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Plinth

· Public charity

Getting Smart Collective

GETTING SMART COLLECTIVE actively builds the future of learning by designing, accelerating and amplifying equitable innovations that empower all people to thrive and lead in a complex world.

$1.5M
Granted FY2024still arriving
14
Grants FY2024still arriving
7
States reached
$150k
Largest
01What you fund
01FY2024 · 14 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

By grant size · FY2024

  • $10k–50k3 grants · $105k
  • $50k–250k11 grants · $1.4M
$100,000
Median grant
7
States reached
$478k
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
BLACK MOTHERS FORUM INC$150,000
THE MEANING FOUNDATION (PRIMER MICROSCHOOLS)$150,000
ASU PREPARATORY ACADEMY$150,000
KIND ACADEMY CORPORATION$150,000
COLOSSAL COMMUNITY$150,000
THE LAB SCHOOL OF MEMPHIS INC$150,000
ELLEMERCITO ACADEMY$100,000
PURDUE POLYTECHNIC HIGH SCHOOL OF INDIANAPOLIS INC$100,000
ISSAQUAH SCHOOL DISTRICT NO 411$100,000
PAST FOUNDATION$100,000
SPARK COMMUNITY SCHOOLS$100,000
LAMONT ELEMENTARY SCHOOL DISTRICT$40,000
ESCONDIDO UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT$40,000
LINCON HIGH SCHOOL$25,000
02The need
02

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.

show:

Your human-services grants (FY24–24, $150k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 10%THE MEANING FOUNDATION (PRIMER MICROSCHOOLS): $150k → 14%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

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.

03Your field

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.

1
Princeton International School of Mathematics and Science Inc

The purpose of the school is to promote, advance and sponsor charitable and educational activities.

Education
2
Howard University Middle School of Mathematics & Science

The howard university middle school of mathematics and science is the only middle school in the country that is located on the campus of an hbcu. we were chartered by howard university for the express purpose of creating a pipeline for…

Education
3
Berkwood School

Berkwood Hedge School provides a hands-on developmental curriculum that promotes deep and intuitive learning. Students achieve academic excellence by becoming critical thinkers and creative problem solvers. Our teachers meet the needs of…

Education
4
Khan Lab School

Khan lab school is a community of learners empowering every student to navigate their own path.

Education
5
Institute for Applied Tinkering

Institute for Applied Tinkering IAT develops, practices and shares educational methods that challenge and support all children to engage deeply in their learning via real interests and real tools.

Youth Development
6
The Royal School System

The mission of Royal Public Schools is to spark students' natural curiosity and love of learning while providing the knowledge and skills they need to lead successful and fulfilling lives.

Education
7
Equal Opportunity Schools

Equal opportunity schools' mission is to strengthen educator and system leader capacity to break down barriers to increase access, belonging, and success in rigorous college and career-prep secondary school courses for students of color…

Education
8
The Peak School

The peak school seeks to ignite a passion for learning, to develop students of diverse talents and backgrounds who think critically and act with integrity, and to graduate compassionate, confident, capable students who will embrace their…

Education
9
Alyssum Montessori School Inc

Our mission is to nurture and support young, curious minds to explore their world in a way that feels authentic to the learner.

10
Harmony Dc Public Charter Schools

The mission of the charter school is to prepare students for higher learning in a safe, caring, and collaborative atmosphere through a quality learner-centered educational program with a strong emphasis on science, technology, engineering,…

Education
11
Thrive Ed

Thrive Ed's purpose is to fundamentally transform education by powering teachers, leadership teams, and students individually and collectively, to thrive in school and life and in a global society, and transform education as we know it…

Education
12
Baltimore Lab School Inc

Baltimore Lab School is an innovative learning community fostering scholarship and creativity in students with different learning styles. In an environment of inquiry and hands-on exploration, Baltimore Lab School students learn to…

Education

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Asu Preparatory Academy Inc and the most unlike its peers is Past Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

03the grantee network

9 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 20172025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 9 of the 14 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.

3
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
0
Early backer (in before they grew)
9/9
Grantees still filing
2/9
Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

The Lab School of Memphis Inc — $150,000 · EducationThe Lab School of Memphis IncASU PREPARATORY ACADEMY INC — $150,000 · EducationASU PREPARATORY ACADEMY INCHOLLOW REED INC — $150,000 · EducationHOLLOW REED INCPURDUE POLYTECHNIC HIGH SCHOOL OF INDIANAPOLIS INC — $100,000 · EducationPURDUE POLYTECHNIC HIGH SCHOOL OF INDIANA…Goodwill of Central and Northern Arizona — $100,000 · OtherGoodwill of Central and Northe…ISSAQUAH SCHOOL DISTRICT — $100,000 · OtherISSAQUAH SCHOOL DISTRICTELLEMERCITO ACADEMY — $100,000 · OtherELLEMERCITO ACADEMYLAMONT ELEMENTARY SCHOOL DISTRICT — $40,000 · OtherLAMONT ELEMENTARY SCHOOL DISTR…ESCONDIDO UNION SCHOOL DISTRICT — $40,000 · OtherESCONDIDO UNION SCHOOL DISTRIC…LINCOLN HORNETS ALUMNI ASSOCIATION — $25,000 · OtherLINCOLN HORNETS ALUMNI ASSOCIA…Meaning Foundation — $150,000 · Human ServicesMeaning Fou…Black Mothers Forum Inc — $150,000 · Civil RightsBlack Mothe…KIND ACADEMY CORPORATION — $150,000 · Youth DevelopmentKIND ACADEM…PAST FOUNDATION — $100,000 · Arts & Culture
Education$550,000Other$405,000Human Services$150,000Civil Rights$150,000Youth Development$150,000Arts & Culture$100,000

Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ your share of their budgetMeaning Foundation — $150,000 over 1y, 9.4% of budgetThe Lab School of Memphis Inc — $150,000 over 1y, 45% of budgetASU PREPARATORY ACADEMY INC — $150,000 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetHOLLOW REED INC — $150,000 over 1y, 100% of budgetBlack Mothers Forum Inc — $150,000 over 1y, 12% of budgetKIND ACADEMY CORPORATION — $150,000 over 1y, 55% of budgetPURDUE POLYTECHNIC HIGH SCHOOL OF INDIANAPOLIS INC — $100,000 over 1y, 0.5% of budgetGoodwill of Central and Northern Arizona — $100,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetPAST FOUNDATION — $100,000 over 1y, 1.7% of budget
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.

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.

The Center for Education ReformDC13.6× affinity4 shared granteesties to 4 of 4Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: The Center for Education Reform · For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology (FIRST) · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · 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.

Government reliance of your grantees

Every dot is one organization Getting Smart Collective 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.

2024
202122232425
no gov · 20%6%25%56%100%your share of their income ↑0%3%5%8%10%share of the org’s income from government
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    2get 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 · 0–10%
    typical government reliance, FY2025

    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.

    04Through Plinth

    Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

    How do I get to Getting Smart Collective?

    Find your warmest path to Getting Smart Collective 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 directly from IRS e-file XML — your own 990/990-PF and the multi-year returns of the 14 grantees we resolved across every year we hold, several hundred filings in all (a different count from the grant rows on the cover, which are one fiscal year)— each linked to its source. Grantee achievements and outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III); we read these as association with sustained funding — the foundation is one of several forces — suppress low-confidence name matches rather than guess, and say so where a figure rests on a single grant or filing. Not everything on this page is a filed figure, and the difference matters. Filed is what you reported on your 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. How we build these →

    Generated from your IRS Form 990 e-file return for fiscal year 2024, released 2024. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Possibly out of date. A more recent filing (FY2025) is on record and reports no grant expense, so the figures above are from FY2024, the most recent year this funder made grants.

    Source object · view filing

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