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· Private foundation

Helen Mull Foundation

Its FY2025 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

$1.7M
Granted FY2025still arriving
5
Grants FY2025still arriving
1
States reached
$338k
Largest
01What it funds
01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2020 to 2025.

Animals$10M
02FY2025 · 5 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

$338,071
Median grant
1
States reached
$30M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
HUMANE SOCIETY FOR SEATTLE-KING CO$338,071
WOODLAND PARK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY$338,071
PROGRESSIVE ANIMAL WELFARE SOCIETY INC$338,071
POINT DEFIANCE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY$338,071
TACOMA-PIERCE COUNTY HUMANE SOCIETY & SC$338,071
02The need
03

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:

Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY20–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 7%. 100% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 7%HUMANE SOCIETY OF SEATTLE-KING CO: $406k → 9%PROGRESSIVE ANIMAL WELFARE SOCIETY: $406k → 9%POINT DEFIANCE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY: $406k → 9%HUMANE SOCIETY OF SEATTLE-KING CO: $367k → 9%PROGRESSIVE ANIMAL WELFARE SOCIETY: $367k → 9%POINT DEFIANCE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY: $367k → 9%HUMANE SOCIETY FOR SEATTLE-KING CO: $338k → 9%PROGRESSIVE ANIMAL WELFARE SOCIETY INC: $338k → 9%POINT DEFIANCE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY: $338k → 9%HUMANE SOCIETY OF SEATTLE-KING CO: $337k → 9%PROGRESSIVE ANIMAL WELFARE SOCIETY: $337k → 9%POINT DEFIANCE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY: $337k → 9%HUMANE SOCIETY FOR SEATTLE-KING CO: $304k → 9%PROGRESSIVE ANIMAL WELFARE SOCIETY INC: $304k → 9%POINT DEFIANCE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY: $304k → 9%HUMANE SOCIETY OF SEATTLE-KING CO: $255k → 9%PROGRESSIVE ANIMAL WELFARE SOCIETY: $255k → 9%POINT DEFIANCE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY: $255k → 9%WOODLAND PARK ZOO: $406k → 9%HUMANE SOCIETY OF TACOMA: $406k → 9%WOODLAND PARK ZOO: $367k → 9%HUMANE SOCIETY OF TACOMA: $367k → 9%WOODLAND PARK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY: $338k → 9%TACOMA-PIERCE COUNTY HUMANE SOCIETY & SC: $338k → 9%WOODLAND PARK ZOO: $337k → 9%HUMANE SOCIETY OF TACOMA: $337k → 9%WOODLAND PARK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY: $304k → 9%TACOMA-PIERCE COUNTY HUMANE SOCIETY & SC: $304k → 9%WOODLAND PARK ZOO: $255k → 9%HUMANE SOCIETY OF TACOMA: $255k → 9%0%20%40%50%more need →
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.
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.

100%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$10M · 6 repeat orgs$0 to everyone else

6 repeat relationships: 5 still active in FY2025, 1 since wound down.

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

6
0

Total granted

$10M
$0

Still filing today

83%
0%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.

50%100%’20’21’22’23’24’25
RenewedFirst-time
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

  • PA
    Progressive Animal Welfare Society aka PAWS
    6× · 2020–2025 · $2.0M · revenue +152%
  • WP
    WOODLAND PARK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY
    6× · 2020–2025 · $2.0M · revenue +112%
  • TH
    THE HUMANE SOCIETY FOR SEATTLEKING COUNTY
    6× · 2020–2025 · $2.0M · revenue +66%

Funded once

    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
    04the grantee network

    5 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

    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 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 5 of the 6 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.

    1
    Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
    1
    Early backer (in before they grew)
    5/5
    Grantees still filing
    4/5
    Grew since first funded

    Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

    Progressive Animal Welfare Society aka PAWS: $2,007,371 · AnimalsProgressive Animal Welfare Society aka PAWSWOODLAND PARK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY: $2,007,370 · AnimalsWOODLAND PARK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETYTHE HUMANE SOCIETY FOR SEATTLEKING COUNTY: $2,007,370 · AnimalsTHE HUMANE SOCIETY FOR SEATTLEKING COUNTYPOINT DEFIANCE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY: $2,007,370 · AnimalsPOINT DEFIANCE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETYHUMANE SOCIETY FOR TACOMA PIERCE COUNTY SOCIETY PREVENTION CRUELTY ANIMALS: $642,460 · AnimalsHUMANE SOCIETY FOR TACOMA PIERCE COUNTY SOCIETY PREVENTION CRUELTY ANIMALSHUMANE SOCIETY OF TACOMA: $1,364,912 · OtherHUMANE SOCIETY …
    Animals$8,671,941Other$1,364,912

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

    25%50%75%100%grantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetProgressive Animal Welfare Society aka PAWS: $2,007,371 over 6y, 3.5% of budgetWOODLAND PARK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY: $2,007,370 over 6y, 0.7% of budgetTHE HUMANE SOCIETY FOR SEATTLEKING COUNTY: $2,007,370 over 6y, 3.3% of budgetPOINT DEFIANCE ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY: $2,007,370 over 6y, 27% of budgetHUMANE SOCIETY FOR TACOMA PIERCE COUNTY SOCIETY PREVENTION CRUELTY ANIMALS: $642,460 over 2y, 3.0% of budget
    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.

    Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust IncIN10.8× affinity4 shared granteesties to 3 of 3Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

    Open a dossier: Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund

    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 Helen Mull Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Helen Mull Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

    2024
    ’20’21’22’23’24’25
    no gov · 00%2%8%17%30%funder's share of their income ↑0%1%3%4%5%share of the org’s income from government →
      no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
      0get no government money at all
      0rely on government for over half their income
      ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–5%
      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.

      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 6 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 2025, released 2025. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

      Source object · view filing

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