How much does Gaf Foundation give?

Gaf Foundation reported 42 grants totaling $81,650 in its FY2024 IRS filing. It funded between 38 and 66 organizations a year over FY2017 to FY2023.

What does Gaf Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2024, its largest causes are Education (20%), Health (17%), Public Benefit (10%).

Who are Gaf Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2024: Hathaway Brown School ($44k), Hawken School ($26k), Harbor Hall Foundation ($18k).

Does Gaf Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2023, 17% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Gaf Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

Which funders back the same organizations as Gaf Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include The Offield Family Foundation, Petoskey-Harbor Springs Area Community Foundation, Triford Foundation.

Gaf Foundation

Gaf Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

Gaf Foundation

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.

$82k

Granted FY2024still arriving

Grants FY2024still arriving

States reached

$21k

Largest

01What it funds

0194% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2024.

Education$118kHealth$101kPublic Benefit$61kCivil Rights$54kEnvironment$40kReligion$31kArts & Culture$31kHuman Services$29kOther$0

02FY2024 · 42 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2024

Under $10k41 grants · $61k
$10k–50k1 grant · $21k

$1,000

Median grant

States reached

$848

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
HATHAWAY BROWN SCHOOL	$21,000
HAWKEN SCHOOL	$7,000
HARBOR HALL FOUNDATION	$6,500
FURNISH HOPE DC	$3,000
BAAS EDUCATIONAL TRUST UK	$3,000
FREEDOM READS	$2,500
THURMAN PERRY FOUNDATION	$2,250
HERITAGE ACTION FOR AMERICA	$2,000
MERCY FOR ANIMALS	$2,000
Individual grant recipient	$2,000
NATIONAL RELIGIOUS CAMPAIGN AGAINST TORTURE	$2,000
FAMILY SURVIVOR NETWORK INC	$1,500
UNWRA USA NATIONAL COMMITTEE	$1,500
NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL	$1,500
BARD COLLEGE	$1,500

02The need

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 (FY17–24, $12k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 58% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

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.

Which US states its grants reach

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.

87%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$507k · 94 repeat orgs$76k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +59% since the first grant, against +34% for those funded once.

94 repeat relationships: 35 still active in FY2024, 59 since wound down; 7 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$507k

$68k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+59%

+34%

Still filing today

63%

43%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 90% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $8k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

EnvironmentHealthEducationCivil RightsArts & CultureInternationalOther

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

HB
HATHAWAY BROWN SCHOOL
8× · 2017–2024 · $44k · revenue +48%
HS
HAWKEN SCHOOL
8× · 2017–2024 · $26k · revenue +76%
HH
HARBOR HALL FOUNDATION
5× · 2020–2024 · $18k · revenue +31%

Funded once

OS
OPTIONS SAVE LIVES
one grant, 2020 · $4k · revenue -40%
CF
CROP FOUNDATION
one grant, 2021 · $4k
AT
AROUND THE WORLD IN EIGHTY FABRICS
one grant, 2022 · $3k · revenue -71%

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

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

Conservation International Foundation

Ci works to spotlight and secure the critical benefits that nature provides to humanity.

Environment

Open Markets Institute

The open markets institute works to help people relearn how to use competition policy to build stronger democracies, more just and equitable societies, more innovative and sustainable economies, and a more secure and peaceful world.

Education

Third Way

To research and develop centrist policy ideas.

Civil Rights

Project Drawdown

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;…

Education

Federation for American Immigration Reform

The federation for american immigration reform's (fair) mission is to educate the public about the economic, sociological, environmental, demographic and other effects of mass immigration to the united states.

International

Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Foundation

To engage and catalyze global seafood supply chains in rebuilding depleted fish stocks and reducing the environmental impacts of fishing and fish farming.

Animals

Ocean Conservancy

Ocean conservancy unites science, people, and policy to protect our ocean, today and for generations to come.

Environment

Friends of the Earth

Friends of the earth strives for a more healthy and just world by defendng the environment and human health while advancing social and economic justice by conducting research and education, transforming the economy so it protects the…

Environment

United States Naval Institute

Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.

—

Property and Environment Research Center

Perc is dedicated to advancing conservation through markets, incentives, property rights, and partnerships.

Public Benefit

Observer Research Foundation America

Organization mission the observer research foundation america orf america is an independent, non-partisan, and nonprofit organization in washington dc dedicated to addressing policy challenges facing the united states, india, and their…

International

The Union of Concerned Scientists Inc

The union of concerned scientists puts rigorous, independent science into action, developing solutions and advocating for a healthy, safe, and just future.

International

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Heritage Foundation; the most unlike its peers is Around the World in Eighty Fabrics. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

04the grantee network

94 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.

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 2026, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 94 of the 165 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.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

93/94

Grantees still filing

72/94

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$335,700Education$91,300Health$50,000Public Benefit$37,000Environment$36,750International$23,500Arts & Culture$20,950

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

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.

The Offield Family FoundationIL17.7× affinity6 shared granteesties to 9 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: The Offield Family Foundation · Petoskey-Harbor Springs Area Community Foundation · Triford Foundation · Frey Foundation · Charles Stewart Mott Foundation · Souder Family Foundation · Affordable Housing Management Foundation · Bernard Family Foundation · Baiardi Family Foundation Inc · Henry E & Consuelo S Wenger Foundation Inc · Charlevoix County Community Foundation · Clark-Winchcole 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 Gaf Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Gaf Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

4get no government money at all

10report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

1rely on government for over half their income

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.

Play a game based on Gaf’s filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions

grants reported with no recipient in the public record

The regranting layer

51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer

The DAF merry-go-round

$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds

The endowment market

who holds foundation money, and what just moved

The camps

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

By state

where grant money is based, and what stays home