· Private foundation
Diana Nelson and John Atwater 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
95% of Diana Nelson and John Atwater Family Foundation’s FY2025 grant dollars went to President And Fellows Of Harvard College, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2025 names 1 organization directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What you funded, over time
Every grant clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- $10k–50k1 grant · $10k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $200k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Harvard University | $200,313 |
| KIPP Minnesota | $10,044 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 26% of your dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 67% of Diana Nelson and John Atwater Family Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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.
5 repeat relationships — 1 still active in FY2025, 4 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 MUSEUM OF MODERN ART2× · 2017–2018 · $70k · revenue +37%
- RPREADING PARTNERS2× · 2019–2020 · $50k · revenue +2%
Northwestern University3× · 2017–2023 · $17k · revenue +41%
Funded once
- WSWorld Savvyone grant, 2021 · $50k · revenue -17%
Teach for America Incone grant, 2018 · $40k · revenue +1%- TOTHE OPPORTUNITY TRUST D/B/A ZEST EDUCATIONgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $25k · revenue +240%
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.
The common application is a not-for-profit membership organization of over 1,100 colleges and universities across the globe committed to access, equity, and integrity in the college admission process. every year, over 1.5 million students…
The mission of south shore charter school is to cultivate students the tenacity, integrity, and curiosity needed to become innovative and socially responsible leaders, ready to face and solve the ever-changing challenges facing our…
See schedule okqed serves the people of northern california with a community-supported alternative to commercial media, providing the knowledge needed to make informed decisions; convening community dialogue; bringing the arts to everyone;…
The University of New Haven is a student-centered comprehensive university with an emphasis on excellence in liberal arts and professional education. Our mission is to prepare our students to lead purposeful and fulfilling lives in a…
We believe that great schools are the cornerstone of a just and thriving community. ensuring that every child is able to attend a school that works is our moral and social imperative - our children deserve no less.
Seattle academy is a dynamic community that challenges students to question, imagine, and create in order to contribute to a changing world.
At san francisco friends school, students learn in a community grounded in the quaker values of reflection, integrity, peaceful problem-solving and stewardship. our teachers challenge students with a dynamic curriculum that inspires…
The organization's primary exempt purpose is to provide access to and conduct activities in furtherance of higher education.
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
Rooted in the liberal arts & sciences & lutheran expression of the christian faith, & is committed to offering a challenging education that develops qualities of mind, spirit, & body necessary for a rewarding life of leadership & service…
The mission of the silicon schools fund is to improve education through supporting the launch of excellent new schools, improving academic instruction in existing schools, and by funding some of the boldest innovations in education…
The philadelphia school educates children for a future that is impossible to know but not impossible to shape. learn here. go anywhere.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Teach for America Inc and the most unlike its peers is San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. 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 16 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 President and Fellows of Harvard College ↗
- Who funds SAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM OF MODERN ART ↗
- Who funds READING PARTNERS ↗
- Who funds World Savvy ↗
- Who funds Teach for America Inc ↗
- Who funds KIPP Minnesota ↗
- Who funds THE OPPORTUNITY TRUST D/B/A ZEST EDUCATION ↗
- Who funds COMMON SENSE MEDIA ↗
- Who funds SAFE & SOUND ↗
- Who funds Northwestern University ↗
- Who funds THE 19TH NEWS ↗
- Who funds OREGON SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE BLAKE SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds 10000 DEGREES ↗
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: Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile 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 Diana Nelson and John Atwater 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 or a single department — and drag the year to watch it move.
- President and Fellows of Harvard College — 7% of income from government
- Oregon Shakespeare Festival Association 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.
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Find your warmest path to Diana Nelson and John Atwater 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.