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· Private foundation

Karuna Foundation

Its FY2024 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

$711k
Granted FY2024still arriving
11
Grants FY2024still arriving
4
States reached
$265k
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$4.3MCrime & Legal$832kEnvironment$156kEducation$58kHousing & Shelter$39kHuman Services$10kRecreation & Sports$10k
02FY2024 · 11 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2024

  • Under $10k2 grants · $15k
  • $10k–50k4 grants · $127k
  • $50k–250k4 grants · $304k
  • $250k+1 grant · $265k
$42,337
Median grant
4
States reached
$19M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
JSW BHUTAN LEGAL EDUCATION FOUNDATION$265,089
INTERNATIONAL CRYOSPHERE CLIMATE INITIATIVE$100,000
JIGME SINGYE WANGCHUCK SCHOOL OF LAW$75,000
BHUTAN FOUNDATION$75,000
BHUTAN FOUNDATION$54,000
LEWIS & CLARK LAW SCHOOL$42,337
TARAYANA FOUNDATION$38,811
BHUTAN FOUNDATION$25,000
BHUTAN FOUNDATION$21,000
JIGME SINGYE WANGCHUCK SCHOOL OF LAW$9,578
JSW BHUTAN LEGAL EDUCATION FOUNDATION$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 (FY17–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 100% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 11%JSW BHUTAN LEGAL EDUCATION FOUNDATION: $265k → 17%BHUTAN FOUNDATION: $1.8M → 14%LEWIS & CLARK LAW SCHOOL: $42k → 12%INTERNATIONAL CRYOSPHERE CLIMATE INITIATIVE: $100k → 12%JSW BHUTAN LEGAL EDUCATION FOUNDATION: $250k → 17%BHUTAN FOUNDATION: $328k → 14%LEWIS & CLARK COLLEGE: $15k → 12%INTERNATIONAL CRYOSPHERE CLIMATE INITIATIVE: $25k → 12%JSW BHUTAN LEGAL EDUCATION FOUNDATION: $189k → 17%BHUTAN FOUNDATION: $300k → 14%PSU FOUNDATION: $15k → 12%INTERNATIONAL CRYOSPHERE CLIMATE INITIATIVE: $5k → 12%JSW BHUTAN LEGAL EDUCATION FOUNDATION: $28k → 17%BHUTAN FOUNDATION: $240k → 14%JSW BHUTAN LEGAL EDUCATION FOUNDATION: $20k → 17%BHUTAN FOUNDATION: $225k → 14%JSW BHUTAN LEGAL EDUCATION FOUNDATION: $5k → 17%BHUTAN FOUNDATION: $186k → 14%BHUTAN FOUNDATION: $128k → 14%BHUTAN FOUNDATION: $100k → 14%BHUTAN FOUNDATION: $99k → 14%BHUTAN FOUNDATION: $60k → 14%BHUTAN FOUNDATION: $54k → 14%BHUTAN FOUNDATION: $53k → 14%BHUTAN FOUNDATION: $53k → 14%BHUTAN FOUNDATION: $50k → 14%BHUTAN FOUNDATION: $47k → 14%BHUTAN FOUNDATION: $40k → 14%BHUTAN FOUNDATION: $40k → 14%BHUTAN FOUNDATION: $35k → 14%BHUTAN FOUNDATION: $35k → 14%BHUTAN FOUNDATION: $35k → 14%BHUTAN FOUNDATION: $31k → 14%BHUTAN FOUNDATION: $31k → 14%BHUTAN FOUNDATION: $30k → 14%BHUTAN FOUNDATION: $28k → 14%BHUTAN FOUNDATION: $25k → 14%BHUTAN FOUNDATION: $25k → 14%BHUTAN FOUNDATION: $10k → 14%BHUTAN FOUNDATION: $10k → 14%BHUTAN FOUNDATION: $10k → 14%BHUTAN FOUNDATION: $6k → 14%BHUTAN FOUNDATION: $4k → 14%BHUTAN FOUNDATION: $3k → 14%UN FOUNDATION: $10k → 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.
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.
04

Where the work is directed

The same grants placed two ways: where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose sends the money.

About 16% of Karuna Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked for a different county than the recipient’s own address.

Karuna Foundationlessmore of its giving
Placed by recipient address · 47% directed abroad (not shown)
How this is measured
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 funder’s own 990 grant descriptions.
03Its grantees
repeat funding

Who it funds again

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

96%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$5.2M · 3 repeat orgs$227k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +36% since the first grant, against +35% for those funded once.

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

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

3
5

Total granted

$5.2M
$61k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+36%
+35%

Still filing today

100%
80%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 77% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $166k went to new ones.

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

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

’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24
EducationEnvironmentScience & TechInternationalHuman ServicesOther
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

  • TB
    The Bhutan Foundation
    8× · 2017–2024 · $4.3M · revenue +141% · 65% of their budget
  • JB
    JSW BHUTAN LEGAL EDUCATION FOUNDATION INC C/O WHITE & CASE LLP
    3× · 2022–2024 · $757k · revenue +14% · 67% of their budget
  • IC
    INTERNATIONAL CRYOSPHERE CLIMATE INITIATIVE
    3× · 2022–2024 · $130k · revenue +36%

Funded once

  • LEWIS & CLARK COLLEGEgraduated
    one grant, 2017 · $15k · revenue +35%
  • PF
    PSU FOUNDATION
    one grant, 2020 · $15k
  • IL
    INTERNATIONAL LEAGUE OF CONSERVATION PHOTOGRAPHERSgraduated
    one grant, 2017 · $11k · revenue +69%
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
05the 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 11 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.

2
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
2
Early backer (in before they grew)
7/7
Grantees still filing
5/7
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

The Bhutan Foundation: $4,295,850 · OtherThe Bhutan Foundation+4 more: $180,740 · OtherJSW BHUTAN LEGAL EDUCATION FOUNDATION INC C/O WHITE & CASE LLP: $756,799 · EducationJSW BHUTAN LEGAL…+1 more: $15,299 · EducationINTERNATIONAL CRYOSPHERE CLIMATE INITIATIVE: $130,000 · Science & TechINTERNATIONAL LEAGUE OF CONSERVATION PHOTOGRAPHERS: $11,000 · EnvironmentUNITED NATIONS FOUNDATION INC: $10,000 · InternationalNo One Left Behind: $10,000 · Human Services
Other$4,476,590Education$772,098Science & Tech$130,000Environment$11,000International$10,000Human Services$10,000

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 budgetThe Bhutan Foundation: $4,295,850 over 8y, 65% of budgetJSW BHUTAN LEGAL EDUCATION FOUNDATION INC C/O WHITE & CASE LLP: $756,799 over 3y, 67% of budgetINTERNATIONAL CRYOSPHERE CLIMATE INITIATIVE: $130,000 over 3y, 21% of budgetLEWIS & CLARK COLLEGE: $15,299 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetINTERNATIONAL LEAGUE OF CONSERVATION PHOTOGRAPHERS: $11,000 over 1y, 2.5% of budgetUNITED NATIONS FOUNDATION INC: $10,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetNo One Left Behind: $10,000 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.

How much its grantees rely on government

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

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%5%19%42%75%funder's share of their income ↑0%19%38%56%75%share of the org’s income from government →median 2%
  • Lewis & Clark College: 2% 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 · 0–75%
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 Karuna Foundation?

Find your warmest path to Karuna 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 11 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 2024, released 2024. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Source object · view filing

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