7× affinity13 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Santa Barbara Foundation · Ann Jackson Family Foundation · Hutton Foundation Dba Hutton Parker Foundation · Www Foundation · Mosher Foundation · The Leslie S and Philip L Bernstein Family Fund · Schlinger Chrisman Foundation Northern Trust Company Trustee · The Kirby-Jones Foundation · Williams-Corbett Foundation · California Community Foundation · Giles 2000 Tr Dba Giles Family Foundation · Tony and Kyra Rogers 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 Castagnola Family Foundation 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%0%1%3%5%your share of their income ↑0%4%8%11%15%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    7report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–15%
    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.

    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 47 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-PF 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