· Private foundation
Esserman Family Foundation % Lisa Esserman
Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
Read this first · the figures below need context
100% of Esserman Family Foundation % Lisa Esserman’s FY2024 grant dollars went to The Miami Foundation Inc, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2024 names 0 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2023, the last year Esserman Family Foundation % Lisa Esserman named its own grantees at scale: 9 organizations, $125k. 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 · FY2023
- Under $10k7 grants · $25k
- $10k–50k7 grants · $100k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Greater Miami Jewish Federation | $20,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $20,000 |
| American Jewish Committee | $15,000 |
| University of Maryland Baltimore Foundation | $15,000 |
| Zoo Miami Foundation | $10,000 |
| Quantum Leap Healthcare Collaborative | $10,000 |
| Adrienne Arsht Center Foundation | $10,000 |
| Temple Beth Am | $7,475 |
| Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence | $5,000 |
| ACLU of Florida | $5,000 |
| Florida Grand Opera | $2,500 |
| Planned Parenthood Federation | $2,000 |
| Civic Chorale of Greater Miami | $2,000 |
| Adrienne Arsht Center Foundation | $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 (FY17–23, $50k) land where the poverty rate runs at 8%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 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.
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 49% of Esserman Family Foundation % Lisa Esserman’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. Read by recipient address, 87% of the giving stays in FL; read by stated purpose it is 85% — less of the work is directed home than the recipients' locations suggest.
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.
12 repeat relationships — 10 still active in FY2023, 2 since wound down; 2 grantees were first funded in FY2023 (too recent to call). Read against FY2023, 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
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2024, 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
- UOUNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND BALTIMORE FOUNDATION INC7× · 2017–2023 · $105k · revenue +60%
AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE4× · 2020–2023 · $60k · revenue +68%- QLQUANTUM LEAP HEALTHCARE COLLABORATIVE4× · 2017–2023 · $50k · revenue +265%
Funded once
- BBBig Brothers and Big Sisters of Miamione grant, 2018 · $3k
- LFLYMPHEDEMA FOUNDATION OF SOUTH FLORIDA INCone grant, 2017 · $2k
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.
See Form 990, Part I, Line 1, Description of Organization Mission.
The mission of greater miami opera is to enrich people's lives through an awareness and deeper appreciation of opera. by expanding its reach to diverse communities throughout miami and fort lauderdale and wider audiences abroad creating a…
To enrich people's lives through an awareness and deeper appreciation of opera in broward county.
The mission of dfci is to provide expert, compassionate, and equitable care to children, adults, and their families, while advancing the understanding, diagnosis, treatment, cure, and prevention of cancer and related diseases. we train new…
In 2024, biscayne bay waterkeeper (d/b/a miami waterkeeper) built on our reputation by navigating challenges, seizing opportunities, and continuing our unwavering commitment to safeguarding our precious waterways and finding local…
Americas society is an educational forum which presents programs in its public policy and cultural affairs departments.
We harness the power of plants for humankind and share the joy and beauty of tropical gardening with everyone. fairchild tropical botanic garden is a museum of tropical plants within a world famous, 83-acre designed landscape. it was…
The adrienne arsht center is a leader in presenting innovative programming that mirrors south florida's diversity, as well as a catalyst for billions of dollars in new development in the downtown area. the center presents nearly 400 events…
Provide clinical instruction to and supervision of medical school students, interns and residents and, incident thereto, rendering professional services.
Working in partnership with state business leaders to secure florida's future.
Susan g. komen 's mission is to save lives by meeting the most critical needs in our communities & investing in breakthrough research to prevent & cure breast cancer.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Miami Foundation Inc and the most unlike its peers is Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
11 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. 11 of the 18 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 THE MIAMI FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds GREATER MIAMI JEWISH FEDERATION INC ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND BALTIMORE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE ↗
- Who funds QUANTUM LEAP HEALTHCARE COLLABORATIVE ↗
- Who funds BRADY CENTER TO PREVENT GUN VIOLENCE ↗
- Who funds ADRIENNE ARSHT CENTER FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds ZOO MIAMI FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds CIVIC CHORALE OF GREATER MIAMI INC ↗
- Who funds PLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION OF AMERICA INC ↗
- Who funds FLORIDA GRAND OPERA 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: 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 Esserman Family Foundation % Lisa Esserman 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, a single department, or state — and drag the year to watch it move.
- University of Maryland Baltimore Foundation Inc — 3% of income from government
- Zoo Miami Foundation 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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How do I get to Esserman Family Foundation % Lisa Esserman?
Find your warmest path to Esserman Family Foundation % Lisa Esserman 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.