California · Private foundation
Kelson 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.
- $8.2M
- Granted FY2024(still arriving)
- 65
- Grants FY2024
- 82
- Organizations funded FY2023
- 15%
- First-time grantees FY2023
- Median grant, FY2024
- $50,000
- Largest grant, FY2024
- $1,000,000
- Organizations funded a year
- 2 to 129
- FY2017 to FY2023
- States reached, FY2024
- 12
- Total assets, FY2024
- $149M
- Applications
- Preselected organizations only
- Per its most recent filing; check its own site
How open it is to new grantees
In FY2023, 15% of the organizations Kelson Foundation funded were first-time grantees, receiving 28% of its grant dollars.
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2023, 72% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $1.9M went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
How this is measured
The numbers by year
| Fiscal year | Organizations funded | To those organizations | First-time grantees |
|---|---|---|---|
| FY2024still arriving | 60 | $7.3M | 32% |
| FY2023 | 82 | $6.8M | 15% |
| FY2022 | 100 | $6.0M | 5% |
| FY2021 | 116 | $5.1M | 12% |
| FY2020 | 129 | $5.1M | 50% |
| FY2019 | 76 | $1.7M | 45% |
| FY2018 | 59 | $1.3M | 97% |
| FY2017 | 2 | $80k | n/a |
What it funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2024.
Where its grants go
Grant dollars by states, across the years we hold.
Which US states its grants reach
Top grantees
Largest recipients by total granted, FY2017 to FY2024, and the share of each one’s budget the grants supplied at peak.
| Grantee | Total granted | Years | Share of their budget |
|---|---|---|---|
| President and Fellows of Middlebury College | $3,476,000 | 7 | 0% |
| Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area | $935,000 | 5 | 10% |
| Transportation Alternatives Inc | $760,000 | 6 | 5% |
| Youth Employment Partnership Inc | $725,000 | 5 | 5% |
| NEO Philanthropy Inc | $725,000 | 4 | 0% |
| Ideoorg | $710,000 | 7 | 1% |
| Rhode Island School of Design | $686,000 | 6 | 0% |
| Sierra Buttes Trail Stewardship | $640,000 | 7 | 8% |
| East Bay Community Law Center | $635,000 | 4 | 3% |
| Center for Furniture Craftsmanship | $625,000 | 7 | 5% |
Show all 169 grantees
What it could do for these grantees
Plus 39 recipients with no EIN on record ($2.0M), not named here.
Where it is load-bearing
Kelson Foundation supplied at least a quarter of the budget for 4 of its grantees at some point. The chart plots its 166 largest grantees; load-bearing ones sit top left.
Tap a dot to name the grantee.
How this is measured
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 tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.
Open a dossier: Crankstart Foundation · The San Francisco Foundation · Marin Community Foundation · Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco the Peninsula Marin & Sonoma · Silicon Valley Community Foundation · Loud Hound Foundation · East Bay Community Foundation · Tipping Point Community · The William & Flora Hewlett Foundation · The California Wellness Foundation · McNabb Foundation · The Morris Stulsaft Foundation
How this is measured
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Kelson Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Kelson 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.
About Kelson Foundation
- How much does Kelson Foundation give?
- Kelson Foundation reported 65 grants totaling $8,218,500 in its FY2024 IRS filing. It funded between 2 and 129 organizations a year over FY2017 to FY2023.
- What does Kelson Foundation fund?
- By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2024, its largest causes are Education (22%), Philanthropy (14%), Civil Rights (10%).
- Who are Kelson Foundation's largest grantees?
- By total granted over FY2017 to FY2024: President and Fellows of Middlebury College ($3.5M), Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights of the San Francisco Bay Area ($935k), Transportation Alternatives Inc ($760k).
- Does Kelson Foundation fund new organizations?
- In FY2023, 15% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.
- Does Kelson Foundation accept unsolicited applications?
- Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
- Which funders back the same organizations as Kelson Foundation?
- Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Crankstart Foundation, The San Francisco Foundation, Marin Community Foundation.
- Where is Kelson Foundation based?
- Kelson Foundation is based in CA.
Play a game based on Kelson’s filings →