Skip to content
Plinth
Foundation Dossiers
Plinth

· Private foundation

Imperfect Family 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.

$371k
Granted FY2024still arriving
37
Grants FY2024still arriving
7
States reached
$50k
Largest
01What you fundRead
02The needRead
03Your edgeRead
04Your fieldRead
05Through PlinthRead
01What you fund
01100% classified

What you funded, over time

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

Education$4.7MArts & Culture$2.2MHealth$440kPhilanthropy$400kCrime & Legal$275kHuman Services$257kCivil Rights$117kEnvironment$52kOther$0
02FY2024 · 37 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

By grant size · FY2024

  • Under $10k16 grants · $38k
  • $10k–50k19 grants · $233k
  • $50k–250k2 grants · $100k
$10,000
Median grant
7
States reached
$13M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
ARTISTIC REALIZATION TECHNOLOGIES INC$50,000
TRISHA BROWN DANCE COMPANY$50,000
SOUTHAMPTON ARTS CENTER$25,000
Individual grant recipient$15,000
WNET$15,000
STUDIO MUSEUM IN HARLEM$15,000
QUEERART$15,000
LAMBDA LEGAL DEFENSE & EDUCATION FUND INC$15,000
DIA ART FOUNDATION$12,500
Individual grant recipient$10,000
MOMA PS1$10,000
PEARLMAN MUSIC PROGRAM$10,000
STEPHEN PETRONIO DANCE COMPANY INC$10,000
VEGGIES TO TABLE$10,000
BOMB MAGAZINE$10,000
02The need
03

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.

show:

Your human-services grants (FY20–24, $257k) land where the poverty rate runs at 6%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 5% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.

area typical 11%KIRIPALU CENTER FOR YOGA AND HEALTH: $2k → 12%ARTISTIC REALIZATION TECHNOLOGIES: $75k → 5%ARTISTIC REALIZATION TECHNOLOGIES INC: $50k → 5%ARTISTIC REALIZATION TECHNOLOGIES INC: $50k → 5%ARTISTIC REALIZATION TECHNOLOGIES INC: $50k → 5%ARTISTIC REALIZATION TECHNOLOGIES: $20k → 5%THE NEW YORK WOMENS FOUNDATION: $10k → 17%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

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.

Which US states your grants reach

ME
MN
NY
MA
PA
NJ
CA
VA
MD
NC
DC
FL

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.

04

Where the work is directed

The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.

About 84% of Imperfect Family Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another. Read by recipient address, 91% of the giving stays in NY; read by stated purpose it is 14% — less of the work is directed home than the recipients' locations suggest.

Imperfect Family Foundationlessmore of its giving
Placed by recipient address

Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.

03Your edge
repeat funding

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.

86%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.
$7.4M · 38 repeat orgs$1.2M to everyone else

38 repeat relationships — 19 still active in FY2024, 19 since wound down; 18 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

38
34

Total granted

$7.4M
$1.0M

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+13%
+26%

Still filing today

71%
74%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 67% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $123k went to new ones.

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

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

’20’21’22’23’24
Arts & CultureEducationEnvironmentHealthHuman ServicesFood & NutritionOther

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

  • SB
    STONY BROOK FOUNDATION INC
    3× · 2020–2023 · $5.1M · revenue +273%
  • NY
    NEW YORK STEM CELL FOUNDATION INC
    3× · 2020–2023 · $375k · revenue +20%
  • AR
    ARTISTIC REALIZATION TECHNOLOGIES INC
    5× · 2020–2024 · $245k · revenue +24% · 79% of their budget

Funded once

  • SI
    STUDIO INSTITUTE
    one grant, 2023 · $200k
  • FRACTURED ATLAS INC
    one grant, 2022 · $125k · revenue +16%
  • WA
    WOODMERE ART MUSEUM
    one grant, 2021 · $100k · revenue -19%

Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Your field

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.

1
The Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences

The mission of the brooklyn institute of arts and sciences, d/b/a brooklyn museum (the "museum") is to bring people together through art and experiences that inspire celebration, compassion, courage, and the will to act. (see schedule o).

Arts & Culture
2
The Neue Galerie New York
Arts & Culture
3
Museum of Modern Art

The Museum of Modern Art is a private, non-profit institution chartered by the State of New York Department of Education in 1929 to foster public awareness of modern and contemporary art. (Continued in Schedule O)

Arts & Culture
4
Kadist Collection Manager Inc
Arts & Culture
5
Museum of Arts and Design

To collect, display and interpret objects in craft art and design.

Arts & Culture
6
National Academy of Design

The mission of the national academy of design is to promote the fine arts in america through exhibition and education.

Education
7
Museum of the City of New York

The museum of the city of new york fosters understanding of the distinctive nature of urban life in the world's most influential metropolis. it engages visitors by celebrating, documenting, and interpreting the city's past, present, and…

Arts & Culture
8
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

See schedule osfmoma believes the art of our time is vital and shares it with passion and purpose, and that art and the creative process can open minds and help build a better world. for that reason, we assemble unparalleled collections,…

Arts & Culture
9
Berggruen Institute
Education
10
White Columns Inc

White columns identifies significant emerging and under-represented visual artists and encourages their creative and professional development through the presentation of group and solo exhibitions, an online curated artists registry, and…

Arts & Culture
11
The Paris Review Foundation Inc

The mission of the organization is to foster the development of creative individuals as writers and artists and to promote public appreciation of excellence in the literary and graphic arts by publishing a magazine containing fiction,…

Education
12
New York Studio School

The new york studio school is committed to giving a significant education to the aspiring artist, a preamble to a lifetime's engagement in drawing, painting, and sculpture. (see schedule o for continuation)

—

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is New York Foundation for the Arts Inc and the most unlike its peers is National Geographic Society. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

Your grantees are a median of 41 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.

THE FIELDby orgYOUR GRANTEESby number20%2%<5yr14%7%5–10yr20%8%10–20yr20%24%20–35yr14%34%35–55yr11%26%55yr+
THE FIELDby orgYOUR MONEYby value20%0%<5yr14%5%5–10yr20%3%10–20yr20%12%20–35yr14%6%35–55yr11%73%55yr+

The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.

Closures · last 5 years

The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 11% of the field you don’t fund.

orgs you fund
0.0%0/67
the rest of the field
11%
6,531/58,794

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.

05the grantee network

67 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. 67 of the 91 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.

1
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
5
Early backer (in before they grew)
67/67
Grantees still filing
44/67
Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

STONY BROOK FOUNDATION INC — $5,100,000 · EducationSTONY BROOK FOUNDATION INC+3 more — $42,000 · EducationTRISHA BROWN DANCE COMPANY — $300,000 · OtherTRISHA BROWN DANCE…STUDIO IN A SCHOOL ASSOCIATION INC — $225,000 · OtherSTUDIO IN A SCHOOL…STUDIO INSTITUTE — $200,000 · OtherSTUDIO INSTITUTEPLANNED PARENTHOOD FOUNDATION — $150,000 · OtherPLANNED PARENTHOOD…UNITED STATES ARTISTS RELIEF — $100,000 · OtherUNITED STATES ARTI…THE CHURCH — $100,000 · OtherTHE CHURCH+37 more — $301,000 · Other+37 moreTHE PARRISH ART MUSEUM INC — $130,000 · Arts & CultureTHE PARRISH AR…FRACTURED ATLAS INC — $125,000 · Arts & CultureFRACTURED ATLA…SAG HARBOR PARTNERSHIP INC — $101,000 · Arts & CultureSAG HARBOR PAR…WOODMERE ART MUSEUM — $100,000 · Arts & CultureWOODMERE ART M…THE BROOKLYN RAIL INC — $100,000 · Arts & CultureTHE BROOKLYN R…EDGE AND CENTER INC THE CHURCH — $75,000 · Arts & CultureEDGE AND CENTE…QUEER ART INC — $70,000 · Arts & CultureQUEER ART INCSCOA INC — $50,000 · Arts & CultureARTISTS SPACE INC — $50,000 · Arts & Culture+24 more — $254,500 · Arts & Culture+24 moreNEW YORK STEM CELL FOUNDATION INC — $375,000 · Health+2 more — $12,500 · HealthDESIGNING JUSTICE DESIGNING SPACES — $275,000 · Crime & LegalARTISTIC REALIZATION TECHNOLOGIES INC — $245,000 · Human ServicesNEW YORK WOMEN'S FOUNDATION INC — $10,000 · Human Services+1 more — $2,000 · Human ServicesNATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL INC — $15,000 · EnvironmentMADISON SQUARE PARK CONSERVANCY INC — $10,000 · EnvironmentGROUP FOR THE EAST END INC — $5,000 · EnvironmentPECONIC LAND TRUST INC — $5,000 · Environment
Education$5,142,000Other$1,376,000Arts & Culture$1,055,500Health$387,500Crime & Legal$275,000Human Services$257,000Environment$35,000

Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ your share of their budgetSTONY BROOK FOUNDATION INC — $5,100,000 over 3y, 7.5% of budgetNEW YORK STEM CELL FOUNDATION INC — $375,000 over 3y, 0.5% of budgetDESIGNING JUSTICE DESIGNING SPACES — $275,000 over 2y, 6.1% of budgetARTISTIC REALIZATION TECHNOLOGIES INC — $245,000 over 5y, 79% of budgetSTUDIO IN A SCHOOL ASSOCIATION INC — $225,000 over 2y, 1.8% of budgetTHE PARRISH ART MUSEUM INC — $130,000 over 2y, 1.7% of budgetFRACTURED ATLAS INC — $125,000 over 1y, 0.3% of budgetSAG HARBOR PARTNERSHIP INC — $101,000 over 2y, 5.9% of budgetWOODMERE ART MUSEUM — $100,000 over 1y, 0.9% of budgetTHE BROOKLYN RAIL INC — $100,000 over 1y, 4.7% of budgetEDGE AND CENTER INC THE CHURCH — $75,000 over 1y, 5.2% of budgetQUEER ART INC — $70,000 over 5y, 2.2% of budgetSCOA INC — $50,000 over 2y, 2.1% of budgetARTISTS SPACE INC — $50,000 over 1y, 2.5% of budgetTHE STUDIO MUSEUM IN HARLEM — $35,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetThe New York Public Library Astor Lenox and Tilden Foundations — $30,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetDIA CENTER FOR THE ARTS INC — $27,500 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetAUBIN PICTURES INC — $25,000 over 1y, 2.3% of budgetNEW ART PUBLICATIONS INC — $20,000 over 2y, 0.4% of budgetFoundation for Art and Preservation in Embassies — $20,000 over 1y, 0.5% of budgetFRIENDS OF THE HIGH LINE INC — $20,000 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetDANSPACE PROJECT INC — $20,000 over 2y, 1.2% of budgetWOMENS ART CENTER OF THE HAMPTONS INC — $15,000 over 1y, 3.9% of budgetNATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL INC — $15,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetWNET — $15,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetLAMBDA LEGAL DEFENSE & EDUCATION FUND INC — $15,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetPERFECT EARTH PROJECT INC — $10,000 over 1y, 1.7% of budgetSWISS INSTITUTE — $10,000 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetMidcoast Music Academy — $10,000 over 1y, 2.9% of budgetPEOPLE FOR THE ETHICAL TREATMENT OF ANIMALS INC — $10,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetMADISON SQUARE PARK CONSERVANCY INC — $10,000 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetSTEPHEN PETRONIO DANCE COMPANY INC — $10,000 over 1y, 3.3% of budgetThe Coalition of Immokalee Workers Inc — $10,000 over 1y, 0.4% of budgetNew Museum of Contemporary Art — $10,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetDUKE UNIVERSITY — $10,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetPLANNED PARENTHOOD HUDSON PECONIC INC — $10,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetTHE JEWISH MUSEUM — $10,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetNEW YORK WOMEN'S FOUNDATION INC — $10,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetBAY CHAMBER CONCERTS INC — $10,000 over 1y, 0.3% of budgetVEGGIES TO TABLE — $10,000 over 1y, 2.4% of budgetART PRODUCTION FUND INC — $7,000 over 2y, 0.4% of budgetSTREB INC — $5,000 over 1y, 0.3% of budgetGROUP FOR THE EAST END INC — $5,000 over 2y, 0.2% of budgetBEYOND NUCLEAR — $5,000 over 1y, 0.9% of budgetPECONIC LAND TRUST INC — $5,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetEast End Food Institute — $5,000 over 2y, 0.2% of budgetPUBLIC ART FUND INC — $4,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetART21 INC — $3,000 over 3y, 0.0% of budget
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.

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.

The New York Communit…Arison Arts FoundationAg FoundationThe Ford FoundationJewish Communal FundThe Fine and Greenwal…The Andrew W Mellon F…The Goldman Sachs Cha…The Lawrence and Caro…Robert Rauschenberg F…The Cowles Charitable…Tides Foundation
The New York Community TrustNY26.9× affinity12 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: The New York Community Trust · Arison Arts Foundation · Ag Foundation · The Ford Foundation · Jewish Communal Fund · The Fine and Greenwald Foundation · The Andrew W Mellon Foundation · The Goldman Sachs Charitable Gift Fund · The Lawrence and Carol Saper Foundation · Robert Rauschenberg Foundation · The Cowles Charitable Trust · Tides 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 Imperfect Family 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.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 30%6%23%51%90%your share of their income ↑0%23%45%68%90%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    3get no government money at all
    20report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–90%
    typical government reliance, FY20–25

    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.

    05Through Plinth

    Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

    How do I get to Imperfect Family Foundation?

    Find your warmest path to Imperfect Family 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.

    On method. Every financial figure here is read directly from IRS e-file XML — your own 990/990-PF and the multi-year returns of the 91 grantees we resolved across every year we hold, several hundred filings in all (a different count from the grant rows on the cover, which are one fiscal year)— each linked to its source. Grantee achievements and outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III); we read these as association with sustained funding — the foundation is one of several forces — suppress low-confidence name matches rather than guess, and say so where a figure rests on a single grant or filing. Not everything on this page is a filed figure, and the difference matters. Filed is what you reported on your 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. How we build these →

    Generated from your IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2024, released 2024. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

    More from the funding graph

    The unnamed billions
    grants reported with no recipient in the public record
    The regranting layer
    51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer
    The DAF merry-go-round
    $9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds
    The camps
    funders cluster by geography, not ideology
    By state
    where grant money is based, and what stays home
    State money flows
    the interactive map of money crossing state lines