· Private foundation
John and Margaret Sagan Foundation
Its FY2025 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
What it funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2020 to 2025.
Where the money goes
Grants by size, and the largest recipients.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k44 grants · $93k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $63k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| STANFORD UNIVERSITY | $28,000 |
| FRIENDS OF THE GRENADINES INITIATIVE | $15,000 |
| WORLD PEDIATRIC PROJECT | $10,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN LAW SCHOOL | $10,000 |
| LAWRENCE UNIVERSITY | $9,000 |
| MILLSAPS COLLEGE | $7,000 |
| GRAND TETON MUSIC FESTIVAL | $7,000 |
| PLOUGHSHARES FUND | $5,000 |
| FIRST UNITED METHODIST CHURCH | $5,000 |
| MORAN CENTER FOR YOUTH ADVOCACY | $5,000 |
| THRESHOLDS | $5,000 |
| CORDLEY ELEMENTARY SCHOOL | $3,000 |
| BULLETIN OF ATOMIC SCIENTISTS | $3,000 |
| FEEDING AMERICA | $2,000 |
| KANSAS PUBLIC RADIO | $2,000 |
Does the money reach high-need areas?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.
Its human-services grants (FY20–25, $3k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
How this is measured
Which US states its grants reach
How this is measured
Who it funds again
Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.
50 repeat relationships: 30 still active in FY2025, 20 since wound down; 17 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (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 FY2025, 80% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $26k went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
How this is measured
Backed again, and grew
- OWOHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY6× · 2020–2025 · $85k · revenue +61%
- WPWORLD PEDIATRICS6× · 2020–2025 · $60k · revenue +7%
Millsaps College6× · 2020–2025 · $39k · revenue +9%
Funded once
- OIOCEANA INCone grant, 2024 · $2k · revenue 0%
- AWAmazon Watch Incone grant, 2022 · $1k · revenue -36%
- EIEFD INTERNATIONALone grant, 2020 · $1k
How this is measured
Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
Closest unfunded matches
The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.
Nyu is a private university with approximately 60,000 matriculating students in 20 schools and institutes. nyu's primary missions are education, research and scholarship, and patient care.
The university's goal in the coming decade is to advance learning through the integration of teaching, research and service to others. the core of this goal is to prepare graduates to engage with the world and lead lives of meaning. to do…
The mission of mit is to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century.
Ci works to spotlight and secure the critical benefits that nature provides to humanity.
Advance science, engineering, and innovation throughout the world for the benefit of all. the world's largest multidisciplinary scientific society and a leading publisher of cutting-edge research through its science family of journals,…
The mission of the george washington university (gw) is to educate individuals in liberal arts, languages, sciences, learned professions, and other courses and subjects of study, and to conduct scholarly research and publish the findings…
The organization's mission is to educate students for creative occupations in diverse fields of arts and media.
The open markets institute works to help people relearn how to use competition policy to build stronger democracies, more just and equitable societies, more innovative and sustainable economies, and a more secure and peaceful world.
To educate students to be ethical and socially responsible leaders in a global community.
Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.
The elizabeth glaser pediatric aids foundation (egpaf) is a proven leader in the fight against pediatric hiv/aids and has reached over 33 million pregnant women with services to prevent transmission of hiv to their babies. to date, egpaf…
Education and Research
How this is measured
53 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.
Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.
How this is measured
Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 53 of the 96 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.
Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.
Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee
Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing
Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding
A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.
- Who funds THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds OHIO WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds WORLD PEDIATRICS ↗
- Who funds Friends of the Grenadines Initiative ↗
- Who funds Millsaps College ↗
- Who funds SAN FRANCISCO OPERA ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds THE THRESHOLDS ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN ACADEMY OF ARTS & SCIENCES ↗
- Who funds PLOUGHSHARES FUND INC ↗
- Who funds THE CENTER FOR REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS INC ↗
- Who funds JAMES B MORAN CENTER FOR YOUTH ADVOCACY ↗
- Who funds BLACK ENSEMBLE THEATER CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds GRAND TETON MUSIC FESTIVAL INC ↗
- Who funds THE TAFT SCHOOL CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds LITERACY WORKS ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO TECH ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds GICHIGAMIIN INDIGENOUS NATIONS MUSEUM INC ↗
- Who funds EVANSTONSKOKIE DISTRICT 65 EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION (FOUNDATION 65) ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY HEALTH PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds Feeding America ↗
- Who funds The Labelle Foundation Inc ↗
Co-funders
Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.
Open a dossier: The Chicago Community Trust · Evanston Community Foundation · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · Northwestern University · Elizabeth Beidler Tisdahl Foundation · Field Foundation of Illinois · Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation · AbbVie Foundation · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program
How this is measured
How much its grantees rely on government
Each dot is one organization John and Margaret Sagan Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from John and Margaret Sagan Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.
- American Academy of Arts & Sciences: 3% of income from government
How this is measured
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to John and Margaret Sagan Foundation?
Find your warmest path to John and Margaret Sagan 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.
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