· Private foundation
Jw Sefton 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 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 · FY2025
- $10k–50k1 grant · $35k
- $50k–250k4 grants · $490k
- $250k+2 grants · $800k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| SAN DIEGO NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM | $425,000 |
| FOREVER BALBOA PARK | $375,000 |
| HUBBS-SEA WORLD RESEARCH INSTITUTE | $145,000 |
| LIVING COAST DISCOVERY CENTER | $130,000 |
| SAN DIEGO HUMANE SOCIETY | $125,000 |
| THE SAN DIEGO FOUNDATION | $90,000 |
| EMILIO NARES FOUNDATION | $35,000 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 100% of your 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.
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 +37% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
13 repeat relationships — 6 still active in FY2025, 7 since wound down.
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, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
- SDSAN DIEGO SOCIETY OF NATURAL HISTORY9× · 2017–2025 · $4.3M · revenue +48%
- ODOCEAN DISCOVERY INSTITUTE8× · 2017–2024 · $1.4M · revenue +48%
- SDSAN DIEGO HUMANE SOCIETY AND SPCA7× · 2017–2025 · $985k · revenue +134%
Funded once
- ZSZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF SAN DIEGOone grant, 2024 · $100k · revenue 0%
- BMBONITA MUSEUM & CULTURAL CENTERone grant, 2018 · $55k
- SDSan Diego Police Canine Associationone grant, 2023 · $25k · revenue -100% · 93% of their budget
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…
The mission of san diego botanic garden: we garden to create, share, and apply plant wisdom in our world. the organization's diverse topography and wide variety of microclimates provides visitors with the varied sensations of strolling…
Together we defend the regions birds, unique biodiversity and threatened habitats through advocacy, education and restoration.
Balboa Park Conservancy (the Conservancy) was organized on November 3, 1923. The Conservancy is the City of San Diegos (the City) partner and advocated for the greater good of Balboa Park (the Park). The Conservancy collaborated with and…
To improve the quality of life of communities throughout the city of San Diego through equitable investments in parks, greenspace, and recreational opportunities.Vison - Every San Diegan has access to quality recreational facilities as…
Law enforcement agencies in today's environment find it difficult to cope with the magnitude of crime without the involved support of business, media and community. Since 1981, the San Diego County Crime Commission has built public…
The Museum functions as an educational and cultural institutionexercising community responsibility for the preservation of the automotive arts and sciences
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The San Diego Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Emilio Nares 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 19 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 SAN DIEGO SOCIETY OF NATURAL HISTORY ↗
- Who funds OCEAN DISCOVERY INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds SAN DIEGO HUMANE SOCIETY AND SPCA ↗
- Who funds FOREVER BALBOA PARK ↗
- Who funds ELEMENTARY INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE ↗
- Who funds LIVING COAST DISCOVERY CENTER ↗
- Who funds HUBBS-SEA WORLD RESEARCH INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds REUBEN H FLEET SCIENCE CENTER ↗
- Who funds Emilio Nares Foundation ↗
- Who funds THE SAN DIEGO FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SAN DIEGO POLICE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF SAN DIEGO ↗
- Who funds THE PUTNAM FOUNDATION DBA TIMKEN MUSEUM OF ART ↗
- Who funds San Diego Police Canine Association ↗
- Who funds Presidio Little League ↗
- Who funds Catalyst of San Diego & Imperial Counties ↗
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: Sempra Foundation · Price Philanthropies Foundation · The Conrad Prebys Foundation · Jewish Community Foundation of San Diego · The San Diego Foundation · Walter J & Betty C Zable Foundation · Heller Foundation of San Diego · The Thomas C Ackerman Foundation · Pratt Memorial Fund · David C Copley Foundation · Rancho Santa Fe Foundation · The Nordson Corporation 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 Jw Sefton 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.
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 Jw Sefton Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Jw Sefton 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.