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Foundation for Regional Transit DBA Friends of Caltrain at a glanceMostly funded, not a grantmaker: see who funds it →

· Public charity

Foundation for Regional Transit DBA Friends of Caltrain

Provide educational information regarding sustainable transportation

$35k
Granted FY2024still arriving
4
Grants FY2024still arriving
1
States reached
$11k
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its granteesRead
04Its fieldRead
05Through PlinthRead
01What it funds
01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2020 to 2024.

Public Benefit$93kHousing & Shelter$40kYouth Development$12kCommunity Improvement$12kRecreation & Sports$6kEnvironment$6k
02FY2024 · 4 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

How this is measured
The 4 grants below total $28,500, the rows itemized in this filing. The $34,500 headline is the total grant expense on the return; the other $6,000 is giving the schedule does not break out (grants under the $5,000 itemization floor, grants to individuals, grants on other schedules). Every figure below describes the itemized rows only.

By grant size · FY2024

  • Under $10k3 grants · $18k
  • $10k–50k1 grant · $11k
$6,000
Median grant
1
States reached
$189k
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
Seamless Bay Area$10,500
Belle Haven Community Fund$6,000
Youth United for Community$6,000
Housing Leadership Council$6,000
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:

Its human-services grants (FY23–23, $6k) land where the poverty rate runs at 8%, against an area that typically sits at 7%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 7%Climate Resilient Communities: $6k → 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.

86%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$145k · 3 repeat orgs$24k to everyone else

3 repeat relationships: 3 still active in FY2024, 0 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

3
3

Total granted

$145k
$18k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+20%
+180%

Still filing today

100%
100%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 79% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $6k went to new ones.

50%100%’20’23’24
RenewedFirst-time

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

’20’23’24
Community ImprovementPublic BenefitHousing & ShelterYouth DevelopmentRecreation & SportsHuman ServicesOther
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

  • SB
    Seamless Bay Area Alliance formerly Seamless Bay Area
    2× · 2020–2024 · $93k · revenue -28% · 50% of their budget
  • HL
    HOUSING LEADERSHIP COUNCIL OF SAN MATEO COUNTY
    3× · 2020–2024 · $40k · revenue +50%
  • YU
    Youth United for Community Action
    2× · 2020–2024 · $12k · revenue +20%

Funded once

  • SV
    Silicon Valley Bicycle Coalitiongraduated
    one grant, 2020 · $6k · revenue +58%
  • CR
    Climate Resilient Communitiesgraduated
    one grant, 2023 · $6k · revenue +180%
  • YA
    YIMBY ACTIONgraduated
    one grant, 2020 · $6k · revenue +236%
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.

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

1
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
3
Early backer (in before they grew)
7/7
Grantees still filing
5/7
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Seamless Bay Area Alliance formerly Seamless Bay Area: $93,410 · Public BenefitSeamless Bay Area Alliance formerly Seamless Bay AreaHOUSING LEADERSHIP COUNCIL OF SAN MATEO COUNTY: $40,000 · Housing & ShelterHOUSING LEADERSHIP COUNCIL…Youth United for Community Action: $12,000 · Youth DevelopmentYIMBY ACTION: $6,000 · Community ImprovementBELLE HAVEN ACTION: $6,000 · Community ImprovementSilicon Valley Bicycle Coalition: $6,000 · Recreation & SportsClimate Resilient Communities: $6,000 · Human Services
Public Benefit$93,410Housing & Shelter$40,000Youth Development$12,000Community Improvement$12,000Recreation & Sports$6,000Human Services$6,000

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

25%50%75%100%$1.0Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetSeamless Bay Area Alliance formerly Seamless Bay Area: $93,410 over 2y, 50% of budgetHOUSING LEADERSHIP COUNCIL OF SAN MATEO COUNTY: $40,000 over 3y, 1.7% of budgetYouth United for Community Action: $12,000 over 2y, 1.1% of budgetSilicon Valley Bicycle Coalition: $6,000 over 1y, 0.5% of budgetClimate Resilient Communities: $6,000 over 1y, 0.6% of budgetYIMBY ACTION: $6,000 over 1y, 0.9% of budgetBELLE HAVEN ACTION: $6,000 over 1y, 2.2% 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.

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.

Silicon Valley Commun…Vanguard Charitable E…American Online Givin…Donor Advised Charita…
Silicon Valley Community FoundationCA15.9× affinity6 shared granteesties to 3 of 3Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Silicon Valley Community Foundation · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc

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 Foundation for Regional Transit DBA Friends of Caltrain funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Foundation for Regional Transit DBA Friends of Caltrain. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%4%15%34%60%funder's share of their income ↑0%8%15%22%30%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    2report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–30%
    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.
    05Through Plinth

    Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

    How do I get to Foundation for Regional Transit DBA Friends of Caltrain?

    Find your warmest path to Foundation for Regional Transit DBA Friends of Caltrain 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.

    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 7 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 2024, released 2024. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

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