· Public charity
Food for Families
The purpose of FOOD FOR FAMILIES is to alleviate hunger in the communities we serve.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2021.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2021
- $10k–50k1 grant · $39k
- $50k–250k3 grants · $317k
- $250k+8 grants · $6.0M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| SACRAMENTO FOOD BANK & FAMILY SERVICES | $1,285,619 |
| SECOND HARVEST FOOD BANK - SANTA CLARA & SAN MATEO COUNTIES | $1,160,788 |
| FOOD BANK OF CONTRA COSTASOLANO | $911,204 |
| SECOND HARVEST OF THE GREATER VALLEY | $760,059 |
| FOOD BANK OF NORTHERN NEVADA | $640,864 |
| SECOND HARVEST FOOD BANK SANTA CRUZ COUNTY | $530,516 |
| PLACER FOOD BANK | $476,528 |
| ALAMEDA COUNTY COMMUNITY FOOD BANK | $284,210 |
| REDWOOD EMPIRE FOOD BANK | $206,529 |
| CENTRAL CALIFORNIA FOOD BANK | $56,315 |
| MONTEREY COUNTY FOOD BANK | $54,338 |
| YOLO FOOD BANK | $39,312 |
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 (FY17–18, $204k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 71% 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +84% since the first grant, against +41% for the ones you funded once.
76 repeat relationships — 11 still active in FY2021, 65 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2021 (too recent to call).
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 FY2021, 88% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $760k 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
- SFSACRAMENTO FOOD BANK & FAMILY SERVICES7× · 2017–2024 · $3.1M · revenue +103%
- SHSECOND HARVEST OF SILICON VALLEY7× · 2018–2024 · $1.9M · revenue +145%
- FBFood Bank of Northern Nevada Inc7× · 2018–2024 · $1.7M · revenue +84%
Funded once
- SSFBFSone grant, 2018 · $112k
- SHSECOND HARVEST FOOD BANK - WATSONVILLEone grant, 2017 · $37k
- CRCOMMUNITY RESOURCES COUNCILone grant, 2017 · $31k
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.
Distribute food to nonprofit agencies
Procurement and distribution of food to agencies serving the needy.
Our mission is to provide food, nutritional education, and advocacy for those in need within san benito county, while pursuing our ultimate vision that no resident will suffer from hunger or malnutrition in san benito county.
To end hunger in san francisco and marin counties by soliciting food donations nationally, distributing this food to qualifying public service agencies and neighborhood pantries, advocating for improved government food programs, and…
To end hunger and transform the health of our community by providing nourishment to those in need by acquiring and distributing safe nutritious food via local agencies and by providing education to solve hunger and nutritional problems in…
Our mission is to alleviate hunger in the inland empire of southern california.
Providing nutritious food to low income families and individuals in south clatsop county
The Foothills Food Bank works to ensure access to quality, nutritious food to community members in need, and deliver services with respect and dignity.
We provided free healthy food to low-income families and individuals in need.
Provide food to qualifying families in Palo Alto
To Share God's Love by Uniting and mobilizing the community to provide food, clothing and support to those in need.
To distribute food to the needy of Nevada County.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Food Bank of Northern Nevada Inc and the most unlike its peers is Vaca Fish Inc. 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 34 years old; the field is 14. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 24% 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.
28 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. 28 of the 84 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 SACRAMENTO FOOD BANK & FAMILY SERVICES ↗
- Who funds SECOND HARVEST OF SILICON VALLEY ↗
- Who funds Food Bank of Northern Nevada Inc ↗
- Who funds FEEDING THE FOOTHILLS ↗
- Who funds ALAMEDA COUNTY COMMUNITY FOOD BANK ↗
- Who funds SECOND HARVEST FOOD BANK SANTA CRUZ COUNTY ↗
- Who funds REDWOOD EMPIRE FOOD BANK ↗
- Who funds SECOND HARVEST OF THE GREATER VALLEY ↗
- Who funds YOLO FOOD BANK ↗
- Who funds FOOD BANK FOR MONTEREY COUNTY ↗
- Who funds CENTRAL CALIFORNIA FOOD BANK ↗
- Who funds Interfaith Food Ministry Nevada County ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY SERVICES AGENCY OF MOUNTAIN VIEW LOS ALTOS AND LOS ALTOS HILLS INC ↗
- Who funds Childrens Emergency Food Bank ↗
- Who funds BENICIA COMMUNITY ACTION COUNCIL ↗
- Who funds South County Services Inc ↗
- Who funds RIVER CITY FOOD BANK ↗
- Who funds Food Bank of El Dorado County ↗
- Who funds SOUTH COUNTY COMMUNITY SERVICES fka ST JOSEPHS FAMILY CENTER ↗
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: The Albertsons Companies Foundation · Kaiser Foundation Hospitals · California Association of Food Banks · The PG&E Corporation Foundation · California Foundation for Stronger Communities · Calfoods Logistics · Sutter Health · Sacramento Food Bank & Family Services · Feeding America · United Way California Capital Region · Food Bank of Contra Costa and Solano · Second Harvest of Silicon Valley
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 Food for Families 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Food for Families?
Find your warmest path to Food for Families 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.