· Private foundation
Esther Esh Sternberg Foundation
Its FY2020 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
100% of Esther Esh Sternberg Foundation’s FY2019 grant dollars went to Jewish Communal Fund, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2019 names 0 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2017, the last year Esther Esh Sternberg Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 24 organizations, $25k. 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 FY2017–2019.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ICAHN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE | $3,000 |
| METROPOLITAN OPERA | $2,750 |
| WEIZMANN INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE | $2,500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $1,000 |
| DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS | $700 |
| JEWISH GUILD HEALTHCARE | $600 |
| NEW YORK PHILHARMONIC | $600 |
| PLANNED PARENTHOOD | $600 |
| THIRTEEN | $600 |
| UNION FOR REFORMED JUDIASM | $500 |
| FOOD BANK OF NY | $500 |
| AMERICAN INSTITUTE OF CANCER RESEARCH | $500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $500 |
| AMFAR | $500 |
| GMHC | $500 |
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 (FY17–17, $300) land where the poverty rate runs at 17%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 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.
5 repeat relationships — 5 still active in FY2017, 0 since wound down; 40 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 FY2018, 71% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2k 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
- CCITYMEALS-ON-WHEELS2× · 2017–2018 · $750 · revenue +38%
- RFROSCOE FREE LIBRARY2× · 2017–2018 · $700 · revenue +5%
- MMMETROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART2× · 2017–2018 · $670 · revenue +58%
Funded once
ICAHN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AT MOUNT SINAIgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $3k · revenue +58%- WIWEIZMANN INSTITUTE OF SCIENCEone grant, 2017 · $3k
- HHADDASSAHone grant, 2018 · $1k
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.
The museum's mission statement is: "to discover, interpret, and disseminate - through scientific research and education - knowledge about human cultures, the natural world, and the universe."
The museum of the city of new york fosters understanding of the distinctive nature of urban life in the world's most influential metropolis. it engages visitors by celebrating, documenting, and interpreting the city's past, present, and…
Nyu is a private university with approximately 60,000 matriculating students in 20 schools and institutes. nyu's primary missions are education, research and scholarship, and patient care.
For over 150 years, the 92nd street y, new york has been serving its communities and the larger world by bringing people together (continued on schedule o)and providing exceptional, groundbreaking programs in the performing and visual…
The weitzman national museum of american jewish history, on independence mall in philadelphia, presents educational programs and experiences that preserve, explore, and celebrate the history of jews in america. its purpose is to connect…
Chartered by a unanimous act of congress, the museum is america's national institution for the documentation, study, interpretation, and education of holocaust history and serves as our country's memorial to the victims of the holocaust.…
Operate a state-of-the-art, world-class genomic research center that creates and uses advanced genomics to understand the genetic basis of disease. for more information, see schedule o.
The national september 11 memorial & museum at the world trade center bears solemn witness to the terrorist attacks of september 11, 2001, and february 26, 1993. located at a site made sacred through loss, the memorial & museum remembers…
The Morgan Library & Museum celebrates and shares the history and process of human creativity from antiquity to the present day through the preservation, study, and interpretation of a dynamic and growing collection.
The founding mission of the new-york historical society ("the new york historical "tnyh") is to collect, preserve, and interpret, for the broadest possible public, material relevant to the history of the united states in general and of new…
The contemporary jewish museum (the cjm) makes the diversity of the jewish experience relevant for a twenty-first-century audience through innovative exhibitions and programs that educate, challenge, and inspire.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The New York Public Library Astor Lenox and Tilden Foundations and the most unlike its peers is Roscoe Free Library. 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 47 years old; the field is 18. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 18% 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 11% 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.
26 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. 26 of the 47 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 JEWISH COMMUNAL FUND ↗
- Who funds ICAHN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AT MOUNT SINAI ↗
- Who funds CITYMEALS-ON-WHEELS ↗
- Who funds ROSCOE FREE LIBRARY ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART ↗
- Who funds THE PHILHARMONIC SYMPHONY SOCIETY OF NY INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL JEWISH HEALTH ↗
- Who funds CITY HARVEST INC ↗
- Who funds THE FOUNDATION FOR AIDS RESEARCH ↗
- Who funds GAY MEN'S HEALTH CRISIS INC ↗
- Who funds UNITED JEWISH APPEAL-FEDERATION OF JEWISH PHILANTHROPIES OF NEW YORK INC ↗
- Who funds The New York Public Library Astor Lenox and Tilden Foundations ↗
- Who funds NEW YORK PUBLIC RADIO ↗
- Who funds CENTRAL PARK CONSERVANCY INC ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR HEARING AND COMMUNICATION ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL YIDDISH BOOK CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds West Side Hatzoloh ↗
- Who funds THE CENTER FOR JEWISH HISTORY INC ↗
- Who funds THE JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER IN MANHATTAN INC ↗
- Who funds JEWISH NATIONAL FUND (KEREN KAYEMETH LEISRAEL) INC ↗
- Who funds THE JEWISH MUSEUM ↗
Government reliance of your grantees
Every dot is one organization Esther Esh Sternberg 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.
- National Yiddish Book Center Inc — 2% 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 Esther Esh Sternberg Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Esther Esh Sternberg 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.