· Private foundation
Kona Foundation Inc
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.
Read this first · the figures below need context
91% of Kona Foundation Inc’s FY2024 grant dollars went to The Bessemer Giving Fund, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2024 names 20 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2023, the last year Kona Foundation Inc named its own grantees at scale: 18 organizations, $48k. It is dated, not current.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| TEMPLE BETH AM | $8,755 |
| SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER | $5,000 |
| KUOW PUGET SOUND PUBLIC RADIO | $5,000 |
| PLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION OF AMERICA INC | $5,000 |
| FRIENDS OF IDF | $4,000 |
| NARAL PRO-CHOICE AMERICA FOUNDATION | $2,000 |
| HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL | $2,000 |
| UNITED STATES ASSOCIATION FOR UNHCR | $2,000 |
| CENTER FOR REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS INC | $2,000 |
| THE TRUST FOR PUBLIC LAND | $1,500 |
| NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL INC | $1,000 |
| THE INNOCENCE PROJECT INC | $1,000 |
| DIAN FOSSEY GORILLA FUND INTERNATIONAL INC | $1,000 |
| THE FEEL GOOD ACTION | $1,000 |
| ALLIANCE FOR TOMPOTIKA CONSERVATION | $1,000 |
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 (FY20–24, $5k) land where the poverty rate runs at 17%, 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +57% since the first grant, against +40% for the ones you funded once.
24 repeat relationships — 18 still active in FY2023, 6 since wound down; 4 grantees were first funded in FY2023 (too recent to call). Read against FY2023, the last year this funder named its own grantees directly; its giving has since run through a sponsor, which reports no donor behind each grant.
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 FY2024, 98% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2k 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
- TPTHE PIATIGORSKY FOUNDATION D/B/A PF CLASSICAL7× · 2017–2024 · $43k · revenue +23%
- KPKUOW PUGET SOUND PUBLIC RADIO7× · 2018–2024 · $22k · revenue +45%
- FGFeel Good Action2× · 2023–2024 · $21k · revenue +192%
Funded once
- FHFRED HUTCHINSON CANCER RESEARCH CENTERone grant, 2017 · $5k · revenue +27%
- IRInternational Rescue Committee INCgraduatedone grant, 2018 · $5k · revenue +80%
- UOUNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON FOUNDATIONgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $5k · revenue +28%
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 union of concerned scientists puts rigorous, independent science into action, developing solutions and advocating for a healthy, safe, and just future.
To strenghten people's ability to guarantee their individual and collective right to a healthy environment, via the development, implementation, and effective enforcement of national and international law.
The purpose of rainforest foundation us is to support indigenous peoples and forest communities in their efforts to secure their lands, protect their environment, and uphold their rights.
Rainforest trust saves endangered wildlife and protects our planet by creating rainforest reserves through partnerships, community engagement, and donor support.
Wri is committed to creating change that improves people's lives and ensures the natural world can thrive. (see schedule o)wri's bold vision requires a formula for success we call "count it. change it. scale it.":- count it: our work is…
Ci works to spotlight and secure the critical benefits that nature provides to humanity.
Nrgi envisions a world where natural resources enable fair, prosperous and sustainable societies, instead of undermining them. nrgi exists because decisions about how natural resources are governed determine the well-being of people in…
To establish and promote programs to protect the global climate, forests, wildlife and the natural environment, through research, advocacy, and investigation.
To investigate, research, write, publish, present conferences and teach with respect to global, regional, transboundary, and comparative environmental issues and to make the findings from such activities available to the general public; to…
Bank Climate Advocates (BCA) combats climate change and its adverse effects primarily by using legal advocacy and action to align public financial institutions' investment policies and practices with the 1.5 degrees C warming limitation…
To protect the rainforest and advance the rights of Indigenous peoples in the Amazon Basin. We partner with Indigenous communities in campaigns for human rights, corporate accountability, and the preservation of the Amazon Basin's…
Dedicated to protecting the world's natural environment on behalf of the public by serving as a public interest law firm. refer to schedule o, part iii, line 4a, for list of litigated cases or advocacy work.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Wildlife Conservation Network Inc and the most unlike its peers is International Rescue Committee Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 38 years old; the field is 15. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 2% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 2% lost their exemption, against 12% of the field you don’t fund.
Age = years since IRS exemption (a founding proxy). “Closed” = auto-revocation for 3 years of non-filing — a floor on closure, not proof, and bigger established orgs lapse least. Association, not causation.
39 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. 39 of the 47 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 THE BESSEMER GIVING FUND ↗
- Who funds THE PIATIGORSKY FOUNDATION D/B/A PF CLASSICAL ↗
- Who funds KUOW PUGET SOUND PUBLIC RADIO ↗
- Who funds Feel Good Action ↗
- Who funds PLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION OF AMERICA INC ↗
- Who funds SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds THE TRUST FOR PUBLIC LAND ↗
- Who funds United States Association for UNHCR ↗
- Who funds LAKESIDE SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL INC ↗
- Who funds 350ORG ↗
- Who funds DONOR ADVISED CHARITABLE GIVING INC ↗
- Who funds OCEANA INC ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds REPRODUCTIVE FREEDOM FOR ALL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE EARTH ↗
- Who funds EARTHJUSTICE ↗
- Who funds THE CENTER FOR REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS INC ↗
- Who funds Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund International Inc ↗
- Who funds FRED HUTCHINSON CANCER RESEARCH CENTER ↗
- Who funds International Rescue Committee INC ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds JAIL PROJECT OF TEXAS ↗
- Who funds THE INNOCENCE PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds ALLIANCE FOR TOMPOTIKA CONSERVATION ↗
- Who funds AFRICATOWN COMMUNITY LAND TRUST ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE ISRAEL DEFENSE FORCES ↗
- Who funds MCDONOGH SCHOOL INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds Northwest Health Law Advocates ↗
- Who funds MUCKROCK FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds CLIMATE SOLUTIONS ↗
- Who funds InvestigateWest ↗
- Who funds EARTH DAY NETWORK INC ↗
- Who funds SHRIVER HALL CONCERT SERIES INC ↗
- Who funds WILDLIFE CONSERVATION NETWORK 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: Seattle Foundation · Impactassetsinc · Moccasin Lake Foundation · Raikes Foundation · American Endowment Foundation · Silicon Valley Community Foundation · Mightycause Charitable Foundation · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · National Philanthropic Trust
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 Kona Foundation Inc 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 or a single department — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Shriver Hall Concert Series Inc — 9% of income from government
- Mcdonogh School Incorporated — 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 Kona Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to Kona Foundation Inc 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.