· Private foundation
Ken & Dean Kirn 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.
What you funded, over time
By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).
A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 67% of KEN & DEAN KIRN FOUNDATION’s grantee dollars fall outside its nine largest cause areas, whether because the recipient carries no IRS cause code or because its cause sits in the long tail. A chart would be mostly one residual band and misrepresent the portfolio.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k16 grants · $54k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $70k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $186k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF SW WA | $186,000 |
| COLUMBIA RIVER MARITIME MUSEUM | $25,000 |
| VANCOUVER SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | $25,000 |
| OPEN HOUSE MINISTRIES | $10,000 |
| FREEDOM FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| THE HISTORIC TRUST | $5,000 |
| PORTLAND RESCUE MISSION | $5,000 |
| YOUNG AMERICA'S FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| JUDICIAL WATCH | $5,000 |
| FREE CLINICS OF SW WASHINGTON | $5,000 |
| TURNING POINT USA | $5,000 |
| PACIFIC LEGAL FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| CLARK COUNTY FOOD BANK | $5,000 |
| CONSERVATIVE PARTNERSHIP INSTITUTE | $3,000 |
| WOUNDED WARRIOR PROJECT | $2,500 |
Do your dollars go where the need is?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, then read against the area’s typical level.
Your human-services grants (FY20–25, $11k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty linein the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP; grantee ZIP can differ from where services are delivered.
Which US states your grants reach
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are actually delivered. Need from public data — U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.
Who you back again
Which organizations you funded more than once, and which you funded a single time. Each grantee is matched to its own filings.
24 repeat relationships — 17 still active in FY2025, 7 since wound down; 4 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Median revenue growth · since first grant
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2025, 96% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $12k went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
First-time = a grantee’s first year in your filing window; renewed = funded in an earlier year too. As a portfolio matures the renewed share naturally climbs — once funded, an org stays “renewable” — so the signal is the years that buck it (a new-grantee intake wave). 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
COLUMBIA RIVER MARITIME MUSEUM7× · 2018–2025 · $117k · revenue +120%- VSVANCOUVER SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA4× · 2022–2025 · $112k · revenue +83%
OPEN HOUSE MINISTRIES4× · 2020–2025 · $60k · revenue +69%
Funded once
- PRPORTLAND RESCUE MISSIONone grant, 2025 · $5k
- TPTURNING POINT USA INCone grant, 2025 · $5k · revenue 0%
- AIACCURACY IN MEDIA INCgraduatedone grant, 2025 · $1k · revenue +375%
Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
The map has a center of gravity: the average direction from the rest of the sector toward the organizations the foundation funds — the shape of its giving. Scoring every nonprofit along that direction surfaces the ones that look most like the portfolio. These are the closest matchesthat aren’t grantees — a resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.
The foreign policy research institute (frpi) is dedicated to producing the highest quality scholarship and nonpartisan policy analysis focused on crucial foreign policy and national security challenges facing the united states. we educate…
The center for american progress (cap) is an independent nonpartisan policy institute that is dedicated to improving the lives of all americans through bold, progressive ideas, as well as strong leadership and concerted action. our aim is…
Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.
Pro publica is an independent, non-profit, pulitzer prize-winning newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest. our work focuses exclusively on truly important stories. [see continuation on schedule o] we produce…
Preservation of civil liberties through litigation and public education.
To establish and promote programs to protect the global climate, forests, wildlife and the natural environment, through research, advocacy, and investigation.
The american enterprise institute is a community of scholars and supporters committed to expanding liberty, increasing individual opportunity, and strengthening free enterprise. aei pursues these ideals through independent thinking and the…
Rooted in the liberal arts & sciences & lutheran expression of the christian faith, & is committed to offering a challenging education that develops qualities of mind, spirit, & body necessary for a rewarding life of leadership & service…
The npr foundation ("foundation") is organized and operated exclusively for the benefit of its sole supported organization, national public radio, inc. ("npr inc."). the foundation supports npr inc. through various activities such as…
American press institute acts as a scout on the frontier of technology and audience behavior to identify where change is occurring and helps news organizations learn how to implement and scale that change successfully so they have a…
Providing research, education and practical information all aimed at optimizing newspapers' business operations, deepening their community engagement and enhancing the quality of their journalism.
The washington appellate project contracts with the state of washington and the federal government to provide legal representation to indigent persons on appeal.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Heritage Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Hillsdale College. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
19 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.
Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue from every source. Association, dated; never a causal claim.
Counted here: distinct organizations you funded across 2017–2025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 19 of the 29 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile; the rest are funded organizations whose filings we could not track year by year.
Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee
Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing
Go grantee by grantee — a decade per org, and how each moved after you funded them
A decade per grantee — revenue shaded, your grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.
- Who funds COLUMBIA RIVER MARITIME MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds VANCOUVER SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ↗
- Who funds HILLSDALE COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds DAYBREAK YOUTH SERVICES ↗
- Who funds OPEN HOUSE MINISTRIES ↗
- Who funds JUDICIAL WATCH INC ↗
- Who funds CLARK COUNTY FOOD BANK ↗
- Who funds Young America's Foundation ↗
- Who funds THE FREEDOM FUND ↗
- Who funds Pacific Legal Foundation ↗
- Who funds VANCOUVER NATIONAL HISTORIC RESERVE TRUST ↗
- Who funds WOUNDED WARRIOR PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds Conservative Partnership Institute ↗
- Who funds THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds TURNING POINT USA INC ↗
- Who funds NEW AVENUES FOR YOUTH INC ↗
- Who funds CASCADE POLICY INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds WORLD FORESTRY CENTER ↗
- Who funds ACCURACY IN MEDIA INC ↗
The grantmakers whose grantees overlap with yours far more than size alone predicts. Each orbits closer the stronger the alignment; the arcs between them show where they also fund each other. Here it reads as a tightly interlocked camp — most of these funders back each other's grantees too.
Open a dossier: M J Murdock Charitable Trust · The Oregon Community Foundation · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile Foundation
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. A research starting point: overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.
Government reliance of your grantees
Every dot is one organization Ken & Dean Kirn Foundation funds. Left–right is the share of its income from government; up–down is the share from you. Bigger dots raise more. Filter to federal, a single department, or state — and drag the year to watch it move.
- New Avenues for Youth Inc — 20% of income from government
- Columbia River Maritime Museum — 3% of income from government
- World Forestry Center — 0% of income from government
- Wounded Warrior Project Inc — 0% of income from government
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 your grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first — a floor, not 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 12–24 months.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Ken & Dean Kirn Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Ken & Dean Kirn 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.