· Public charity
Independent Arts & Media
Independent Arts & Media's mission is to steward and empower independent art and media projects that foster community and civic participation and facilitate cultural engagement and free expression.
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.
The 18 grants below total $854,039 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $1,061,312 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $207,273 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k4 grants · $27k
- $10k–50k8 grants · $208k
- $50k–250k6 grants · $620k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CinemaSF | $246,891 |
| Art Forces | $102,709 |
| Upstream Podcast LLC | $76,184 |
| Little Boxes Theater | $71,000 |
| Lansing Journal LLC | $67,000 |
| Shaping San Francisco | $55,836 |
| Fatasilima LLC | $38,025 |
| Mpowerdance Company | $36,000 |
| Flamenco Arts International | $31,525 |
| Coalition to Grow San Francis | $28,010 |
| San Ramon Academy of Music | $25,800 |
| Dogpatch Collective LLC | $21,820 |
| Mendocino News Media LLC | $15,237 |
| San Francisco Art Book Fair | $11,250 |
| The Wild Hunt Inc | $9,352 |
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 (FY18–18, $9k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 0% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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.
Which US states your grants reach
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 +73% since the first grant, against -2% for the ones you funded once.
22 repeat relationships — 8 still active in FY2024, 14 since wound down; 10 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).
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, 38% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $531k 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
- OSOAKLAND SCHOOL FOR THE ARTS3× · 2022–2024 · $346k · revenue +73%
- TCTHE CRUCIBLE3× · 2021–2023 · $133k · revenue +1%
- KKidnuz4× · 2020–2023 · $77k · revenue +87% · 58% of their budget
Funded once
- TAThe Atlantic Monthly Grp LLCone grant, 2019 · $40k
- AAMPEDone grant, 2019 · $33k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2019 · $32k
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.
Enriching Lives Through the Arts
The mission of the San Francisco Public Press is to enrich civic life by publishing investigative and solutions journalism that engages diverse audiences and promotes public accountability. The San Francisco Public Press…
Marin open studios is a non-profit visual arts organization dedicated to engaging and supporting marin county artists and their audiences through events, programs and services. marin open studios champions a diverse and inclusive community…
Artist Trust supports the livelihoods of artists working in all disciplines to create a more vibrant and equitable Washington State.
Southern Exposure (SoEx) is an artist-centered non-profit organization that is committed to supporting visual artists. Through our extensive and innovative programming, SoEx strives to experiment, collaborate and further educate while…
San Francisco Center For The Book is a center of inspiration for the Book Arts world, featuring the art and craft of letterpress printing, bookbinding, and artists' bookmaking. We are dedicated to the art of the book!
Oregon Arts Watch produces independent, professional arts and culture journalism and criticism that is transparent, fair and accurate.
Shotgun Players is a company of artists determined to create bold, relevant, affordable theatre that inspires and challenges audience and artist alike to re-examine our lives, our community, and the ever-changing world around us.
Theatre Flamenco of San Francisco aims to enrich and inspire both the art community and the general public through a blend of traditional and innovative flamenco. We produce imaginative, thematic shows that feature the talents of both…
The Bay Area Creative Foundation celebrates, cultivates, and inspires creativity in youth and young adults. We believe in fostering a society that embodies creative spirit, art, and innovation.
Founded in 2018 by a group of high-tech investors, and arts executives and advocates, ArtsSV is on the meaningful track of changing the cultural landscape of Silicon Valley.
The description of Cutting Ball Theater's mission starts on Form 990 Page 1 and continues on Schedule O
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The San Francisco Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Double Union. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
10 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. 10 of the 51 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.
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: Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · 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 Independent Arts & Media 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Independent Arts & Media?
Find your warmest path to Independent Arts & Media 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.