· Private foundation
HB Sandman 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.
Read this first · the figures below need context
91% of HB Sandman Foundation’s FY2024 grant dollars went to The San Diego Foundation, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2024 names 2 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2021, the last year HB Sandman Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 5 organizations, $5k. It is dated, not current.
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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Emilio Nares Foundation | $2,500 |
| KPBS | $1,200 |
| San Diego Oasis | $500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $500 |
| San Diego Food Bank | $300 |
| Individual grant recipient | $100 |
| San Diego Womens Fdn | $100 |
| Mama's Kitchen | $90 |
| San Diego Zoological Society | $52 |
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.
Your human-services grants (FY19–23, $2k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-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.
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 +103% since the first grant, against +32% for the ones you funded once.
24 repeat relationships — 9 still active in FY2021, 15 since wound down; 6 grantees were first funded in FY2021 (too recent to call). Read against FY2021, the last year this funder named its own grantees directly; its giving has since run through a sponsor, which reports no donor behind each grant.
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 FY2024, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
- ENEmilio Nares Foundation8× · 2017–2024 · $17k · revenue +65%
- TSTHE SAN DIEGO WOMEN'S FOUNDATION4× · 2017–2021 · $4k · revenue +20%
- MKMAMA'S KITCHEN5× · 2017–2021 · $4k · revenue +103%
Funded once
- UOUJF OF SAN DIEGOone grant, 2017 · $2k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2018 · $1k
- RCRED CROSS OF SAN DIEGOone grant, 2018 · $1k
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.
On a mission to connect every person facing hunger with nutritious meals by maximizing food rescue. through direct service and community partnerships, feeding san diego provides more than 26 million meals each year to children, families,…
Acquire, manage and protect land in perpetuity that supports sensitive habitats and species, and to educate and inspire people and communities as stewards and advocates of their natural environment.
San Diego Jewish Academy empowers each student to learn for life, guided by Jewish values and rooted in strength of community.
To spark breakthrough community action that elevates every child and family toward a brighter future.
To sustain, envision, and enhance Balboa Park for all in partnership with the City of San Diego and in collaboration with other organizations in the Park and the community. Our vision for the Park is to maintain and enhance its stature as…
San Diego Junior Theatre (Junior Theatre) was incorporated in 1948 as a nonprofit corporation and is the oldest youth theatre in the nation, offering affordable camps, classes, and outreach programs for children ages 3-18; as well as six…
Mission: the mission of san diego opera is to deliver exceptional performances and exciting, accessible programs to diverse audiences, focusing on community partnerships, and the transformative and expressive power of the human voice. as…
The mission of the building industry association of san diego is to proactively promote a positive business environment for the land development, home building and commercial development industry throughout san diego county.
To promote philanthropy to make santa cruz county a better place to live, now and in the future.we bring together people, ideas, and resources to inspire philanthropy and accomplish great things.
Jewish family service is a client-centered, impact-driven organization working to build a stronger, healthier, more resilient san diego.
San diego zoo wildlife alliance is committed to saving species worldwide by uniting our expertise in wildlife care and conservation science with our dedication to inspiring passion for nature.
SF Partnership is an organization comprised of SF's leading employers dedicated to supporting an equitable, resilient, and vibrant economy shared by all people working and living in San Francisco. Through education, advocacy, and research,…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The San Diego Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Benchley Weinberger Foundation. 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 31 years old; the field is 12. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 28% 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 16% 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.
29 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. 29 of the 68 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 THE SAN DIEGO FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Emilio Nares Foundation ↗
- Who funds ROTARY CLUB OF SAN DIEGO ↗
- Who funds THE SAN DIEGO WOMEN'S FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MAMA'S KITCHEN ↗
- Who funds JEWISH FEDERATION OF SAN DIEGO COUNTY ↗
- Who funds SAN DIEGO OASIS ↗
- Who funds MONARCH SCHOOL PROJECT ↗
- Who funds JACOBS & CUSHMAN SAN DIEGO FOOD BANK ↗
- Who funds Humble Design Inc ↗
- Who funds INTERNATIONAL RELIEF TEAMS ↗
- Who funds ALPHA PROJECT FOR THE HOMELESS ↗
- Who funds BALBOA PARK CULTURAL PARTNERSHIP ↗
- Who funds ANTHONY RIZZO FAMILY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds JUST IN TIME FOR FOSTER YOUTH ↗
- Who funds RYAN HOUSE ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL PARK FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds LAWRENCE FAMILY JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTERS OF SAN DIEGO COUNTY ↗
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: The San Diego Foundation · Jewish Community Foundation of San Diego · The Conrad Prebys Foundation · Price Philanthropies Foundation · Sempra Foundation · Rancho Santa Fe Foundation · Leichtag Foundation · The Thursday Club Foundation · Allison and Robert Price Family Foundation · Pratt Memorial Fund · The Cushman Foundation · The Nordson Corporation 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 HB Sandman Foundation 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.