· Private foundation
Epispace 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
77% of Epispace Foundation’s FY2024 grant dollars went to Bank Of America Charitable Gift Fd, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2024 names 3 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2022, the last year Epispace Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 11 organizations, $735k. 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 · FY2022
- $10k–50k8 grants · $145k
- $50k–250k5 grants · $590k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| RCS EMPOWERS INC | $230,000 |
| BANK OF AMERICA CHARITABLE GIFT FUND | $160,000 |
| PORTLIGHT STRATEGIES INC | $100,000 |
| COUNTERPULSE | $50,000 |
| SECOND HARVEST OF SILICON VALLEY | $50,000 |
| BRILLIANT CORNERS | $25,000 |
| ACCESS LIVING OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO | $20,000 |
| ABLE WORKS | $20,000 |
| TIDES CENTER | $20,000 |
| REPRESENTUS EDUCATION FUND | $20,000 |
| CREATIVITY EXPLORED | $15,000 |
| DECRIMINALIZE SEX WORK | $15,000 |
| CALIFORNIA YIMBY EDUCATION FUND | $10,000 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 85% of your 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.
7 repeat relationships — 5 still active in FY2022, 2 since wound down; 8 grantees were first funded in FY2022 (too recent to call). Read against FY2022, 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, 38% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $100k 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
- PSPORTLIGHT STRATEGIES INC7× · 2017–2023 · $769k · revenue -17% · 85% of their budget
- SHSECOND HARVEST OF SILICON VALLEY3× · 2021–2023 · $200k · revenue -4%
- CCounterPulse4× · 2019–2024 · $180k · revenue +34%
Funded once
- PFPARTNERSHIP FOR INCLUSIVE DISASTERS STRATEGIESone grant, 2017 · $433k
- AIASSIST INTERNATIONAL INCgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $110k · revenue +51%
- UIUBW INCone grant, 2021 · $50k
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.
Center for Humane Technology is a nonprofit dedicated to ensuring that the most consequential technologies actually serve humanity. We bring clarity to how the tech ecosystem works in order to shift the incentives that drive it.
ReScape addresses climate change by providing a regenerative, nature-based whole systems foundation for landscaping education, workforce development and policy.Foundational to our work is a whole systems watershed framework that…
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.
Improving the transparency and scientific integrity of climate solutions through open data and tools.
Advocating for public policies that advance democratic values in the digital age.
Our mission at housing trust silicon valley, is to use transformative housing finance and public and private partnerships to create more equitable and affordable communities.
Transform works to ensure that people of all incomes thrive in a world safe from climate chaos.
Our team of experienced journalists, with the time and resources to dig deep, is committed to meaningfully informing Californians about the players, politics, and interests that shape the issues that affect their lives.
All our efforts support our strategic goals to increase housing supply, advance racial equity and build resilience and upward mobility.the organization raises private capital through investment and by forming effective partnerships.…
To promote macroeconomic policies that ensure the sustained advancement of labor market outcomes for all american workers, i.e. tight labor markets, higher wages and better quality employment.
FFWD accelerates the growth of technology nonprofits by providing financial and human capital to help scale technology solutions for education, environmental, health, and human rights issues.
Building a movement of diverse, upwardly mobile college grads overcoming underemployment through digital skills and peer connections.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Access Living of Metropolitan Chicago and the most unlike its peers is Black Music Entrepreneurship Incubator. 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 29 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% 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.
24 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. 24 of the 30 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 BANK OF AMERICA CHARITABLE GIFT FD ↗
- Who funds PORTLIGHT STRATEGIES INC ↗
- Who funds RCS EMPOWERS INC ↗
- Who funds SECOND HARVEST OF SILICON VALLEY ↗
- Who funds CounterPulse ↗
- Who funds ASSIST INTERNATIONAL INC ↗
- Who funds Black Music Entrepreneurship Incubator ↗
- Who funds President and Fellows of Harvard College ↗
- Who funds RepresentUs Education Fund ↗
- Who funds KELSEY ↗
- Who funds BRILLIANT CORNERS ↗
- Who funds California YIMBY Education Fund ↗
- Who funds ABLE WORKS ↗
- Who funds TIDES CENTER ↗
- Who funds Access Living of Metropolitan Chicago ↗
- Who funds TRUST FOR HIDDEN VILLA ↗
- Who funds CREATIVITY EXPLORED INC ↗
- Who funds Decriminalize Sex Work ↗
- Who funds THE ACCESS FUND ↗
- Who funds COMMON CAUSE EDUCATION FUND ↗
- Who funds THE BAIL PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds Independent Arts & Media ↗
- Who funds Urban Habitat Program ↗
- Who funds INTERNET SECURITY RESEARCH GROUP ↗
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: Silicon Valley Community Foundation · The San Francisco Foundation · Tides Foundation · The William & Flora Hewlett Foundation · The Ford Foundation · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · American Endowment Foundation · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Network for Good · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · National Philanthropic Trust
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 Epispace 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
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 Epispace Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Epispace 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.