· Private foundation
Hiro Watanabe 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
100% of Hiro Watanabe Foundation’s FY2024 grant dollars went to National Philanthropic Trust, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2024 names 1 organization directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2023, the last year Hiro Watanabe Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 6 organizations, $7k. 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 FY2019–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Japanese American Veterans Assn | $2,000 |
| Japanese Language Scholarship Found | $1,000 |
| Densho | $1,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $1,000 |
| Go for Broke Nat'l Education Ctr | $1,000 |
| Japanese American National Museum | $595 |
| City of Hope | $500 |
| Special Operations Warrior Foundati | $150 |
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 (FY19–19, $100) 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.
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.
9 repeat relationships — 6 still active in FY2023, 3 since wound down; 3 grantees were first funded in FY2023 (too recent to call). Read against FY2023, 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, 20% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2k 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
- GFGO FOR BROKE NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL CENTER3× · 2021–2023 · $11k · revenue +73%
- JAJapanese American Veterans Association4× · 2020–2023 · $9k · revenue +37%
- 1L1979 LEGACY CORP2× · 2021–2022 · $6k · revenue +84%
Funded once
- JAJapanese American Cultural Communitone grant, 2019 · $25k
- LTLITTLE TOKYO COMMUNITY COUNCIL INCgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $6k · revenue +113%
- SOSpecial Operations Warriors Foundatone grant, 2021 · $3k
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.
The mission of soka university of america is to foster a steady stream of global citizens committed to living a contributive life. continued on schedule o.
The nisei student relocation commemorative fund (nsrcf) is a non-profit, charitable organization founded in new england that annually awards scholarships to students from underserved communities pursuing higher education. the nsrcf was…
Public education
The National Japanese American Historical Society, Inc. (NJAHS) charitable nonprofit organization dedicated to the collection, preservation, authentic interpretation, and sharing of historical information of the Japanese American…
Founded in 1905, the japan society of northern california works to advance u.s. - japan collaboration and understanding in a global context. the society offers an array of programs and networking opportunities for people and organizations…
To be a vibrant resource, strengthening our diverse community by educating present and future generations in the evolving japanese american experience in hawaii. we do this through relevant programming, meaningful community service and…
To educate the public on japanese and japanese-american history and culture.
Japan society is the premier organization connecting japanese arts, culture, business, and society with audiences in new york and around the world. in fy2024, attendance onsite was 36.9k with 3.3k participating in online programs.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Go for Broke National Educational Center and the most unlike its peers is Escondido Community Child Development Center. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
13 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. 13 of the 22 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 NATIONAL PHILANTHROPIC TRUST ↗
- Who funds GO FOR BROKE NATIONAL EDUCATIONAL CENTER ↗
- Who funds Japanese American Veterans Association ↗
- Who funds 1979 LEGACY CORP ↗
- Who funds LITTLE TOKYO COMMUNITY COUNCIL INC ↗
- Who funds DENSHO ↗
- Who funds JAPANESE AMERICAN NATIONAL MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds JAPANESE LANGUAGE SCHOLARSHIP FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds PUENTE LEARNING CENTER ↗
- Who funds ESCONDIDO COMMUNITY CHILD DEVELOPMENT CENTER ↗
- Who funds SPECIAL OPERATIONS WARRIOR FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE HEADS UP YOUTH FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds CARING AND SHARING OF SOUTH BAY ↗
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: Df Foundation · California Community Foundation · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · 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 Hiro Watanabe 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.