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· Private foundation

Karl Kramer 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.

$95k
Granted FY2025still arriving
4
Grants FY2025still arriving
3
States reached
$45k
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 2025.

Arts & Culture$465kEducation$362k
02FY2025 · 4 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

  • Under $10k1 grant · $5k
  • $10k–50k3 grants · $90k
$35,000
Median grant
3
States reached
$455k
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
MUSIC ACADEMY OF THE WEST$45,000
ST ANDREW'S NATIVITY SCHOOL$35,000
Individual grant recipient$10,000
OREGON SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL$5,000
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 (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 98% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 9%Music Academy of the West: $85k → 14%Jesuit High School: $5k → 8%St Andrew's Nativity School: $35k → 12%Bowmer Society: $5k → 13%NEVADA BALLET: $10k → 13%Music Academy of the West: $45k → 14%Jesuit High School: $5k → 8%ST ANDREW'S NATIVITY SCHOOL: $35k → 12%OREGON SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL: $5k → 13%NEVADA BALLET: $5k → 13%Music Academy of the West: $45k → 14%Jesuit High School: $5k → 8%ST ANDREW'S NATIVITY SCHOOL: $35k → 12%Oregon Shakespeare Festival: $5k → 13%MUSIC ACADEMY OF THE WEST: $45k → 14%Jesuit High School: $1k → 8%University of Portland: $36k → 12%Oregon Shakespeare Festival: $5k → 13%Music Academy of the West: $35k → 14%St Andrew's Nativity School: $5k → 12%Oregon Shakespeare Festival: $5k → 13%MUSIC ACADEMY OF THE WEST: $35k → 14%University of Portland: $35k → 12%Bowmer Society: $5k → 13%Music Academy of the West: $35k → 14%St Andrew's Nativity School: $5k → 12%Bowmer Society: $5k → 13%Music Academy of the West: $35k → 14%University of Portland: $35k → 12%OREGON SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL: $5k → 13%Music Academy of the West: $30k → 14%St Andrew's Nativity School: $5k → 12%Oregon Shakespeare Festival: $5k → 13%Music Academy of the West: $15k → 14%University of Portland: $35k → 12%St Andrew's Nativity School: $5k → 12%University of Portland: $35k → 12%St Andrew's Nativity School: $5k → 12%University of Portland: $35k → 12%St Andrew's Nativity School: $5k → 12%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 grantees
repeat funding

Who it funds again

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

100%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$827k · 7 repeat orgs$0 to everyone else

7 repeat relationships: 4 still active in FY2025, 3 since wound down.

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

7
0

Total granted

$827k
$0

Still filing today

43%
0%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.

50%100%’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25
RenewedFirst-time

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

’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25
Arts & CultureEducationOther
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

  • MA
    MUSIC ACADEMY OF THE WEST
    9× · 2017–2025 · $405k · revenue +18%
  • UO
    UNIVERSITY OF PORTLAND
    6× · 2017–2022 · $211k · revenue +7%
  • OS
    OREGON SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL ASSOCIATION INC
    6× · 2020–2025 · $30k · revenue +29%

Funded once

    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

    3 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. 3 of the 7 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)
    0
    Early backer (in before they grew)
    3/3
    Grantees still filing
    3/3
    Grew since first funded

    Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

    MUSIC ACADEMY OF THE WEST: $405,000 · Arts & CultureMUSIC ACADEMY OF THE WESTOREGON SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL ASSOCIATION INC: $30,000 · Arts & CultureOREGON SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL ASSOCIATION INCUNIVERSITY OF PORTLAND: $210,500 · EducationUNIVERSITY OF PORTLANDST ANDREW NATIVITY SCHOOL: $135,000 · OtherST ANDREW NATIVITY SCHOO…JESUIT HIGH SCHOOL: $16,000 · OtherJESUIT HIGH SCHOOLIndividual grant recipient: $15,000 · OtherIndividual grant recipie…Bowmer Society: $15,000 · OtherBowmer Society
    Arts & Culture$435,000Education$210,500Other$181,000

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

    25%50%75%100%$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetMUSIC ACADEMY OF THE WEST: $405,000 over 9y, 0.5% of budgetUNIVERSITY OF PORTLAND: $210,500 over 6y, 0.0% of budgetOREGON SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL ASSOCIATION INC: $30,000 over 6y, 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.

    • Who funds MUSIC ACADEMY OF THE WEST ↗
    • Who funds UNIVERSITY OF PORTLAND ↗
    • Who funds OREGON SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL ASSOCIATION INC ↗

    How much its grantees rely on government

    Each dot is one organization Karl Kramer Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Karl Kramer 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%8%15%22%30%share of the org’s income from government →median 1%
    • University of Portland: 1% of income from government
    • Oregon Shakespeare Festival Association Inc: 0% of income from government
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    1report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–30%
    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.
    05Through Plinth

    Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

    How do I get to Karl Kramer Foundation?

    Find your warmest path to Karl Kramer 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 7 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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