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Kam Family Foundation at a glanceMostly funded, not a grantmaker: see who funds it →

· Private foundation

Kam Family 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.

$3k
Granted FY2021
4
Grants FY2021
1
States reached
$1k
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its fieldRead
01What it funds
01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2020 to 2021.

Community Improvement$4kHuman Services$2kCivil Rights$2kEducation$2kArts & Culture$100Crime & Legal$100
02FY2021 · 4 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

$500
Median grant
1
States reached
$2.7M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
Silicon Valley Chinese Association$1,000
MVLA High School Foundation$500
Los Altos Education Foundation$500
MVLA Speech and Debate Boosters In$500
02The need
03

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY20–21) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 29% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.

area typical 10%Los Altos Education Foundation: $500 → 8%Silicon Valley Chinese Association: $2k → 10%San Diego Asian Americans for Equal: $2k → 11%Debbie Allen Dance Academy: $100 → 14%MVLA High School Foundation: $500 → 8%Silicon Valley Chinese Association: $1k → 10%Silicon Valley Chinese Association: $1k → 10%Fremont Police Association: $100 → 10%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount
How this is measured
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.
How this is measured
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.
03Its field
04the grantee network

5 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. 5 of the 8 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.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
1
Early backer (in before they grew)
5/5
Grantees still filing
4/5
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

SILICON VALLEY CHINESE ASSOCIATION: $4,000 · OtherSILICON VALLEY CHINESE ASSOCIATIONSan Diego Asian Americans for Equal: $2,000 · OtherSan Diego Asian Americans for EqualMOUNTAIN VIEW LOS ALTOS HIGH SCHOOL FOUNDATION: $500 · OtherMOUNTAIN VIEW LOS ALTOS HIGH SCHOOL FOUNDATIONMVLA Speech and Debate Boosters In: $500 · OtherMVLA Speech and Debate Boosters In+1 more: $100 · OtherGIVEDIRECTLY INC: $2,000 · Human ServicesGIVEDIRECTLY INCLOS ALTOS EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION: $500 · PhilanthropyDEBBIE ALLEN DANCE INC DEBBIE ALLEN DANCE ACADEMY: $100 · Education
Other$7,100Human Services$2,000Philanthropy$500Education$100

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetGIVEDIRECTLY INC: $2,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetMOUNTAIN VIEW LOS ALTOS HIGH SCHOOL FOUNDATION: $500 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetLOS ALTOS EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION: $500 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetDEBBIE ALLEN DANCE INC DEBBIE ALLEN DANCE ACADEMY: $100 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetFREMONT POLICE ASSOCIATION INC: $100 over 1y, 0.0% of budget
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.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Kam Family Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Kam Family Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%0%1%3%5%funder's share of their income ↑0%4%8%11%15%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–15%
    typical government reliance, FY20–25
    How this is measured
    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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

    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 8 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 2021, released 2021. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Possibly out of date. A more recent filing (FY2025) is on record but names no grant recipient in the published copy, so the figures above are from FY2021, the most recent year this funder’s grantee list reached the public record.

    Source object · view filing

    Play a game based on Kam Family’s filings →

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