Loading…
· Public charity
Independent Arts & Media
Independent Arts & Media's mission is to steward and empower independent arts and media projects that foster community and civic participation, and facilitate cultural engagement and free expression.
$1.1M
Granted FY2024
18
Grants
4
Communities
$247k
Largest
01What you fund
01
What you funded, over time
By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).
A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 57% of Independent Arts & Media’s grantee dollars go to organizations outside the IRS cause taxonomy (common for large international and research funders), so a chart would be mostly “unclassified” and misrepresent the portfolio.
02beneath the categories
Past the labels — and the year it shifted
Beneath the NTEE codes, this is what the grant descriptions actually say.
…and in their own words, year by year
2018
—
2019
—
2020
—
2021
—
2022
cruciblenewssan francisco
2023
cruciblebook fairnewssan francisco
2024
flamencoimmersiveartexperiencessan francisco
Words distinctive to each year’s grant purposes (TF-IDF) · event-driven terms in cyan.
03FY2024 · 18 grants
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k4 grants · $27k
- $10k–50k8 grants · $208k
- $50k–250k6 grants · $620k
$31,525
Median grant
4
States reached
$6.0M
Total assets
Largest grants
- 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
02The need
04
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 (FY18–18, $9k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10% — the area typically sits at 11%. 0% of those dollars reach neighborhoods with above-average need. Your grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.
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 line in 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, United Way ALICE — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.
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.
53%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.
$2.5M · 22 repeat orgs$2.3M to everyone else
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +45% since the first grant, against -9% 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
Re-uppedFunded once
Organizations
22
19
Total granted
$2.5M
$1.7M
Median revenue growth · since first grant
+45%
-9%
Still filing today
18%
11%
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2024, 38% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $531k went to new ones.
RenewedFirst-time
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
EducationArts & CulturePhilanthropyYouth DevelopmentCivil RightsCommunity ImprovementOther
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
- AFArt Forces3× · 2022–2024 · $346k · revenue +40%
- TCThe Crucible3× · 2021–2023 · $133k · revenue +21%
- KKidNuz4× · 2020–2023 · $77k · revenue +45% · 58% of their budget
Funded once
The San Francisco Foundationone grant, 2020 · $1.4M · revenue -9%- TAThe Atlantic Monthly Grp LLCone grant, 2019 · $40k
- AAmpedone grant, 2019 · $33k
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
Theatre Bay Area
Theatre Bay Areas mission is to unite, strengthen, promote and advance the theatre community in the San Francisco Bay Area, working on behalf of the conviction that the performing arts are an essential public good, critical to a healthy…
Arts & Culture
2
San Francisco Public Press
The mission of the San Francisco Public Press is to enrich civic life in San Francisco by delivering public-interest journalism to broad and diverse audiences through print and interactive media not supported by advertising. The San…
Education
3
Sebastopol Center for the Arts
Enriching Lives Through the Arts
Arts & Culture
4
Theatre Flamenco of San Francisco
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.
Arts & Culture
5
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts generates culture that moves people.
Arts & Culture
6
Shotgun Players
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.
Arts & Culture
7
Bay Area Creative Foundation
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.
Arts & Culture
8
Artist Trust
Artist Trust supports the livelihoods of artists working in all disciplines to create a more vibrant and equitable Washington State.
Arts & Culture
9
Creative City Public Charter School
Allow teachers, students and parents to share governance and cooperate on curriculum and community decisions, building on the inquisitive nature of children to drive the project-based arts-integrated curriculum, developing self-directed…
Education
10
Californians for the Arts
Advancing and building public awareness of the value and impact of arts, culture and creativity across California.
Arts & Culture
11
Creative Arts Charter School
To provide kindergarten to 8th grade students of san francisco with an innovative education.
Education
12
Marin Open Studios
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…
Arts & Culture
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The San Francisco Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Kidnuz. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
05the grantee network
9 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2017–2024.
Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue.
1
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
4
Early backer (in before they grew)
8/9
Grantees still filing
7/9
Grew since you first funded
Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee
Other$2,708,331Philanthropy$1,415,000Education$478,882Youth Development$76,824Arts & Culture$57,745Civil Rights$28,010Community Improvement$10,000Human Services$9,034
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.
Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust IncIN4.2× affinity5 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 · 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 organisation 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.
2024
’20’21’22’23’24
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, FY20–24
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. 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
Through Plinth
Your grantmaking, live and operational
This dossier was generated cold from public filings. In Plinth it’s a working system — every applicant assessed and every grant monitored. Here’s a taste, run on one of your grantees: KidNuz.
Agentic due diligence · confidence × risk
Financial management
insufficient risk
Limited financial data in public filings.
Track record & reputation
medium risk
3 years of Form 990 filings, still active.
Legal standing
low risk
US 501(c)(3); EIN 364965481 on file with current IRS Form 990 filings.
Governance
Live in Plinth
Board composition & governance documents — verified live in Plinth from the applicant.
Compliance & sanctions
Live in Plinth
OFAC / UN sanctions screening — run live in Plinth at assessment.
Program capacity
Live in Plinth
Staffing, M&E and activity alignment — assessed live in Plinth from submitted proposals.
Live · Plinth’s real DD engine
Run the actual assessment on KidNuz, cold from public data.
Generated live from public IRS filings + open web sources by Plinth’s agentic engine. Shown as an illustration of the product, not a formal assessment.
Post-award monitoring · continuous checks
- Awaiting reportFinancial stability— Runway not derivable from filings.
- On trackSustained operations— Filing through 2024; revenue grew over the period.
- WatchReliance on your funding— Your grants peaked at 58% of their budget — load-bearing; a dependency Plinth would track.
- Awaiting reportEvidence of delivery— Plinth collects the grantee's own monitoring reports post-award.
What you see here is static and public. In Plinth it’s operational — the full six-pillar framework on every applicant (with their own documents + live registry and sanctions checks), monitoring dashboards on every award, custom board reports, and eligibility routing for intake.
Agentic due diligenceMonitoring dashboardsCustom board reportsEligibility routing
Preview generated from this grantee’s public IRS filings and independent reporting. Pillars marked “live in Plinth” require the applicant’s submitted documents. Shown as illustration, not a formal assessment.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPro
How do I get to Independent Arts & Media?
Find your warmest path to Independent Arts & Media through people who sit on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the introduction across shared trustees and officers.
Every link is a documented governance overlap in public IRS 990 filings — not a personal network — and each hop carries its own confidence tier. Low-confidence or distant paths are held back rather than guessed.
More from the funding graph
The regranting layer
51% of grant dollars pass through an intermediary
The DAF merry-go-round
$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds
Strange bedfellows
the named clusters of US funding
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