· Private foundation
Joseph Drown Foundation
Its FY2026 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2026
- Under $10k2 grants · $11k
- $10k–50k45 grants · $1.1M
- $50k–250k48 grants · $3.4M
- $250k+3 grants · $800k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| COMMON SENSE MEDIA | $300,000 |
| LA PROMISE FUND | $250,000 |
| EDVOICE INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH & EDUCATION | $250,000 |
| THE SEED SCHOOL OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY | $200,000 |
| EQUITAS ACADEMY CHARTER SCHOOLS | $175,000 |
| KIPP SOCAL PUBLIC SCHOOLS | $125,000 |
| LOS ANGELES SPORTS & ENTERTAINMENT COMMISSION | $100,000 |
| EDNOVATE INC | $100,000 |
| PARTNERSHIP FOR LOS ANGELES SCHOOLS | $100,000 |
| UNITED STATES OLYMPIC AND PARALYMPIC FOUNDATION | $100,000 |
| SUCCESS FOR ALL FOUNDATION INC | $100,000 |
| GREEN DOT PUBLIC SCHOOLS | $80,000 |
| SPRINGBOARD COLLABORATIVE | $80,000 |
| AVALON-CARVER COMMUNITY CENTER | $80,000 |
| PROYECTO PASTORAL | $80,000 |
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 (FY17–26, $3.4M) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 100% 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.
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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 9% of Joseph Drown Foundation’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, 91% of the giving stays in CA; read by stated purpose it is 94% — more 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 +26% since the first grant, against +24% for the ones you funded once.
201 repeat relationships — 80 still active in FY2026, 121 since wound down; 13 grantees were first funded in FY2026 (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 FY2026, 87% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $675k 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
- CSCALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY NORTHRIDGE FOUNDATION6× · 2017–2025 · $1.1M · revenue +126%
- LPLA PROMISE FUND8× · 2017–2026 · $785k · revenue +287%
- CSCOMMON SENSE MEDIA8× · 2017–2026 · $650k · revenue +80%
Funded once
- BCBARUCH COLLEGEone grant, 2020 · $250k
- CSCALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY NORTHRIDGE FOUNDATION CSUN MARILYN MAGARAM CENTone grant, 2020 · $200k
- UFUCLA FOUNDATION DAVID GEFFEN SCHOOL OF MEDICINEone grant, 2019 · $150k
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.
To surround students with a community of support, empowering them to stay in school and achieve in life. we work with public school systems, establishing relationship with superintendents, principals, educators, and community partners to…
To help each child reach his/her full potential by cultivating an active village of parents, community members, and stakeholders involved in providing an individual, personal, and conceptual learning environment for each student.
Crossroads is an independent school for approximately 1,200 students.
The archer school for girls is an educational community that supports and challenges young women to discover their passions and realize their true potential by a) providing a rigorous, integrated college preparatory curriculum that fosters…
Guided by the principles of academic rigor and diversity, the international school of san francisco offers programs of study in french and english to prepare its graduates for a world in which the ability to think critically and to…
To prepare students for leadership in the arts and business; where creativity, academic knowledge and financial literacy are essential for success. we are providing an education that integrates the four lenses of learning: academics, arts,…
The association serves its members by creating resources that enable california school administrators to develop and apply creative leadership and management skills and in turn, improve the educational process for all students.
We believe childhood is extraordinary. crestview culitivates academic excellence by nurturing individual potential, empowering students to learn joyfully and discover their unique talents within our caring community that fosters belonging.…
The buckley school is a dynamic, nurturing learning community committed to equity and inclusion. our innovative teachers and challenging programs inspire creativity, courage, and collaboration. by promoting a balanced development of mind,…
Vistamar school empowers students, preparing them to contribute and excel in higher education and in life, and commits to: a broad and balanced program that challenges and engages students, building their individual skills and inspiring a…
The mission of tlc is to educate diverse students through a rigorous, standards-based, collegepreparatory program to become conscientious, caring, and responsible 21st century citizens. tlc is grounded in an inclusive vision of teaching…
Inspire brave learners to shape the future.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is After-School All-Stars Los Angeles and the most unlike its peers is The Narrative Method Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 29 years old; the field is 12. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 25% startups (under 5 years old) — 1% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 2% lost their exemption, against 16% of the field you don’t fund.
Age = years since IRS exemption (a founding proxy). “Closed” = auto-revocation for 3 years of non-filing — a floor on closure, not proof, and bigger established orgs lapse least. Association, not causation.
256 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.
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 2017–2026, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 256 of the 325 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
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
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 THE SEED FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY NORTHRIDGE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds LULU'S PLACE INC ↗
- Who funds GREAT PUBLIC SCHOOLS NOW ↗
- Who funds UCLA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds LA PROMISE FUND ↗
- Who funds COMMON SENSE MEDIA ↗
- Who funds EQUITAS ACADEMY CHARTER SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds INNOVATE PUBLIC SCHOOLS ↗
- Who funds KIPP SOCAL PUBLIC SCHOOLS ↗
- Who funds PARTNERSHIP FOR LOS ANGELES SCHOOLS ↗
- Who funds STEP UP TUTORING ↗
- Who funds THE RAPE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds EMERGING MARKETS DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds Citizens of the World Charter Schools Los Angeles ↗
- Who funds LIFT INC ↗
- Who funds HARVARD-WESTLAKE SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds THINK TOGETHER ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY PARTNERS ↗
- Who funds COLLEGE TRACK ↗
- Who funds EDVOICE INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH AND EDUCATION ↗
- Who funds INTERNATIONAL MEDICAL CORPS ↗
- Who funds Green Dot Public Schools ↗
- Who funds Proyecto Pastoral ↗
- Who funds EDNOVATE INC ↗
- Who funds ASPIRE PUBLIC SCHOOLS ↗
- Who funds CEDARS-SINAI MEDICAL CENTER ↗
- Who funds GIRLS ATHLETIC LEADERSHIP SCHOOL LOS ANGELES ↗
- Who funds One Voice ↗
- Who funds ALLIANCE COLLEGE-READY PUBLIC SCHOOLS ↗
- Who funds CITY YEAR INC ↗
- Who funds TOWER CANCER RESEARCH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds FULFILLMENT FUND ↗
- Who funds GREATER LOS ANGELES EDUCATION FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY LOS ANGELES FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF METRO LOS ANGELES ↗
- Who funds HOMEBOY INDUSTRIES ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR POWERFUL PUBLIC SCHOOLS ↗
- Who funds THE POSSE FOUNDATION INC ↗
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: The Ralph M Parsons Foundation · Great Public Schools Now · Weingart Foundation · The Ahmanson Foundation · California Community Foundation · The Annenberg Foundation · The Rose Hills Foundation · Johnny Carson Foundation · The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation · Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles · Elbridge Stuart Foundation Dba Stuart Foundation · The Los Angeles Dodgers 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 Joseph Drown Foundation 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.
- City Year Inc — 11% of income from government
- The Trustees of Princeton University — 11% of income from government
- President and Fellows of Harvard College — 7% of income from government
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 Joseph Drown Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Joseph Drown 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.