· Private foundation
Craigslist Charitable Fund
Its FY2020 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
98% of Craigslist Charitable Fund’s FY2020 grant dollars went to Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2020 names 52 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2019, the last year Craigslist Charitable Fund named its own grantees at scale: 28 organizations, $124k. 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 FY2017–2020.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2019
- Under $10k36 grants · $59k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $65k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Evidence Action | $20,319 |
| Friends of Calaveras Animal Services | $15,000 |
| Friends of the Animal Community | $15,000 |
| Northside Pet Connection | $15,000 |
| Sonora Cat Rescue | $7,500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $6,000 |
| OARC Inc | $5,400 |
| DonorsChooseorg | $4,734 |
| LACES | $3,000 |
| Mother Lode Wildlife Care | $3,000 |
| Anchorage Community Theatre | $3,000 |
| Project Veritas | $3,000 |
| LACES | $3,000 |
| LACES | $3,000 |
| Dragons Leap | $2,400 |
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 (FY17–20, $90k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 97% 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.
Which US states your grants reach
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.
67 repeat relationships — 15 still active in FY2019, 52 since wound down; 46 grantees were first funded in FY2019 (too recent to call). Read against FY2019, 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 FY2020, 69% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $146k 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
PRO PUBLICA INC2× · 2017–2018 · $201k · revenue +48%- VOVEGAN OUTREACH INC2× · 2018–2020 · $174k · revenue +3%
- EFElectronic Frontier Foundation Inc3× · 2017–2020 · $102k · revenue +24%
Funded once
- JCJewish Community Endowment Fundone grant, 2017 · $248k
COMMUNITY INITIATIVESgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $126k · revenue +254%- STSwords to Plowsharesone grant, 2017 · $100k
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.
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…
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.
The organization provides professional investment management services for endowed gifts and financial assets entrusted to the ucsf foundation.
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.
Advance science, engineering, and innovation throughout the world for the benefit of all. the world's largest multidisciplinary scientific society and a leading publisher of cutting-edge research through its science family of journals,…
The bar association of san francisco champions equal access to justice and promotes humanity, excellence, and diversity in the legal profession. we provide legal services to disadvantaged and underserved individuals in san francisco. we…
Actionaid is an international network building a just, equitable, and sustainable world in solidarity with communities on the frontlines of poverty and injustice. actionaid usa is the u.s. branch of actionaid international, which works in…
The american civil liberties union of northern california (aclu nc union) defends and advances the principles of freedom, equality and justice contained in the united states constitution. aclu nc union, a california mutual benefit…
Ca fwd drives action to identify solutions that can be taken to scale to meet the challenges the state is facing. the organization is driven by the belief that regional solutions across the state will help ensure economic, environmental,…
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.
Marin humane transforms lives through exceptional animal care, humane education, and advocacy. every day, marin humane inspires compassion and positive relationships between people and animals.
The San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory is dedicated to the conservation of birds and their habitats through science and outreach.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Evidence Action and the most unlike its peers is Oakland Aviation Museum. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 36 years old; the field is 19. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 18% startups (under 5 years old) — 1% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 1% 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.
161 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. 161 of the 203 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
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
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 FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ↗
- Who funds PRO PUBLICA INC ↗
- Who funds VEGAN OUTREACH INC ↗
- Who funds The Center for Investigative Reporting Inc ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY INITIATIVES ↗
- Who funds Electronic Frontier Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds ELECTRONIC PRIVACY INFORMATION CENTER ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE ANIMAL COMMUNITY ↗
- Who funds NORTHSIDE PET CONNECTION ↗
- Who funds Sonora Cat Rescue ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF CALAVERAS ANIMAL SERVICES OR FOCAS ↗
- Who funds MEALS ON WHEELS OF SAN FRANCISCO INC ↗
- Who funds DONORSCHOOSEORG ↗
- Who funds SAN FRANCISCO FOOD BANK ↗
- Who funds THE DC CENTRAL KITCHEN INC ↗
- Who funds LOS ANGELES REGIONAL FOOD BANK ↗
- Who funds LARK TRADITIONAL ARTS ↗
- Who funds LACES (LIFEANDCHANGEEXPERIENCEDTHRUSPORTS ↗
- Who funds OREGON HUMANE SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds American National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches ↗
- Who funds EVIDENCE ACTION ↗
- Who funds ALAMEDA COUNTY COMMUNITY FOOD BANK ↗
- Who funds THE CLEAR FUND ↗
- Who funds CENTER ON CONSCIENCE & WAR ↗
- Who funds ESCUELA BILINGUE INTERNACIONAL ↗
- Who funds PLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION OF AMERICA INC ↗
- Who funds THE GOOD FOOD INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds OARC Inc ↗
- Who funds KQED INC ↗
- Who funds HEALTHRIGHT 360 ↗
- Who funds Urban Angels SF ↗
- Who funds Poverello House ↗
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: Marin Community Foundation · The San Francisco Foundation · The Yelp Foundation · East Bay Community Foundation · The William & Flora Hewlett Foundation · Silicon Valley Community Foundation · Arthur and Charlotte Zitrin Foundation · McNabb Foundation · Walter and Elise Haas Fund · Kenneth Rainin Foundation · Teichert Foundation · Horizons 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 Craigslist Charitable Fund 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.
- Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution — 63% of income from government
- Sandy Hook Promise Foundation — 0% of income from government
- Americares Foundation Inc — 0% of income from government
- Oxfam-America Inc — 0% 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.