· Private foundation
Elerding Family 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.
Read this first · the figures below need context
80% of Elerding Family Foundation’s FY2024 grant dollars went to Donors Trust Inc, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2024 names 10 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2017, the last year Elerding Family Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 16 organizations, $220k. 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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2017
- Under $10k11 grants · $35k
- $10k–50k11 grants · $185k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| HANDS TOGETHER A CENTER FOR CHILDRE | $25,000 |
| FAMILIES FORWARD | $25,000 |
| ORANGE COUNTY SCHOOL OF THE ARTS | $25,000 |
| SHARE OUR SELVES | $25,000 |
| ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE RESEARCH FOUNDA | $20,000 |
| NAVY-MARINE CORPS RELIEF SOCIETY | $15,000 |
| COURT APPNTD SPECIAL ADVOCATES OF O | $10,000 |
| CUSTOM CANINES SERVICE DOG ACADEMY | $10,000 |
| DARKNESS TO LIGHT | $10,000 |
| CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OF ORANGE CNTY | $10,000 |
| CORAL REEF ALLIANCE | $10,000 |
| ART CREATIVITY FOR HEALING | $5,000 |
| ORANGEWOOD CHILDRENS FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| OCSPCA | $5,000 |
| PEDIATRIC CANCER RESEARCH FOUNDATIO | $5,000 |
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, $211k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 73% of Elerding 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +57% since the first grant, against +29% for the ones you funded once.
16 repeat relationships — 7 still active in FY2017, 9 since wound down; 22 grantees were first funded in FY2017 (too recent to call). Read against FY2017, 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 FY2024, 92% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $30k 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
- OCORANGE COUNTY SCHOOL OF THE ARTS6× · 2017–2023 · $605k · revenue +71%
- CHCHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OF ORANGE COUNTY4× · 2017–2021 · $385k · revenue +127%
- OCORANGE COUNTY MUSIC AND DANCE INC5× · 2020–2024 · $277k · revenue +184%
Funded once
- HTHANDS Together A Center for Childrenone grant, 2017 · $25k · revenue +16%
- RERiding Emphasizing Individual Needs & Strengthsone grant, 2024 · $10k · revenue 0%
- CACOURT APPNTD SPECIAL ADVOCATES OF Oone grant, 2017 · $10k
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.
To help kids and families heal the emotional scars of childhood cancer and learn to thrive.
To transform lives and communities by providing an array of programs, all directed toward changing the lives of children in the foster care system aimed to prevent academic failure, drug abuse, teen pregnancy, sex trafficking,…
Curesearch's mission is to fund & support targeted & innovative cancer research with measurable results, & to be the authoritative source of information & resources for all those affected by children's cancer. see schedule o for…
California ocean science trust (ost) is a non-profit organization dedicated to accelerating progress towards a healthy and productive ocean future for california. created by state legislation, ost bridges the gap between cutting-edge…
To distribute public affairs and other educational information in order to create an electronic bridge between californians and their public officials, and, in the process educate a new generation of voting citizens and civic leaders who…
In addition to rescue and adoption, pet orphans provides a wide range of services including education, medical/financial, spay/neuter, and training assistance.
Promotion and advancement of children's health through patient care, research, and education.
Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.
The foundation's mission is to improve the oral health of all californians by supporting the dental profession and its efforts to meet community needs.
Camp one step by children's oncology services is a leader in providing empowering, supportive, educational, and fun experiences for children (ages birth-19) who have been diagnosed with cancer and their families. we are the only local…
Crittenton provides transformative behavioral health services, supportive housing, and foster care to children, young adults, and families to build a better future.
To help conquer cancer and other diseases through the application of biostatistical principles and innovative data management methods.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Families Forward and the most unlike its peers is Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors Inc. 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 27 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 23% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
30 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. 30 of the 39 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 Donors Trust Inc ↗
- Who funds ORANGE COUNTY SCHOOL OF THE ARTS ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OF ORANGE COUNTY ↗
- Who funds ORANGE COUNTY MUSIC AND DANCE INC ↗
- Who funds FAMILIES FORWARD ↗
- Who funds ALZHEIMER'S FAMILY SERVICES CENTER ↗
- Who funds TRAGEDY ASSISTANCE PROGRAM FOR SURVIVORS INC ↗
- Who funds PALM SPRINGS AIR MUSEUM INC ↗
- Who funds Let Them Breathe ↗
- Who funds NAVY-MARINE CORPS RELIEF SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds Share Our Selves Corporation ↗
- Who funds CATERINAS CLUB ↗
- Who funds MIRACLES FOR KIDS INC ↗
- Who funds ORANGEWOOD FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds HANDS Together A Center for Children ↗
- Who funds Riding Emphasizing Individual Needs & Strengths ↗
- Who funds FOLDS OF HONOR FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Orange County Coastkeeper ↗
- Who funds CUSTOM CANINE SERVICE DOG ACADEMY INC ↗
- Who funds Camp Kesem National ↗
- Who funds THE DRAGON KIM FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Arms of Love International ↗
- Who funds THE CORAL REEF ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds DARKNESS TO LIGHT INC ↗
- Who funds PEDIATRIC CANCER RESEARCH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE SURFRIDER FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds NEPAL YOUTH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds PUPPIES BEHIND BARS INC ↗
- Who funds NAVY SEAL FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds INSTITUTE FOR JUSTICE ↗
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: Orange County Community Foundation · Sempra Foundation · Edwards Lifesciences Foundation · California Community Foundation · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · The Pfizer Foundation Inc · American Endowment Foundation · National Philanthropic Trust · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program
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 Elerding 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.
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.