· Private foundation
Clay Foundation - West
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.
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 · FY2025
- Under $10k2 grants · $15k
- $10k–50k17 grants · $365k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $266k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| San Francisco Playhouse | $166,200 |
| Cinnabar Theater | $100,000 |
| Exploratorium | $40,000 |
| Sonoma Arts Live | $40,000 |
| La Luz Center | $35,000 |
| Sonoma Valley Hospital Foundation | $30,000 |
| Chinese American International Scho | $30,000 |
| Jack London Park Partners | $25,000 |
| American Conservatory Theatre | $20,000 |
| Brooks School | $20,000 |
| Sonoma Valley Mentoring Alliance | $20,000 |
| Smuin Ballet | $15,000 |
| Mission Science Workshop | $15,000 |
| Marin Theatre Company | $15,000 |
| Sonoma Community Center | $15,000 |
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, $329k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 100% 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +39% since the first grant, against +19% for the ones you funded once.
31 repeat relationships — 21 still active in FY2025, 10 since wound down.
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, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
- SFSan Francisco Playhouse9× · 2017–2025 · $587k · revenue +100%
- SASonoma Arts Live9× · 2017–2025 · $221k · revenue +33%
- LLLA LUZ CENTER9× · 2017–2025 · $195k · revenue +30%
Funded once
SONOMA VALLEY COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTERone grant, 2021 · $10k · revenue +19%- OCOakes Children's Centerone grant, 2018 · $3k · revenue -85%
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.
Silicon valley shakespeare is innovating the classics through unique and relevant theatrical experiences that illuminate and inspire modern audiences.
Enriching Lives Through the Arts
The Sonoma Valley Museum of Art is devoted to building community around art and presents four to five exhibitions per year and offers educational programs and events, actively engaging people of all ages.
Sfbatco unites artists and audiences through live theatre that is reflective of the authentic perspectives and history of the san francisco bay area.
(cont from page 1) democratic society, and invaluable as a source of personal enrichment and growth.
SFFILM is a nonprofit organization whose mission ensures independent voices in film are welcomed, heard, and given the resources to thrive. SFFILM connects and inspires audiences, students and teachers, and filmmakers through our film…
Our mission is to create opportunities for Marin School of the Arts to innovate and support a quality arts education experience for all of its students.
Aurora Theatre Company inspires new audiences and longtime theatre lovers alike with the visceral power of live theatre. Our venues, the most intimate professional stages in the Bay Area, highlight great acting, nuanced language, and an…
Occidental Center for the Arts exists to provide a welcoming and accessible venue for the performing and visual arts in Sonoma County California for local regional national and international artists. our mission is to enrich our community…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Sonoma Valley Community Health Center and the most unlike its peers is Valley of the Moon Natural History Association. 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 33 years old; the field is 18. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 19% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 11% 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.
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 33 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 San Francisco Playhouse ↗
- Who funds Marin Theatre Company ↗
- Who funds THE EXPLORATORIUM ↗
- Who funds Sonoma Arts Live ↗
- Who funds LA LUZ CENTER ↗
- Who funds BROOKS SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds VALLEY OF THE MOON NATURAL HISTORY ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds Sonoma Valley Mentoring Alliance ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CONSERVATORY THEATRE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MAGIC THEATRE INC ↗
- Who funds SONOMA VALLEY HOSPITAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SAN FRANCISCO LESBIAN GAY BISEXUAL TRANSGENDER COMMUNITY CENTER ↗
- Who funds CHINESE AMERICAN INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds SONOMA COMMUNITY CENTER ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN FRANCISCO FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Sebastiani Theatre Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds COMPASS FAMILY SERVICES ↗
- Who funds Smuin Ballet ↗
- Who funds Sonoma Plein Air Foundation ↗
- Who funds Sonoma Speaker Series ↗
- Who funds SONOMA VALLEY COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTER ↗
- Who funds Valley of the Moon Music Festival ↗
- Who funds 826 Valencia ↗
- Who funds Oakes Children's Center ↗
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: McNabb Foundation · Marin Community Foundation · Sonoma County Community Foundation · Simon Blattner Family Foundation · The Vadasz Family Foundation · Gaia Fund · The San Francisco Foundation · Sanderson Family Foundation · John Christopher Bunting Foundation · Khr McNeely Family Foundation · Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco the Peninsula Marin & Sonoma · The Ayco Charitable 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 Clay Foundation - West 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.
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.