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Washington, D.C. · Public charity

First Focus

Bipartisan advocacy organization dedicated to making children and families the priority in federal policy and budget decisions.

$120k
Granted FY2019
5
Grants FY2019
5
Organizations funded FY2019
60%
First-time grantees FY2019
Read the full brief
Median grant, FY2019
$20,000
Largest grant, FY2019
$200,000
Organizations funded a year
5 to 19
FY2017 to FY2019
States reached, FY2019
5
Total assets, FY2019
$6.7M

How open it is to new grantees

In FY2019, 60% of the organizations First Focus funded were first-time grantees, receiving 86% of its grant dollars.

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2019, 14% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $240k went to new ones.

50%100%’18’19
RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

’18’19
Human ServicesCrime & LegalCommunity ImprovementEducationOther
How this is measured
First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). The earliest year is left-censored: relationships that predate the data read as new. Theme is the grantee’s IRS cause.
The numbers by year
Fiscal yearOrganizations fundedTo those organizationsFirst-time grantees
FY20195$280k60%
FY201816$326k56%
FY201719$190kn/a
100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2019.

Civil Rights$490kCrime & Legal$118kHuman Services$70kEducation$50kReligion$30kYouth Development$18kHealth$10kPublic Benefit$10k

Where its grants go

Grant dollars by states, across the years we hold.

Which US states its grants reach

AK
ME
WA
ID
IL
WI
NY
MA
OR
IA
OH
PA
NJ
CA
UT
CO
MO
KY
WV
VA
AZ
NM
AR
NC
HI
GA
TX
FL

Top grantees

Largest recipients by total granted, FY2017 to FY2019, and the share of each one’s budget the grants supplied at peak.

Show all 31 grantees

Where it is load-bearing

Each grantee by its size and the share of its budget First Focus supplied at peak.

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetTexans Care For Children Inc: $50,000 over 3y, 3.0% of budgetChild and Family Policy Center: $38,000 over 3y, 0.8% of budgetVoices for Georgia's Children Inc: $38,000 over 3y, 1.8% of budgetVoices for Virginia's Children: $38,000 over 3y, 3.3% of budgetChildren First for Oregon: $30,000 over 3y, 2.0% of budgetVoices for Ohios Children: $30,000 over 3y, 1.4% of budgetKentucky Youth Advocates Inc: $26,000 over 3y, 0.5% of budgetFacing Foster Care in Alaska: $20,000 over 2y, 8.1% of budgetFosteradopt Connect Inc: $20,000 over 2y, 0.3% of budgetChildren's Advocates for Change: $20,000 over 1y, 3.9% of budgetChildren's Advocacy Alliance: $20,000 over 1y, 3.6% of budgetMulti-Agency Alliance for Children Inc: $20,000 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetChildren Now: $10,000 over 3y, 0.1% of budgetNorth Carolina Partnership for Children Inc: $10,000 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetAdvocates for Children of New York: $10,000 over 3y, 0.2% of budgetWest Virginia Healthy Kids and Families Coalition: $10,000 over 3y, 0.8% of budgetColorado Children's Campaign: $10,000 over 3y, 0.6% of budgetUtah Children: $10,000 over 3y, 1.0% of budgetPennsylvania Partnerships for Children: $10,000 over 3y, 0.6% of budgetThe Children's Partnership: $10,000 over 3y, 0.5% of budgetMaine Children's Alliance: $10,000 over 3y, 1.5% of budgetSchuyler Center for Analysis and Advocacy Inc: $10,000 over 3y, 0.8% of budgetWispirg Foundation Inc: $10,000 over 3y, 7.4% of budgetNew Mexico Child Advocacy Networks: $8,000 over 2y, 0.9% of budgetMassachusetts Law Reform Institute Inc: $8,000 over 2y, 0.2% of budget

Tap a dot to name the grantee.

How this is measured
Share of budget is the funder’s grant in a year over the grantee’s total revenue that year, at its highest across the years we hold; revenue is from all sources. Only grantees confirmed against their own filings, whose grants do not exceed their revenue, are plotted: the largest 25.

Nonprofits that may fit its grantmaking

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Annie E Casey Foundation IncMD39.6× affinity18 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Annie E Casey Foundation Inc · Partnership for Americas Children · Alliance for Early Success Fka Birth to Five Policy Alliance · The David and Lucile Packard Foundation · American Heart Association Inc · Center on Budget and Policy Priorities · Georgetown University · New Venture Fund · MAZON A Jewish Response to Hunger · Carequest Foundation Inc · Pritzker Family Foundation · Hopewell Fund

How this is measured
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

Compare First Focus with peer funders

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to First Focus?

Find your warmest path to First Focus 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.

About First Focus

How much does First Focus give?
First Focus reported 5 grants totaling $120,000 in its FY2019 IRS filing. It funded between 5 and 19 organizations a year over FY2017 to FY2019.
What does First Focus fund?
By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2019, its largest causes are Civil Rights (62%), Crime & Legal (15%), Human Services (9%).
Who are First Focus's largest grantees?
By total granted over FY2017 to FY2019: Idaho Voices for Children Foundation Inc ($200k), Texans Care For Children Inc ($50k), Child and Family Policy Center ($38k).
Does First Focus fund new organizations?
In FY2019, 60% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.
Which funders back the same organizations as First Focus?
Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Annie E Casey Foundation Inc, Partnership for Americas Children, Alliance for Early Success Fka Birth to Five Policy Alliance.
Where is First Focus based?
First Focus is based in DC.

On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 31 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

How this is measured
Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears.

Generated from the IRS Form 990 e-file return for fiscal year 2019, released 2019. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Possibly out of date. A more recent filing (FY2024) is on record and reports no grant expense, so the figures above are from FY2019, the most recent year this funder made grants.

Source object · view filing

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