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· Private foundation

Foster Foundation

Its FY2023 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

$148k
Granted FY2023
2
Grants FY2023
1
States reached
$98k
Largest
01What it funds
01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2023.

Health$1.3MEducation$101kHuman Services$60kCivil Rights$10kAnimals$4kInternational$500
02FY2023 · 2 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

$97,503
Median grant
1
States reached
$2.5M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
UCK INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH ON AGING$97,503
CARL I BOURHENNE MEDICAL RESEARCH$50,000
02The need
03

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY17–23) land where the poverty rate runs at 8%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 26% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.

area typical 8%SENS Research Foundation: $247k → 8%UCK INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH ON AGING: $98k → 8%CARL I BOURHENNE MEDICAL RESEARCH: $55k → 10%UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA: $49k → 10%GLOBAL APHERESIS INC: $50k → 10%WARRIORS LIVE ON: $9k → 11%NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE EDUCATION FD: $10k → 17%COURTNEYS HOUSE: $15k → 14%Carolina Raptor Center: $4k → 10%SENS RESEARCH FOUNDATION: $162k → 8%CARL I BOURHENNE MEDICAL RESEARCH: $50k → 10%GLOBAL APHERESIS INC: $12k → 10%Warriors Live On: $9k → 11%Courtney's House: $9k → 14%SENS Research Foundation: $153k → 8%CARL I BOURHENNE MEDICAL RESEARCH: $30k → 10%Warriors Live On: $8k → 11%COURTNEYS HOUSE: $9k → 14%SENS RESEARCH FOUNDATION: $151k → 8%CARL I BOURHENNE MEDICAL RESEARCH F: $25k → 10%SPECTRUM MINISTRIES: $500 → 11%Courtney's House: $3k → 14%SENS RESEARCH FOUNDATION: $150k → 8%CARL I BOURHENNE MEDICAL RESEARCH F: $20k → 10%SENS RESEARCH FOUNDATION: $100k → 8%Carl I Bourhenne Medical Research F: $10k → 10%SENS Research Foundation: $20k → 8%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount
How this is measured
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.
How this is measured
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.
03Its grantees
repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

89%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$1.3M · 6 repeat orgs$161k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +29% since the first grant, against -16% for those funded once.

6 repeat relationships: 1 still active in FY2023, 5 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2023 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

6
4

Total granted

$1.3M
$64k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+29%
-16%

Still filing today

33%
50%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2023, 34% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $98k went to new ones.

50%100%’17’18’19’20’21’22’23
RenewedFirst-time

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

’17’18’19’20’21’22’23
HealthEducationAnimalsSocial ScienceOther
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.

Backed again, and grew

  • LR
    Lifespan Research Institution
    6× · 2017–2022 · $983k · revenue -77%
  • CI
    Carl I Bourhenne Medical Research
    6× · 2018–2023 · $190k · revenue +29% · 65% of their budget
  • GA
    GLOBAL APHERESIS INC
    2× · 2021–2022 · $62k

Funded once

  • UO
    UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA
    one grant, 2021 · $49k
  • NL
    NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE EDUCATION FD
    one grant, 2020 · $10k
  • CR
    Carolina Raptor Center Inc
    one grant, 2017 · $4k · revenue -16%
How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field
04the grantee network

7 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 7 of the 11 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

2
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
0
Early backer (in before they grew)
5/7
Grantees still filing
3/7
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Lifespan Research Institution: $982,826 · HealthLifespan Research InstitutionCarl I Bourhenne Medical Research: $190,400 · OtherCarl I Bourhenne Medical Re…GLOBAL APHERESIS INC: $62,000 · OtherGLOBAL APHERESIS INCUNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA: $48,857 · OtherUNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIACOURTNEYS HOUSE INC: $35,000 · OtherCOURTNEYS HOUSE INCWARRIORS LIVE ON: $25,000 · OtherWARRIORS LIVE ON+2 more: $10,729 · OtherBUCK INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH ON AGING: $97,503 · Social ScienceWilliam Marsh Rice University: $52,454 · EducationCarolina Raptor Center Inc: $4,000 · Animals
Health$982,826Other$371,986Social Science$97,503Education$52,454Animals$4,000

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$100k$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetLifespan Research Institution: $982,826 over 6y, 11% of budgetCarl I Bourhenne Medical Research: $190,400 over 6y, 65% of budgetBUCK INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH ON AGING: $97,503 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetWilliam Marsh Rice University: $52,454 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetWARRIORS LIVE ON: $25,000 over 3y, 28% of budgetCarolina Raptor Center Inc: $4,000 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetSPECTRUM MINISTRIES: $500 over 1y, 0.1% of budget
Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

  • Who funds Lifespan Research Institution ↗
  • Who funds Carl I Bourhenne Medical Research ↗
  • Who funds BUCK INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH ON AGING ↗
  • Who funds William Marsh Rice University ↗
  • Who funds WARRIORS LIVE ON ↗
  • Who funds Carolina Raptor Center Inc ↗
  • Who funds SPECTRUM MINISTRIES ↗

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.

American Online Giving Foundation IncDE6.7× affinity4 shared granteesties to 3 of 3Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile Foundation

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.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Foster Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Foster Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%5%19%42%75%funder's share of their income ↑0%15%30%45%60%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–60%
    typical government reliance, FY20–25
    How this is measured
    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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

    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 11 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-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2023, released 2023. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

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