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Washington · Private foundation

Harriet Cheney Cowles 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.

$570k
Granted FY2024(still arriving)
6
Grants FY2024
2
Organizations funded FY2023
50%
First-time grantees FY2023
Read the full brief
Median grant, FY2024
$100,000
Largest grant, FY2024
$250,000
Organizations funded a year
2 to 22
FY2020 to FY2023
States reached, FY2024
1
Total assets, FY2024
$12M
Applications
Preselected organizations only
Per its most recent filing; check its own site

How open it is to new grantees

In FY2023, 50% of the organizations Harriet Cheney Cowles Foundation funded were first-time grantees, receiving 100% of its grant dollars.

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2023, 0% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $750k went to new ones.

50%100%’21’22’23
RenewedFirst-time

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

’21’22’23
Arts & CultureEducationCrime & LegalFood & NutritionCivil RightsRecreation & SportsOther
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.
The numbers by year
Fiscal yearOrganizations fundedTo those organizationsFirst-time grantees
FY2024still arriving5$320k80%
FY20232$751k50%
FY202222$1.0M50%
FY202115$450k60%
FY202013$470kn/a
100% classified

What it funded, over time

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

Education$971kRecreation & Sports$758kPhilanthropy$645kHealth$438kArts & Culture$421kYouth Development$128kEnvironment$123kCommunity Improvement$50kOther$0

Where its grants go

Grant dollars by states, across the years we hold.

Which US states its grants reach

NH
WA
WY
NJ
CA
CO
DC
AL
TX

Top grantees

Largest recipients by total granted, FY2020 to FY2024, and the share of each one’s budget the grants supplied at peak.

Show all 30 grantees

What it could do for these grantees

Plus 8 recipients with no EIN on record ($129k), not named here.

Where it is load-bearing

Harriet Cheney Cowles Foundation supplied at least a quarter of the budget for 2 of its grantees at some point. The chart plots its 29 largest grantees; load-bearing ones sit top left.

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetSpokane Valley Hub: $750,000 over 1y, 38% of budgetWhitworth University: $500,000 over 1y, 0.3% of budgetWashington State University Foundation: $451,000 over 2y, 0.2% of budgetSpokane Symphony and Fox Theater Endowment Fund: $400,000 over 2y, 34% of budgetMaddie's Place: $250,000 over 2y, 18% of budgetInland Northwest Land Trust: $123,400 over 4y, 2.6% of budgetBoys & Girls Club of Spokane County: $120,000 over 1y, 1.7% of budgetSpokane Guilds' School & Neuromuscular Center: $100,000 over 1y, 1.6% of budgetCarl Maxey Center: $30,000 over 1y, 1.2% of budgetSeattle Children's Foundation: $25,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetJames E Hughes Jr Foundation: $10,000 over 1y, 0.8% of budgetThe Thacher School Inc: $9,700 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetNorthwest Harvest Emm: $9,000 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetMt Spokane 2000: $8,000 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetUniversity of Redlands: $7,600 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetLife Services of Spokane: $6,600 over 3y, 0.2% of budgetCommunity Center for the Arts: $6,300 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetSpokane Symphony Society: $5,200 over 1y, 0.3% of budgetLegal Foundation of Washington: $4,500 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetCreate Your Statement: $3,200 over 2y, 1.9% of budgetCo-Lab Projects: $3,000 over 1y, 3.7% of budgetSanta Barbara Rescue Mission: $3,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetFoodbank of Santa Barbara County Inc: $3,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetWashington Policy Center: $2,500 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetMainspring Schools Inc: $2,500 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetCobalt Foundation: $2,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetUnited States Association for UNHCR: $2,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetThe Art Association of Jackson Hole: $1,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetCentral Texas Food Bank Inc: $900 over 1y, 0.0% of budget

Tap a dot to name the grantee.

How this is measured
Share of budget is the funder’s grant in a year over the grantee’s total revenue that year, at its highest across the years we hold; revenue is from all sources. Only grantees confirmed against their own filings, whose grants do not exceed their revenue, are plotted: the largest 29.

Nonprofits that may fit its grantmaking

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.

Innovia FoundationWA25.9× affinity11 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Innovia Foundation · The Avista Foundation · M J Murdock Charitable Trust · The Bergquist Foundation Attn Eric Sachtjen · Women Helping Women Fund · First Interstate BancSystem Foundation Inc · Seattle Foundation · The Is & Emily Fetterman Foundation · Pierce Charitable Trust Xxx-Xx-Xxxx · Numerica Credit Union · Smith-Barbieri Progressive Fund a Charitable Foundation · Bnsf Railway 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.

Compare Harriet Cheney Cowles Foundation with peer funders

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to Harriet Cheney Cowles Foundation?

Find your warmest path to Harriet Cheney Cowles Foundation 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.

About Harriet Cheney Cowles Foundation

How much does Harriet Cheney Cowles Foundation give?
Harriet Cheney Cowles Foundation reported 6 grants totaling $570,000 in its FY2024 IRS filing. It funded between 2 and 22 organizations a year over FY2020 to FY2023.
What does Harriet Cheney Cowles Foundation fund?
By grant dollars over FY2020 to FY2024, its largest causes are Education (27%), Recreation & Sports (21%), Philanthropy (18%).
Who are Harriet Cheney Cowles Foundation's largest grantees?
By total granted over FY2020 to FY2024: Spokane Valley Hub ($750k), Whitworth University ($500k), Washington State University Foundation ($451k).
Does Harriet Cheney Cowles Foundation fund new organizations?
In FY2023, 50% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.
Does Harriet Cheney Cowles 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 Harriet Cheney Cowles Foundation?
Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Innovia Foundation, The Avista Foundation, M J Murdock Charitable Trust.
Where is Harriet Cheney Cowles Foundation based?
Harriet Cheney Cowles Foundation is based in WA.

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 39 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-PF 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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