· Private foundation
Cottonwood Spring
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 FY2022–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Housing Matters | $35,000 |
| United Way of Santa Cruz County | $35,000 |
| Community Action Board of Santa Cruz County Inc | $35,000 |
| Santa Cruz Welcoming Network | $35,000 |
| Animal Legal Defense Fund | $35,000 |
| Institute for Policy Studies | $30,000 |
| Wikimedia Foundation Inc | $30,000 |
| Committee to Protect Journalists Inc | $30,000 |
| Land Trust of Santa Cruz County | $30,000 |
| Amah Mutsun Land Trust | $30,000 |
| Animal Outlook | $30,000 |
| Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy | $30,000 |
| Global Change Data Lab | $30,000 |
| Housing Santa Cruz County | $30,000 |
| National Trust for Local News | $25,000 |
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 (FY22–24, $80k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, 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 +26% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
22 repeat relationships — 21 still active in FY2025, 1 since wound down; 4 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).
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, 87% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $90k 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
- SCSANTA CRUZ HUB FOR SUSTAINABLE LIVING4× · 2022–2025 · $130k · revenue +73%
- HMHOUSING MATTERS4× · 2022–2025 · $125k · revenue +186%
- CTCOMMITTEE TO PROTECT JOURNALISTS INC4× · 2022–2025 · $125k · revenue +15%
Funded once
- HSHousing Santa Cruz Countyone grant, 2025 · $30k
- TLTHE LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE EDUCATION FUND INCone grant, 2025 · $20k · revenue -12%
AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION FOUNDATION INCone grant, 2025 · $20k · revenue 0%
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.
Improving the transparency and scientific integrity of climate solutions through open data and tools.
The union of concerned scientists puts rigorous, independent science into action, developing solutions and advocating for a healthy, safe, and just future.
International consortium of investigative journalists, inc.'s (icij) mission is to show people how the world really works through stories that rock the world; forcing positive change.
The open markets institute works to help people relearn how to use competition policy to build stronger democracies, more just and equitable societies, more innovative and sustainable economies, and a more secure and peaceful world.
To strenghten people's ability to guarantee their individual and collective right to a healthy environment, via the development, implementation, and effective enforcement of national and international law.
Grist is an independent, non profit media organization dedicated to reporting on climate change.
To investigate, research, write, publish, present conferences and teach with respect to global, regional, transboundary, and comparative environmental issues and to make the findings from such activities available to the general public; to…
Wri is committed to creating change that improves people's lives and ensures the natural world can thrive. (see schedule o)wri's bold vision requires a formula for success we call "count it. change it. scale it.":- count it: our work is…
Educational & charitable. to provide legal and scientific information to public interest attorneys and scientists in numerous countries.
The Climate Center is a climate and energy policy nonprofit working to rapidly reduce climate pollution at scale, starting in California.
Climate catalyst sparks collective action to tackle the biggest climate challenges we face today: cutting emissions in heavy industries.
The Organization unleashes the creative potential of the law to protect people and the planet from corporate abuse.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Policylink and the most unlike its peers is Global Investigative Journalism Network Inc. 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 28 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) — 5% of your grantees by number, and just 4% 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.
23 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. 23 of the 26 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 SANTA CRUZ HUB FOR SUSTAINABLE LIVING ↗
- Who funds HOUSING MATTERS ↗
- Who funds COMMITTEE TO PROTECT JOURNALISTS INC ↗
- Who funds ANIMAL LEGAL DEFENSE FUND INC ↗
- Who funds INSTITUTE ON TAXATION AND ECONOMIC POLICY ↗
- Who funds Community Action Board ↗
- Who funds United Way of Santa Cruz County ↗
- Who funds THE HUMANE LEAGUE ↗
- Who funds POLICYLINK ↗
- Who funds INSTITUTE FOR POLICY STUDIES ↗
- Who funds LAND TRUST OF SANTA CRUZ COUNTY ↗
- Who funds ANIMAL OUTLOOK INC ↗
- Who funds Amah Mutsun Land Trust ↗
- Who funds WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds NEW WAY HOMES INC ↗
- Who funds Global Press Institute ↗
- Who funds BUILDING DECARBONIZATION COALITION ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR CARBON REMOVAL ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL TRUST FOR LOCAL NEWS ↗
- Who funds GLOBAL INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALISM NETWORK INC ↗
- Who funds THE LEADERSHIP CONFERENCE EDUCATION FUND INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds WILLIAM J BRENNAN CENTER FOR JUSTICE 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: Community Foundation Santa Cruz County · Silicon Valley Community Foundation · Tides Foundation · Sutter Bay Hospitals · Sunlight Giving · Dignity Health · The David and Lucile Packard Foundation · East Bay Community Foundation · Amalgamated Charitable Foundation Inc · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · National Philanthropic Trust
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 Cottonwood Spring 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.