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California · Private foundation

Joseph & Ruth E Stern 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.

$27k
Granted FY2025(still arriving)
16
Grants FY2025
16
Organizations funded FY2024
19%
First-time grantees FY2024
Read the full brief
Median grant, FY2025
$2,000
Largest grant, FY2025
$3,500
Organizations funded a year
16 to 20
FY2018 to FY2024
States reached, FY2025
8
Total assets, FY2025
$379k
Applications
Preselected organizations only
Per its most recent filing; check its own site

How open it is to new grantees

In FY2024, 19% of the organizations Joseph & Ruth E Stern Foundation funded were first-time grantees, receiving 12% of its grant dollars.

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 88% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2k went to new ones.

50%100%’18’19’20’21’22’23’24
RenewedFirst-time

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

’18’19’20’21’22’23’24
Human ServicesPhilanthropyAnimalsEducationHealthPublic BenefitOther
How this is measured
First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). The earliest year is left-censored: relationships that predate the data read as new. Theme is the grantee’s IRS cause.
The numbers by year
Fiscal yearOrganizations fundedTo those organizationsFirst-time grantees
FY2025still arriving16$27k19%
FY202416$17k19%
FY202319$34k26%
FY202216$19k0%
FY202120$21k20%
FY202018$27k17%
FY201916$17k38%
FY201819$21k26%
100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2024.

Human Services$54kHealth$27kAnimals$23kFood & Nutrition$23kEducation$16kPhilanthropy$12kEnvironment$5kPublic Safety & Disaster$3kOther$0

Where its grants go

Grant dollars by states, across the years we hold.

Which US states its grants reach

IL
MI
NY
OH
CA
KY
VA
MD
AZ
KS
TN
DC
HI
LA
FL

Top grantees

Largest recipients by total granted, FY2017 to FY2025, and the share of each one’s budget the grants supplied at peak.

Show all 25 grantees

What it could do for these grantees

Plus 23 recipients with no EIN on record ($63k), not named here.

Where it is load-bearing

Each grantee by its size and the share of its budget Joseph & Ruth E Stern Foundation supplied at peak.

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetSaddlebrooke Community Outreach Inc: $19,000 over 6y, 1.1% of budgetFood on Foot: $16,000 over 8y, 0.1% of budgetStephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation: $13,000 over 7y, 0.0% of budgetWounded Warrior Project Inc: $13,000 over 8y, 0.0% of budgetSt Jude Children's Research Hospital Inc: $11,000 over 7y, 0.0% of budgetUnited Jewish Appeal-Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York Inc: $10,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetFisher House Foundation Inc: $9,500 over 5y, 0.0% of budgetGentle Giants Draft Horse Rescue Society Ltd: $8,500 over 6y, 0.0% of budgetHeroes Linked: $5,200 over 3y, 0.5% of budgetThe American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals: $4,000 over 8y, 0.0% of budgetAmerican National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches: $3,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetMercy Chefs Inc: $3,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetMaui United Way: $2,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetGreater Los Angeles Zoological Association: $1,900 over 7y, 0.0% of budgetHumane World for Animals Inc: $1,600 over 6y, 0.0% of budgetFriends For Pets Foundation: $1,100 over 2y, 0.4% of budgetMaui Humane Society: $700 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetFor the Troops: $195 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetHoward Jarvis Taxpayer Association: $100 over 1y, 0.0% of budget

Tap a dot to name the grantee.

How this is measured
Share of budget is the funder’s grant in a year over the grantee’s total revenue that year, at its highest across the years we hold; revenue is from all sources. Only grantees confirmed against their own filings, whose grants do not exceed their revenue, are plotted: the largest 19.

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.

Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift FundMA5.5× affinity6 shared granteesties to 1 of 1Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile Foundation

How this is measured
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

Compare Joseph & Ruth E Stern Foundation with peer funders

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to Joseph & Ruth E Stern Foundation?

Find your warmest path to Joseph & Ruth E Stern 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.

About Joseph & Ruth E Stern Foundation

How much does Joseph & Ruth E Stern Foundation give?
Joseph & Ruth E Stern Foundation reported 16 grants totaling $26,700 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 16 and 20 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.
What does Joseph & Ruth E Stern Foundation fund?
By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Human Services (31%), Health (16%), Animals (14%).
Who are Joseph & Ruth E Stern Foundation's largest grantees?
By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: Saddlebrooke Community Outreach Inc ($19k), Food on Foot ($16k), Stephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation ($13k).
Does Joseph & Ruth E Stern Foundation fund new organizations?
In FY2024, 19% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.
Does Joseph & Ruth E Stern Foundation accept unsolicited applications?
Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Which funders back the same organizations as Joseph & Ruth E Stern Foundation?
Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund, Amazonsmile Foundation.
Where is Joseph & Ruth E Stern Foundation based?
Joseph & Ruth E Stern Foundation is based in CA.

On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 48 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

How this is measured
Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its 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.

Generated from the IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2025, released 2025. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Source object · view filing

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