· Private foundation
Institute for Law & Systems Research
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.
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.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k5 grants · $12k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $26k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $100k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| NORTHWEST SCHOOL OF WOODEN BOAT BUI | $100,000 |
| SAN DIEGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM | $25,950 |
| SYNERGY ARTS FOUNDATION | $5,025 |
| VOLCAN MOUNTAIN FOUNDATION | $3,000 |
| COMMUNITY BOAT PROJECT | $2,000 |
| KPBS | $1,200 |
| ELDERHELP OF SAN DIEGO | $1,000 |
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 (FY20–24, $7k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 93% 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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 51% of Institute for Law & Systems Research’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, 45% of the giving stays in CA; read by stated purpose it is 41% — less of the work is directed home than the recipients' locations suggest.
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.
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 +48% since the first grant, against +5% for the ones you funded once.
12 repeat relationships — 6 still active in FY2024, 6 since wound down; 1 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, 96% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $5k 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
- NSNorthwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding8× · 2017–2024 · $337k · revenue +82%
- SDSAN DIEGO SOCIETY OF NATURAL HISTORY7× · 2017–2024 · $143k · revenue +48%
- VMVOLCAN MOUNTAIN FOUNDATION7× · 2017–2024 · $45k · revenue +513%
Funded once
- CCCanebrake County Water Districtone grant, 2017 · $40k
- SJSOUTHWESTERN JUNIOR FOUNDATIONone grant, 2023 · $20k · revenue -32% · 49% of their budget
- DODIGNITY OF MAN FOUNDATIONone grant, 2017 · $7k · revenue -89%
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.
Nature collective's mission is to drive a passion for nature for all. we think inclusively and diversely when serving those devoid of nature those who remember nature and want to connect back to it and those who have an affinity with…
Sustainable Conservation advances the collaborative stewardship of Californias land, air, and water for the benefit of nature and people. For over three decades, Sustainable Conservation has built coalitions of people with different…
Acquire, manage and protect land in perpetuity that supports sensitive habitats and species, and to educate and inspire people and communities as stewards and advocates of their natural environment.
San diego zoo wildlife alliance is committed to saving species worldwide by uniting our expertise in wildlife care and conservation science with our dedication to inspiring passion for nature.
Together we defend the regions birds, unique biodiversity and threatened habitats through advocacy, education and restoration.
The San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory is dedicated to the conservation of birds and their habitats through science and outreach.
California ocean science trust (ost) is a non-profit organization dedicated to accelerating progress towards a healthy and productive ocean future for california. created by state legislation, ost bridges the gap between cutting-edge…
The institute is dedicated to scientific research, the results of which are used to promote public awareness and education in the areas of conservation biology and ecology,including the wise use of natural resources.
To promote, protect and restore the natural habitats in San Diego County's canyons and creeks. We do this by fostering education and ongoing community involvement in stewardship and advocacy, and by collaborating with other organizations.
The Chile-California Council is a San Francisco-based nonprofit dedicated to developing and promoting joint endeavors and cooperative relations between Chile and California, as well as individuals, legal entities and other institutions in…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is San Diego Society of Natural History and the most unlike its peers is Dignity of Man Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
16 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. 16 of the 27 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 Northwest School of Wooden Boatbuilding ↗
- Who funds SAN DIEGO SOCIETY OF NATURAL HISTORY ↗
- Who funds VOLCAN MOUNTAIN FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SOLAR ENERGY INTERNATIONAL ↗
- Who funds THE MONO LAKE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SOUTHWESTERN JUNIOR FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds DIGNITY OF MAN FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ELDERHELP OF SAN DIEGO ↗
- Who funds WILDCOAST ↗
- Who funds SAN DIEGO RESCUE MISSION INC ↗
- Who funds COOPERATIVE FOR ASSISTANCE AND RELIEF EVERYWHERE INC ↗
- Who funds JACOBS & CUSHMAN SAN DIEGO FOOD BANK ↗
- Who funds CLIMATE ACTION CAMPAIGN ↗
- Who funds Academy of Music for the Blind ↗
- Who funds WILD FISH CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN OF THE NATIONS ↗
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: Jewish Community Foundation of San Diego · The San Diego Foundation · Orange County Community Foundation · Sempra Foundation · American Endowment Foundation · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Network for Good · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc
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 Institute for Law & Systems Research 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.