· Public charity
Good Ventures
To help humanity thrive
Read this first · the figures below need context
98% of Good Ventures’s FY2018 grant dollars went to Silicon Valley Community Foundation, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2018 names 3 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2018.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| SILICON VALLEY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | $97,286,600 |
| LIFE SCIENCES RESEARCH FOUNDATION | $780,000 |
| MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL | $760,000 |
| MULTIDISCIPLINARY ASSOCIATION FOR PSYCHEDELIC STUDIES | $500,000 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–18) land where the poverty rate runs at 8%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 3% of your dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.
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.
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.
A nonprofit scientific research organization that develops vaccines and antibodies for hiv, tuberculosis, and emerging infectious diseases.
To improve the lives of people through innovative scientific and engineering research.
Our mission is to invest in and accelerate the development of the most promising future leaders in biomedical research with global impact.
International food policy research institute's (ifpri) vision is a world free of hunger and malnutrition. ifpri's mission is to provide research-based policy solutions that sustainably reduce poverty and end hunger and malnutrition.
The Institute is a scientific research center dedicated to conducting basic and applied research to advance the understanding of human disease and the improvement of human health. The Institute fosters an innovative research environment…
To provide multi-specialty surgical care, humanitarian aid and educational support to people in low- and middle-income countries.
Reduce global poverty and improve lives through innovative economic research that drives better policy and practice by the world's top decision makers. we focus on the intersection of developing countries and the governments, institutions…
Tb alliance is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the discovery, development and delivery of better, faster-acting and affordable tuberculosis drugs that are available to those who need them.
Partnersglobal (partners) works through a global network to support local leaders and create partnerships that transform conflict, strengthen democratic institutions, and achieve sustainable development.
Improve the food value chain in developing countries by mobilizing corporate volunteers to share knowledge and expertise with small and growing food processors.
Foundation for food and agriculture research connects funders, researchers and farmers through public-private partnerships to support audacious research addressing the biggest food and agriculture challenges.
Ibp works with civil society, governments, international institutions and the private sector to bring about a world in which empowered citizens participate in open, inclusive public budgeting processes to shape policies and practices that…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Evidence Action and the most unlike its peers is Life Sciences Research Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
11 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. 11 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.
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 Silicon Valley Community Foundation ↗
- Who funds EVIDENCE ACTION ↗
- Who funds ID INSIGHT INC ↗
- Who funds MULTIDISCIPLINARY ASSOCIATION FOR PSYCHEDELIC STUDIES INC ↗
- Who funds LIFE SCIENCES RESEARCH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds NEW INCENTIVES ↗
- Who funds DRUG POLICY ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds LIVING GOODS ↗
- Who funds PROJECT HEALTHY CHILDREN INC ↗
- Who funds THE CLEAR FUND ↗
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: Silicon Valley Community Foundation · The Clear Fund · Good Ventures Foundation · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving 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 Good Ventures 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.
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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Good Ventures?
Find your warmest path to Good Ventures 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.