How much does Kesselman Family Foundation give?

Kesselman Family Foundation reported 46 grants totaling $126,000 in its FY2026 IRS filing. It funded between 22 and 30 organizations a year over FY2019 to FY2025.

What does Kesselman Family Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2026, its largest causes are Education (38%), Health (11%), Human Services (8%).

Who are Kesselman Family Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2026: University of Denver ($43k), Jeffco Action Center Inc the Action Center ($30k), Trevor Project Inc ($30k).

Does Kesselman Family Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2025, 9% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Kesselman Family 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 Kesselman Family Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Colorado Gives Foundation, Rose Community Foundation, Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc.

Where is Kesselman Family Foundation based?

Kesselman Family Foundation is based in CO.

Kesselman Family Foundation

Kesselman Family Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

Kesselman Family Foundation

Its FY2026 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

$126k

Granted FY2026still arriving

Grants FY2026still arriving

States reached

$8k

Largest

01What it funds

0196% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.

Education$209kHealth$63kHuman Services$45kReligion$38kArts & Culture$33kInternational$29kFood & Nutrition$26kRecreation & Sports$21kOther$0

02FY2026 · 46 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

$2,000

Median grant

States reached

$1.1M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
JEROME KESSELMAN ENDOWED SCHOLARSHI	$7,500
FERN KESSELMAN ENDOWED SCHOLARSHIP	$7,500
JEROME KESSELMAN ENDOWED SCHOLARSHI	$7,500
FERN KESSELMAN ENDOWED SCHOLARSHIP	$7,500
FEEDING AMERICA	$5,000
THE TREVOR PROJECT	$5,000
FEEDING AMERICA	$5,000
THE TREVOR PROJECT	$5,000
THE ACTION CENTER	$2,500
MILE HIGH UNITED WAY	$2,500
CU FOUNDATION BOULDER FINANCIAL AID	$2,500
THE FAMILY TREE	$2,500
HABITAT FOR HUMANITY	$2,500
CU FOUNDATION BOULDER FINANCIAL AID	$2,500
HABITAT FOR HUMANITY	$2,500

02The need

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:

Its human-services grants (FY17–26, $25k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 53% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants spread fairly evenly across need levels.

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.

Which US states its grants reach

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.

90%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$606k · 55 repeat orgs$65k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +32% since the first grant, against +12% for those funded once.

55 repeat relationships: 21 still active in FY2026, 34 since wound down; 2 grantees were first funded in FY2026 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$606k

$57k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+32%

+12%

Still filing today

45%

50%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2026, 94% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $8k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

EducationAnimalsHuman ServicesHealthInternationalArts & CultureOther

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

UO
UNIVERSITY OF DENVER
3× · 2017–2024 · $43k · revenue +33%
JA
JEFFCO ACTION CENTER INC THE ACTION CENTER
10× · 2017–2026 · $30k · revenue +17%
TREVOR PROJECT INC
5× · 2022–2026 · $30k · revenue +32%

Funded once

DD
DENVER DUMB FRIENDS LEAGUEgraduated
one grant, 2023 · $7k · revenue +271%
HS
HUMAN SOCIETY OF PIKES PEAK
one grant, 2021 · $5k
TA
THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS
one grant, 2022 · $4k · revenue +19%

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

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

Denver Zoological Foundation

Inspiring communities to save wildlife for future generations.

Animals

Center for Improving Value in Health Care

To equip partners and communities in colorado and across the nation with the resources, services and unbiased data needed to improve health and health care. we help communities, organizations and individuals identify opportunities to…

Health

Colorado Center On Law and Policy

Colorado center on law and policy is an antipoverty organization advancing the rights of every coloradan.

Crime & Legal

Furman University

The primary mission of furman as a liberal arts institution is to provide a distinctive education in fine arts, humanities, social sciences, mathematics and the sciences, as well as selected professional disciplines.

Education

American Association for the Advancement of Science

Advance science, engineering, and innovation throughout the world for the benefit of all. the world's largest multidisciplinary scientific society and a leading publisher of cutting-edge research through its science family of journals,…

Science & Tech

Colorado Nonprofit Association

Colorado nonprofit association strengthens colorado's nonprofits through education, connection and advocacy.

Community Improvement

World Wildlife Fund Inc

Wwf's mission is to conserve nature and reduce the most pressing threats to the diversity of life on earth. (continued on schedule o)

Environment

New York University

Nyu is a private university with approximately 60,000 matriculating students in 20 schools and institutes. nyu's primary missions are education, research and scholarship, and patient care.

Education

Colorado Gives Foundation

We connect people, ideas, and nonprofits to make good happen. our vision is that all of jeffco is thriving.

Philanthropy

Banner -University Medical Group

Assist banner health complete its mission to make health care easier so life can be better by providing integrated & coordinated care & population health management.

Health

Target Als Foundation Inc

Our mission is to break down barriers to als research to find effective treatments. by uniting academia, the pharma and biotech industry, government, venture capital, related nonprofits, and the als community, we aim to overcome the…

Education

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The mission of mit is to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century.

Education

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Mile High United Way Inc; the most unlike its peers is Asia Initiatives. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

04the grantee network

41 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.

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 2026, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 41 of the 85 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.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

41/41

Grantees still filing

32/41

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$422,305Education$82,800Arts & Culture$40,625Human Services$36,275Food & Nutrition$35,125Civil Rights$31,875Youth Development$21,750

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

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 tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Colorado Gives FoundationCO14.8× affinity5 shared granteesties to 10 of 10Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Colorado Gives Foundation · Rose Community Foundation · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Network for Good · National Philanthropic Trust · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · 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 Kesselman Family Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Kesselman Family Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

2get no government money at all

9report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

1rely on government for over half their income

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 Kesselman Family Foundation?

Find your warmest path to Kesselman Family 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.

Play a game based on Kesselman Family’s filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions

grants reported with no recipient in the public record

The regranting layer

51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer

The DAF merry-go-round

$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds

The endowment market

who holds foundation money, and what just moved

The camps

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

By state

where grant money is based, and what stays home