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· Public charity

Karam Foundation

KARAM FOUNDATION is dedicated to help people help themselves.

$1.3M
Granted FY2024still arriving
5
Grants FY2024still arriving
4
States reached
$42k
Largest
01What it funds
01100% classified

What it funded, over time

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

International$211kEducation$87kPhilanthropy$70kArts & Culture$40kHousing & Shelter$27kYouth Development$8kCommunity Improvement$8k
02FY2024 · 5 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

How this is measured
The 5 grants below total $149,886, the rows itemized in this filing. The $1,322,165 headline is the total grant expense on the return; the other $1,172,279 is giving the schedule does not break out (grants under the $5,000 itemization floor, grants to individuals, grants on other schedules). Every figure below describes the itemized rows only.

By grant size · FY2024

  • Under $10k1 grant · $8k
  • $10k–50k4 grants · $142k
$30,000
Median grant
4
States reached
$2.8M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
Paper Airplanes Inc$42,000
SEEDS FILM LLC$39,969
SYE Initiative INC$30,000
Reaching Across Borders$29,917
FINDING REFUGE$8,000
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 (FY17–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 75% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 10%Paper Airplanes Inc: $42k → 7%SEEDS FILM LLC: $40k → 17%Reaching Across Borders: $30k → 14%ATASSI FOUNDATION: $70k → 7%Role Model Movement Inc: $8k → 14%PAPER AIRPLANES: $75k → 11%SYE Initiative INC: $30k → 17%Reaching Across Borders: $27k → 14%FINDING REFUGE: $11k → 14%Paper Airplanes: $53k → 11%FINDING REFUGE: $8k → 14%Paper Airplanes Inc: $42k → 11%FINDING REFUGE: $7k → 14%Inner-City Muslim Action Netw: $8k → 14%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.

Grants abroad, by region: $1.2M on the FY2024 return

Schedule F, as filed: 1 region, all to individuals. The IRS asks for region and purpose, not the recipient, so no country or grantee can be named here.

Middle East and North Africa$1.2M · 100% · 359 people

Stated purpose: Scholarships and Support

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. Grants abroad on Schedule F are filed by region, purpose and amount with no recipient name, so they are shown by region and cannot be placed on the country map or matched to a grantee.
03Its grantees
repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

65%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$295k · 3 repeat orgs$156k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +12% since the first grant, against -72% for those funded once.

3 repeat relationships: 3 still active in FY2024, 0 since wound down; 2 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

3
3

Total granted

$295k
$86k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+12%
-72%

Still filing today

100%
100%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 53% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $70k went to new ones.

50%100%’17’20’21’22’23’24
RenewedFirst-time

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

’17’20’21’22’23’24
EducationPhilanthropyHousing & ShelterYouth DevelopmentCommunity ImprovementOther
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.

Backed again, and grew

  • PA
    PAPER AIRPLANES INC
    4× · 2021–2024 · $211k · revenue +12% · 65% of their budget
  • RA
    Reaching Across Borders Inc
    2× · 2023–2024 · $57k · 31% of their budget
  • FR
    Finding Refuge
    3× · 2022–2024 · $27k · revenue -16%

Funded once

  • AF
    ATASSI FOUNDATION
    one grant, 2017 · $70k · revenue -72% · 98% of their budget
  • RM
    Role Model Movement Inc
    one grant, 2020 · $8k · revenue -78%
  • IM
    INNER-CITY MUSLIM ACTION NETWORKgraduated
    one grant, 2020 · $8k · revenue +40%
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.

04Its field
04the grantee network

7 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. 7 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.

3
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
1
Early backer (in before they grew)
7/7
Grantees still filing
3/7
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

PAPER AIRPLANES INC: $211,222 · EducationPAPER AIRPLANES INCReaching Across Borders Inc: $57,217 · EducationReaching Across Borders IncSYE INITIATIVE INC: $30,000 · EducationSYE INITIATIVE INCATASSI FOUNDATION: $69,500 · PhilanthropyATASSI FOUNDATIONSEEDS FILM LLC: $39,969 · OtherSEEDS FILM…Finding Refuge: $26,694 · Housing & ShelterRole Model Movement Inc (NFP): $8,265 · Youth DevelopmentINNER-CITY MUSLIM ACTION NETWORK: $8,265 · Community Improvement
Education$298,439Philanthropy$69,500Other$39,969Housing & Shelter$26,694Youth Development$8,265Community Improvement$8,265

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

25%50%75%100%$100k$1.0M$10Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetPAPER AIRPLANES INC: $211,222 over 4y, 65% of budgetATASSI FOUNDATION: $69,500 over 1y, 98% of budgetReaching Across Borders Inc: $57,217 over 2y, 31% of budgetSYE INITIATIVE INC: $30,000 over 1y, 17% of budgetFinding Refuge: $26,694 over 3y, 16% of budgetRole Model Movement Inc (NFP): $8,265 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetINNER-CITY MUSLIM ACTION NETWORK: $8,265 over 1y, 0.1% 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.

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 set of overlaps that mostly run through this funder rather than between each other.

Amazonsmile FoundationWA2.4× affinity5 shared granteesties to 0 of 0Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: 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.

How much its grantees rely on government

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

2023
’20’21’22’23’24
no gov · 10%5%19%42%75%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
    1get no government money at all
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–15%
    typical government reliance, FY20–24
    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.
    05Through Plinth

    Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

    How do I get to Karam Foundation?

    Find your warmest path to Karam 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.

    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 e-file return for fiscal year 2024, released 2024. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

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