How much does Cheng's Foundation give?

Cheng's Foundation reported 40 grants totaling $11,250 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 5 and 39 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does Cheng's Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are International (52%), Education (15%), Philanthropy (8%).

Who are Cheng's Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: Buddhist Tzu Chi Foundation ($134k), The University Corporation San Francisco State ($20k), The Peach Foundation ($18k).

Does Cheng's Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 28% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Cheng's Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

Which funders back the same organizations as Cheng's Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Shell USA Company Foundation, Salesforce Foundation, The Yelp Foundation.

Where is Cheng's Foundation based?

Cheng's Foundation is based in CA.

Cheng's Foundation

Cheng's Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

Cheng's 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.

$11k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$2k

Largest

01What it funds

0198% classified

What it funded, over time

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

International$141kEducation$41kPhilanthropy$22kHuman Services$11kReligion$9kAnimals$9kPublic Safety & Disaster$8kHealth$7kOther$0

02FY2025 · 40 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

$200

Median grant

States reached

$464k

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
TZU-CHI FOUNDATION	$2,000
AMERICAN RED CROSS	$1,000
THE SALVATION ARMY	$1,000
CHINESE CHRISTIAN MISSION	$500
THE UNIVERSITY CORPORATION SAN FRANCISCO STATE	$300
ALZHEIMER'S ASSOCIATION	$300
CORNELL LAB OF ORNITHOLOGY	$200
SOBEM USA	$200
NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND	$200
BAY AREA RIDGE TRAIL COUNCIL	$200
ANIMAL FIX CLINIC	$200
AMERICAN BIBLE SOCIETY	$200
WORLD WILDLIFE FUND	$200
GLIDE	$200
THE NATURE CONSERVANCY	$200

02The need

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Its human-services grants (FY17–25, $2k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 50% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants spread fairly evenly across need levels.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

How this is measured

Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.

Which US states its grants reach

How this is measured

US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

94%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$253k · 56 repeat orgs$16k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +36% since the first grant, against +35% for those funded once.

56 repeat relationships: 35 still active in FY2025, 21 since wound down; 5 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$253k

$15k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+36%

+35%

Still filing today

61%

27%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 95% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $550 went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

AnimalsReligionHuman ServicesHealthEnvironmentEducationOther

How this is measured

First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

TU
THE UNIVERSITY CORPORATION SAN FRANCISCO STATE
7× · 2017–2025 · $20k · revenue +60%
TP
THE PEACH FOUNDATION
4× · 2017–2021 · $18k · revenue +3%
AN
American National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches
3× · 2017–2025 · $3k · revenue +46%

Funded once

PM
Portugal Macau Institute of America
one grant, 2018 · $4k
CF
CHINESE FOR CHRIST BERKELEY CHURCH
one grant, 2017 · $3k
A
ABAF
one grant, 2022 · $2k

How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

Conservation International Foundation

Ci works to spotlight and secure the critical benefits that nature provides to humanity.

Environment

Wildaid Inc

Wildaid's mission is to inspire change and empower the world to protect wildlife and vital habitats from critical threats.

Animals

Friends of the Earth

Friends of the earth strives for a more healthy and just world by defendng the environment and human health while advancing social and economic justice by conducting research and education, transforming the economy so it protects the…

Environment

The San Francisco Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals

To ensure every companion animal has access to quality medical care, compassionate shelter, and a loving home.

Animals

Rainforest Trust

Rainforest trust saves endangered wildlife and protects our planet by creating rainforest reserves through partnerships, community engagement, and donor support.

International

Project Drawdown

Project drawdown's mission is to drive meaningful climate action by advancing science-based solutions and strategies. project drawdown's work is focused on three pillars: science - advancing science-based climate solutions and strategies;…

Education

Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Foundation

To engage and catalyze global seafood supply chains in rebuilding depleted fish stocks and reducing the environmental impacts of fishing and fish farming.

Animals

Oceana Inc

To advocate for policy changes by governments and corporations in order to preserve ocean life and return the oceans to their former abundance.

Environment

Food Forward Inc

Food forward fights hunger and prevents food waste by rescuing fresh surplus produce, connecting this abundance with people experiencing food insecurity, and inspiring others to do the same.

Food & Nutrition

Sutter Bay Medical Foundation

Mission statement: mission: caring for our patients first and our people always. vision: to be the most comprehensive, integrated and connected health system for getting and staying well. values: excellence - we deliver high-quality,…

Health

Banner -University Medical Group

Assist banner health complete its mission to make health care easier so life can be better by providing integrated & coordinated care & population health management.

Health

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

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Wounded Warrior Project Inc; the most unlike its peers is Father Flanagan's Boys' Home. 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

42 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 42 of the 83 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

42/42

Grantees still filing

25/42

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Religion$142,170Other$68,900Education$38,900Animals$6,400Human Services$5,900Environment$3,750Health$3,450

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Shell USA Company FoundationTX19.8× affinity10 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Shell USA Company Foundation · Salesforce Foundation · The Yelp Foundation · East Bay Community Foundation · Marin Community Foundation · Paypal Charitable Giving Fund · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Beulah Land Foundation · McLIN FAMILY FOUNDATION · Lowell Berry Foundation · The Duffield Family Foundation Dba Maddie's Fund · Analog Devices Foundation

How this is measured

Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Cheng's Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Cheng's Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

1get no government money at all

4report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–40%

typical government reliance, FY20–25

How this is measured

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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

Play a game based on Cheng's’ filings →

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 endowment market

who holds foundation money, and what just moved

The camps

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

By state

where grant money is based, and what stays home