· Private foundation
Laura and John Arnold 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.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k40 grants · $244k
- $10k–50k163 grants · $4.4M
- $50k–250k352 grants · $44M
- $250k+234 grants · $144M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| THE CITY FUND | $12,500,000 |
| MDRC | $5,000,000 |
| MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY | $3,500,000 |
| ACCELERATE - THE NATIONAL COLLABORATIVE FOR ACCELERATED LEARNING | $3,322,000 |
| CENTER FOR EFFECTIVE PUBLIC POLICY | $3,014,108 |
| MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY | $3,000,000 |
| JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY | $2,000,000 |
| VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE INC | $2,000,000 |
| GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY | $1,974,997 |
| TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA | $1,862,391 |
| HENRY J KAISER FAMILY FOUNDATION | $1,500,000 |
| MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY | $1,500,000 |
| THE BRIGHAM AND WOMEN'S HOSPITAL INC | $1,500,000 |
| SOCIAL FINANCE INC | $1,399,010 |
| COMMITTEE FOR A RESPONSIBLE FEDERAL BUDGET | $1,255,000 |
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, $23.4M) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 57% 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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 14% of Laura and John Arnold Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another.
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 foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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 +22% since the first grant, against +13% for the ones you funded once.
374 repeat relationships — 237 still active in FY2024, 137 since wound down; 116 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 87% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $22M 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
THE URBAN INSTITUTE5× · 2020–2024 · $34M · revenue +14%
MDRC5× · 2020–2024 · $30M · revenue +36%- RTResearch Triangle Institute5× · 2020–2024 · $18M · revenue +53%
Funded once
- CFCIVICA FOUNDATIONone grant, 2022 · $10M · revenue -75%
- JAJustice Action Network Foundationone grant, 2023 · $4.0M · revenue -98% · 68% of their budget
- CHChildren's Hospital Corporationgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $3.1M · revenue +55%
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 open markets institute works to help people relearn how to use competition policy to build stronger democracies, more just and equitable societies, more innovative and sustainable economies, and a more secure and peaceful world.
The National Academy of Public Administration is an independent, 501(c)(3) nonprofit, non partisan Organization established in 1967 and chartered by Congress in 1984. See Schedule O
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…
Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan "fact tank" that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. Pew Research Center generates a foundation of facts that enriches the public dialogue and…
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.
Central indiana corporate partnership (cicp) is an alliance of indiana's business and research university leaders coming together to foster long-term prosperity for the region. cicp's mission is to transform the economy of indiana in order…
The manhattan institute is a community of scholars, journalists, activists, and civic leaders dedicated to advancing opportunity, individual liberty, and the rule of law in america and its great cities.
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,…
The University of New Haven is a student-centered comprehensive university with an emphasis on excellence in liberal arts and professional education. Our mission is to prepare our students to lead purposeful and fulfilling lives in a…
Competitive enterprise institute (cei) is a non-profit public policy organization dedicated to the principles of free enterprise and limited government. we believe that consumers are best helped not by government regulation but by being…
To advance the practice of higher education attorneys for the benefit of the institutions they serve.
Orcid provides an identifier for individuals to use with their name as they engage in research, scholarship, and innovation activities. we provide open tools that enable transparent and trustworthy connections between researchers, their…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Policylink and the most unlike its peers is Roderick and Solange MacArthur Justice Center. 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 30 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 6% of your grantees by number, and just 4% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.8% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
475 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. 475 of the 634 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
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
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 CITY FUND ↗
- Who funds Massachusetts Institute of Technology ↗
- Who funds THE URBAN INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds MDRC ↗
- Who funds President and Fellows of Harvard College ↗
- Who funds TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR EFFECTIVE PUBLIC POLICY INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICA ACHIEVES INC ↗
- Who funds Research Triangle Institute ↗
- Who funds VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE INC ↗
- Who funds JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds ACCELERATE - THE NATIONAL COLLABORATIVE FOR ACCELERATED LEARNING ↗
- Who funds The Rand Corporation ↗
- Who funds HENRY J KAISER FAMILY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds BROWN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds Research Foundation of the City University of New York ↗
- Who funds CIVICA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds HABITAT FOR HUMANITY INTERNATIONAL INC ↗
- Who funds COUNCIL OF STATE GOVERNMENTS ↗
- Who funds EVIDENCE FOR HEALTHCARE IMPROVEMENT ↗
- Who funds University of Chicago ↗
- Who funds New York University ↗
- Who funds NEW VENTURE FUND ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ↗
- Who funds COMMITTEE FOR A RESPONSIBLE FEDERAL BUDGET ↗
- Who funds Coalition for Public Safety ↗
- Who funds CHARTER FUND INC D/B/A CHARTER SCHOOL GROWTH FUND ↗
- Who funds THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN JOURNALISM PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION ↗
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: The Commonwealth Fund · The Joyce Foundation · Gates Foundation · Annie E Casey Foundation Inc · The Kresge Foundation · California Healthcare Foundation · Foundation to Promote Open Society · The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · The William & Flora Hewlett Foundation · Peter G Peterson Foundation · Carnegie Corporation of New York
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 Laura and John Arnold 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 or a single department — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Roca Inc — 78% of income from government
- The Technical Assistance Collaborative Inc — 68% of income from government
- National Bureau of Economic Research Inc — 48% of income from government
- Center for Effective Public Policy Inc — 37% of income from government
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology — 35% of income from government
- Community Resources for Justice Inc — 34% of income from government
- Justice System Partners — 15% of income from government
- Community Catalyst Inc — 15% of income from government
- Trustees of Boston University — 12% of income from government
- Johns Hopkins University — 12% of income from government
- Social Finance Inc — 12% of income from government
- Children's Hospital Corporation — 10% of income from government
- Ibis Reproductive Health Inc — 9% of income from government
- President and Fellows of Harvard College — 7% of income from government
- Center for Health Care Strategies Inc — 7% of income from government
- Northeastern University — 7% of income from government
- Trustees of Boston College — 3% of income from government
- Shatterproof a Nonprofit Corporation — 2% of income from government
- National Consumer Law Center Inc — 1% of income from government
- Evidence for Healthcare Improvement — 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 Laura and John Arnold Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Laura and John Arnold 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.