· Private foundation
Charles E Smith 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.
Read this first · the figures below need context
62% of Charles E Smith Family Foundation’s FY2025 grant dollars went to The Jewish Federation Of Greater Washington Inc, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2025 names 6 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2022, the last year Charles E Smith Family Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 5 organizations, $818k. It is dated, not current.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2022
- Under $10k4 grants · $20k
- $10k–50k3 grants · $48k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $250k
- $250k+1 grant · $500k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| JEWISH FEDERAL OF GREATER WASHINGTON | $500,000 |
| CHARLES E SMITH JEWISH DAY SCHOOL | $150,000 |
| AMERICAN FRIENDS OF HEBREW UNIVERSITY | $100,000 |
| SHALOM HARTMAN INSTITUTE OF NORTH AMERICA | $25,000 |
| ADAS ISRAEL CONGREGATION | $12,500 |
| DCJCC | $10,000 |
| GESHER JEWISH DAY SCHOOL | $5,000 |
| JEWISH COUNCIL FOR THE AGING | $5,000 |
| JCC ASSOCIATION | $5,000 |
| JEWISH SOCIAL SERVICE AGENCY | $5,000 |
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, $1.4M) land where the poverty rate runs at 7%, against an area that typically sits at 7%. 68% 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.
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.
16 repeat relationships — 7 still active in FY2022, 9 since wound down; 5 grantees were first funded in FY2022 (too recent to call). Read against FY2022, the last year this funder named its own grantees directly; its giving has since run through a sponsor, which reports no donor behind each grant.
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, 97% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $5k 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
- CECHARLES E SMITH JEWISH DAY SCHOOL OF GREATER WASHINGTON INC9× · 2017–2025 · $6.8M · revenue +14%
- AFAMERICAN FRIENDS OF HEBREW UNIVERSITY INC3× · 2019–2021 · $622k · revenue +20%
- TSTHE SHALOM HARTMAN INSTITUTE OF NORTH AMERICA8× · 2017–2025 · $470k · revenue +24%
Funded once
- JFJOHN F KENNEDY CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTSgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $500k · revenue +28%
- MJMELVIN J BERMAN HEBREW ACADEMYgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $100k · revenue +72%
- TMTHE MEDSTAR-GEORGETOWN MEDICAL CENTER INCgraduatedone grant, 2018 · $50k · revenue +63%
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.
To prepare students for the rabbinate and to issue the traditional certificate of ordination in connection therewith. the seminary is authorized to confer the degree of master of hebrew literature (m.h.l.), doctor of hebrew literature…
Together with our community, jcc manhattan creates opportunities for people to connect, grow, and learn within an ever-changing jewish landscape.
Abraham joshua heschel day school cultivates students' natural sense of wonder into an exceptionally rich education that encourages critical thinking, creativity, and compassion. in partnership with our families, we inspire our students to…
To advance the aspirations of families and individuals to enrich their lives, bodies and spirits, by providing the best in contemporary programs and experiences, informed by jewish values for today's jews and the people in their lives.
San Diego Jewish Academy empowers each student to learn for life, guided by Jewish values and rooted in strength of community.
The school trains advanced talmudic scholars, enabling them to become high level teachers and religious leaders in israel and the united states using specific methodology combining traditional talmudic study with innovative learning…
Jcs is a parent participation elementary school, collaboratively governed by parents and teachers designed to foster a lifelong love of learning and meaningful connection to hashem.
Promotes excellence in jewish learning & leadership within a pluralistic environment. see sch ohebrew college promotes excellence in jewish learning and leadership within a pluralistic environment of open inquiry, intellectual rigor,…
The abraham joshua heschel school is an independent jewish day school which includes students from a wide range of jewish backgrounds, practices and beliefs. (see schedule o for continuation)
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Jewish Community Center of Northern Virginia Inc and the most unlike its peers is National Christian Leadership Conference for Israel. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
14 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. 14 of the 27 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 CHARLES E SMITH JEWISH DAY SCHOOL OF GREATER WASHINGTON INC ↗
- Who funds THE JEWISH FEDERATION OF GREATER WASHINGTON INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN FRIENDS OF HEBREW UNIVERSITY INC ↗
- Who funds JOHN F KENNEDY CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS ↗
- Who funds THE SHALOM HARTMAN INSTITUTE OF NORTH AMERICA ↗
- Who funds JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER OF NORTHERN VIRGINIA INC ↗
- Who funds BENDER JCC OF GREATER WASHINGTON ↗
- Who funds JEWISH SOCIAL SERVICE AGENCY ↗
- Who funds Gesher School Inc ↗
- Who funds JEWISH COUNCIL FOR THE AGING OF GREATER WASHINGTON INC ↗
- Who funds MELVIN J BERMAN HEBREW ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds THE MEDSTAR-GEORGETOWN MEDICAL CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds National Christian Leadership Conference for Israel ↗
- Who funds EDLAVITCH JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER OF WASHINGTON DC INC ↗
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: The Robert P and Arlene R Kogod Family Foundation · The Morningstar Philanthropic Foundation D/B/A the Morningstar Foundation · Leslie & Samuel Kaplan Family Foundation · Aviv Foundation Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · National Philanthropic Trust · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · American Endowment Foundation · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund
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 Charles E Smith 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, a single department, or state — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Melvin J Berman Hebrew Academy — 2% of income from government
- Bender Jcc of Greater Washington — 1% of income from government
- Jewish Social Service Agency — 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 Charles E Smith Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Charles E Smith Family Foundation 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.