· Private foundation
Futures Unbound
Its FY2024 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 32 grants below total $290,644 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $425,747 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $135,103 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2022
- Under $10k20 grants · $26k
- $10k–50k11 grants · $214k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $50k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Natural Resources Defense Council | $50,000 |
| Social Good Fund | $47,000 |
| ALIA | $25,000 |
| Foundation for City College - Med School | $25,000 |
| J Street Educational Fund | $22,400 |
| Climate Action Campaign | $20,000 |
| California Institute of Technology | $15,000 |
| American Jewish World Service | $15,000 |
| Amalgamated Charity Fdn Champion Ed | $15,000 |
| Jewish Family Services | $10,000 |
| The Climate Museum | $10,000 |
| ACLU Foundation SD/Imperial Counties | $10,000 |
| Center for Community Energy | $6,000 |
| Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center | $5,000 |
| Institute Energy Econ & Fincl Analysis | $4,000 |
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 +18% since the first grant, against +16% for the ones you funded once.
6 repeat relationships — 5 still active in FY2022, 1 since wound down; 25 grantees were first funded in FY2022 (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 FY2022, 51% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $113k 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
- AALIA3× · 2020–2022 · $95k · revenue +101%
- CACLIMATE ACTION CAMPAIGN2× · 2021–2022 · $50k · revenue +11%
- CICALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY2× · 2021–2022 · $30k · revenue +18%
Funded once
- JSJ Street Educationone grant, 2021 · $20k
- CUColumbia University - Sabin Centerone grant, 2021 · $15k
- SLSAMUEL LAWRENCE FOUNDATIONone grant, 2021 · $13k · revenue +16%
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.
Climate catalyst sparks collective action to tackle the biggest climate challenges we face today: cutting emissions in heavy industries.
The union of concerned scientists puts rigorous, independent science into action, developing solutions and advocating for a healthy, safe, and just future.
To research and develop centrist policy ideas.
The Climate Center is a climate and energy policy nonprofit working to rapidly reduce climate pollution at scale, starting in California.
Project drawdown's mission is to drive meaningful climate action by advancing science-based solutions and strategies. project drawdown's work is focused on three pillars: science - advancing science-based climate solutions and strategies;…
Climate group advances climate action by mobilizing business and government leadership to drive systemic decarbonization across energy, transport, and industry, while engaging the public through large-scale convenings and global platforms.…
Climate central, inc. (the organization") is an independent not-for-profit organization of leading scientists, technology experts and communication professionals that are dedicated to researching and reporting on climate change and its…
Climateworks foundation's mission is to connect philanthropy, grantees, and strategic partners to build and deliver high-impact climate solutions that benefit all people.
To launch breakthrough climate mitigation efforts by identifying, supporting, and unleashing innovative leaders with transformative strategies.
Common future is a network of pioneering leaders across the u.s. and canada who work deeply within their communities to create alternative approaches to business, philanthropy, and investing. we envision an economy that has transitioned…
Ci works to spotlight and secure the critical benefits that nature provides to humanity.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Jacobs & Cushman San Diego Food Bank and the most unlike its peers is Project High Hopes. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 19 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 14% 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.
27 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. 27 of the 56 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 NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL INC ↗
- Who funds ALIA ↗
- Who funds SOCIAL GOOD FUND INC ↗
- Who funds CLIMATE ACTION CAMPAIGN ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN JEWISH WORLD SERVICE INC ↗
- Who funds CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY ↗
- Who funds SAMUEL LAWRENCE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE TREEHOUSE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR COMMUNITY ENERGY ↗
- Who funds PROJECT HIGH HOPES ↗
- Who funds CLIMATE MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds VAYU GLOBAL HEALTH FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds JACOBS & CUSHMAN SAN DIEGO FOOD BANK ↗
- Who funds VOICE OF SAN DIEGO ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF NORTHWEST SAN DIEGO COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds RAZOM INC ↗
- Who funds COASTAL ROOTS FARM ↗
- Who funds THE CENTER FOR PUBLIC INTEGRITY ↗
- Who funds HAMMOND CLIMATE SOLUTIONS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds J STREET EDUCATION FUND INC ↗
- Who funds COASTAL COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
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: Jewish Community Foundation of San Diego · The San Diego Foundation · Rancho Santa Fe Foundation · The Conrad Prebys Foundation · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · National Philanthropic Trust · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Amazonsmile Foundation
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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Futures Unbound?
Find your warmest path to Futures Unbound 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.