· Private foundation
Donald Brian Miselis Foundation
Its FY2024 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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k6 grants · $12k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $70k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MENDOCINO LAND TRUST | $30,000 |
| MENDOCINO LAND TRUST | $20,000 |
| LAYTONVILLE HEALTH START | $10,000 |
| INSTITUTE FOR JUSTICE | $10,000 |
| LAYTONVILLE LONG VALLEY LIONESS CLU | $5,000 |
| PRO PUBLICA | $2,000 |
| SOS OUTREACH | $2,000 |
| REDWOOD COMMUNITY RADIO INC | $1,000 |
| IDYLLWILD ARTS FOUNDATION | $1,000 |
| COPPER RIVER WATERSHED PROJECT | $1,000 |
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 (FY21–22, $2k) land where the poverty rate runs at 7%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 0% of those 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.
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.
12 repeat relationships — 5 still active in FY2024, 7 since wound down; 4 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 79% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $17k 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
- MLMendocino Land Trust2× · 2023–2024 · $90k · revenue +27%
- THTHE HARWOOD MEMORIAL PARK INC4× · 2020–2023 · $40k · revenue +28%
- EREEL RIVER RECOVERY PROJECT INC4× · 2020–2023 · $30k · revenue ×16
Funded once
- HSHEALTH STARTone grant, 2017 · $5k
- EREel River Recovery Projectone grant, 2019 · $4k
- GWGEORGE WHITTEL HIGH SCHOOLone grant, 2017 · $4k
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.
Cascadia wildlands defends and restores cacasia's wild ecosystems in the forests,in the courts, and in the streets. we envision vast old-growth forests, rivers full of wild salmon, wolves howling in the backcountry, a stable climate, and…
At Yosemite Rivers Alliance, we unite conservation and community to protect and restore the three rivers that ?ow through the Yosemite Regionthe Tuolumne, Stanislaus, and Merced.
Save the redwoods league protects and restores redwood forests and connects people with their peace and beauty so these wonders of the natural world flourish.
The California Wilderness Coalition protects the natural landscapes that make California unique, providing clean air and water, a home to wildlife, and a place for recreation and spiritual renewal.
Rainforest trust saves endangered wildlife and protects our planet by creating rainforest reserves through partnerships, community engagement, and donor support.
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…
The Sierra Fund (TSF) is a non-profit organization with a mission to restore ecosystem and community resiliency in the Sierra Nevada.
The council of western state foresters (cwsf) promotes the conservation, protection, and sustainable management of forests for today and generations to come by leading collective action, fostering learning, facilitating resource sharing,…
To ensure coast redwood forests in the santa cruz mountains thrive for generations to come. since 1900, sempervirens has protected more than 36,000 acres. learn more about our mission, vision, and strategic plan through 2030 at:…
Global Forest Generation restores and protects forest ecosystems in partnership with grassroots leaders and local communities across vast landscapes which play a critical role in preserving water, protecting biodiversity, storing carbon,…
Connect conservationists and supporters, deploy resources to the field, provide conservationists with tools and support they need to succeed.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Winnarainbow Inc Dba Camp Winnarainbow and the most unlike its peers is K9 Global Rescue. 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 30 years old; the field is 14. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 24% startups (under 5 years old) — 5% of your grantees by number, and just 2% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 14% 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.
22 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. 22 of the 42 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 Mendocino Land Trust ↗
- Who funds THE HARWOOD MEMORIAL PARK INC ↗
- Who funds EEL RIVER RECOVERY PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds Trees Foundation ↗
- Who funds INSTITUTE FOR JUSTICE ↗
- Who funds Copper River Watershed Project ↗
- Who funds WHITTELL BOOSTERS CLUB INC ↗
- Who funds SOS OUTREACH ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds PRO PUBLICA INC ↗
- Who funds For The Wild Collective ↗
- Who funds CLOUD FOREST INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds WINNARAINBOW INC DBA CAMP WINNARAINBOW ↗
- Who funds TAHOE COALITION FOR THE HOMELESS ↗
- Who funds IDYLLWILD ARTS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds K9 GLOBAL RESCUE ↗
- Who funds COMPUTERCORPS ↗
- Who funds REDWOOD COMMUNITY RADIO INC ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY PARTNERS INTERNATIONAL ↗
- Who funds VERMONT ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds Douglas Animal Welfare Group ↗
- Who funds WILDLAND FIREFIGHTER FOUNDATION ↗
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 of Mendocino County · National Philanthropic Trust · Paypal Charitable Giving Fund · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Network for Good · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · American Online Giving Foundation 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 Donald Brian Miselis 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.
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.