· Private foundation
E M Downer 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.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| TROON COUNTRY CLUB SCHOLARSHIPFOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| EAST BAY CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS | $5,000 |
| YOUNG MENS CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF THE EAST BAY | $5,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $5,000 |
| CALIFORNIA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC | $5,000 |
| GOEN SENIOR CENTER CORPORATION | $2,500 |
| BOYS AND GIRLS CLUBS OF NAPA VALLEY | $2,500 |
| KHAN ACADEMY INC | $1,000 |
| RICHMOND ART CENTER | $1,000 |
| THE DAWN REDWOODS CHARITABLE TRUST | $1,000 |
| SALESIAN HIGH SCHOOL | $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 (FY17–24, $21k) 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 +14% since the first grant, against +13% for the ones you funded once.
11 repeat relationships — 8 still active in FY2024, 3 since wound down; 3 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, 87% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $5k 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
- CSCALIFORNIA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC8× · 2017–2024 · $34k · revenue +30%
- EBEast Bay Center for the Performing Arts8× · 2017–2024 · $27k · revenue +16%
- BCBOYS CLUB OF NAPA INC BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF NAPA VALLEY5× · 2017–2024 · $11k · revenue +119%
Funded once
- JIJ-SEI INCone grant, 2022 · $5k · revenue +13%
- JMJohn Muir Land Trust prev Muir Heritage Land Trustgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $5k · revenue +212%
- YMYoung Men's Christian Association of the East Baygraduatedone grant, 2017 · $5k · revenue +202%
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.
UC Berkeley Center for Executive Education ("CEE") is a nonprofit public benefit corporation dedicated to promoting and advancing education through its executive education programs for corporate and institutional clients seeking continuing…
The mission of the California Youth Symphony (CYS) is to serve the community while providing talented young musicians with the finest musical experience and the opportunity for personal growth through the training and performance of…
Located in scenic Napa Valley, di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art engages its community in the connective power of art and nature through its permanent collection of Northern California art, contemporary exhibitions, and thought-provoking…
The AIA California, in collaboration with local components, is the voice of the architectural profession.
The mission of berkeley symphony is to celebrate our unique and diverse community through music-creating live performances and educational programs to engage the curiosity, spirit, and intellect of our audiences.
Culture-enriched music & arts programs are offered to the young & adult in the San Francisco Bay Area, giving individual, group lessons, after-school music & arts
We empower our students to become creative world citizens. Our exceptional multi-lingual program equips our students with outstanding academic skills and proficiency in German English and other elected languages. Our multicultural and…
Marin open studios is a non-profit visual arts organization dedicated to engaging and supporting marin county artists and their audiences through events, programs and services. marin open studios champions a diverse and inclusive community…
Yuba River Charter School provides K-8 public Waldorf education that nurtures the physical, emotional and intellectual capacities of the child through a developmentally appropriate curriculum. YRCS brings forth the academic, social,…
The Mission of the Boy Scouts of America is to prepare young people to make ethical and moral choices over their lifetimes by instilling in them the values of the Scout Oath and Law. The vision of the Boy Scouts of America is to prepare…
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 Young Men's Christian Association of the East Bay and the most unlike its peers is The Dawn Redwoods Charitable Trust. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
16 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. 16 of the 19 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 CALIFORNIA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC ↗
- Who funds East Bay Center for the Performing Arts ↗
- Who funds Richmond Art Center ↗
- Who funds BOYS CLUB OF NAPA INC BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF NAPA VALLEY ↗
- Who funds TROON COUNTRY CLUB SCHOLARSHIP FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds BAY AREA RESCUE MISSION ↗
- Who funds J-SEI INC ↗
- Who funds John Muir Land Trust prev Muir Heritage Land Trust ↗
- Who funds Young Men's Christian Association of the East Bay ↗
- Who funds Linfield University ↗
- Who funds GOEN SENIOR CENTER CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds Rotary Club of Richmond Inc ↗
- Who funds PINOLE HISTORY MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds WHITE PONY EXPRESS ↗
- Who funds THE DAWN REDWOODS CHARITABLE TRUST ↗
- Who funds KHAN ACADEMY 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: East Bay Community Foundation · Kaiser Foundation Hospitals · The San Francisco Foundation · Dean and Margaret Lesher Foundation · Richmond Community Foundation · Marin Community Foundation · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc
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 E M Downer 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.
- Linfield University — 4% 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to E M Downer Foundation?
Find your warmest path to E M Downer 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.