· Private foundation
Laural 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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k9 grants · $43k
- $10k–50k22 grants · $510k
- $50k–250k19 grants · $1.9M
- $250k+34 grants · $16M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| NATIONAL PARK FOUNDATION | $1,000,000 |
| NATURE CONSERVANCY | $1,000,000 |
| WATER FOUNDATION | $1,000,000 |
| WATER FOUNDATION | $1,000,000 |
| NEW VENTURE FUND | $1,000,000 |
| ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND INCORPORATED | $1,000,000 |
| PARKS CALIFORNIA | $500,000 |
| TIDES CENTER | $500,000 |
| ONE EARTH PHILANTHROPY | $500,000 |
| WATERSHED SOLUTIONS NETWORK | $500,000 |
| NATIONAL AUDUBON SOCIETY INC | $500,000 |
| BIG SUR LAND TRUST | $500,000 |
| ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND INCORPORATED | $500,000 |
| LAND TRUST ALLIANCE INCORPORATED | $500,000 |
| TIDES FOUNDATION | $500,000 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 87% of your 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 13% of Laural 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 +28% since the first grant, against -17% for the ones you funded once.
46 repeat relationships — 37 still active in FY2024, 9 since wound down; 10 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, 83% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2.6M 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
- WFWATER FOUNDATION6× · 2019–2024 · $7.5M · revenue +55%
ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND INCORPORATED5× · 2020–2024 · $3.1M · revenue +121%- BSBig Sur Land Trust7× · 2018–2024 · $3.0M · revenue +186%
Funded once
- CNCORO NORTHERN CALIFORNIA INCone grant, 2022 · $500k · revenue -17%
- SCSANTA CLARA VALLEY OPEN SPACE AUTHORITYone grant, 2021 · $100k
- NFNATIONAL FOUNDATION FOR THE CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION INCone grant, 2020 · $50k · revenue -35%
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.
The Sierra Fund (TSF) is a non-profit organization with a mission to restore ecosystem and community resiliency in the Sierra Nevada.
The foundation works with diverse groups representing many interests to acquire and restore critical wildlife habitat and protecting species
California ocean science trust (ost) is a non-profit organization dedicated to accelerating progress towards a healthy and productive ocean future for california. created by state legislation, ost bridges the gap between cutting-edge…
To ensure coast redwood forests in the santa cruz mountains thrive for generations to come. since 1900, sempervirens has protected more than 36,000 acres. learn more about our mission, vision, and strategic plan through 2030 at:…
The California Wilderness Coalition protects the natural landscapes that make California unique, providing clean air and water, a home to wildlife, and a place for recreation and spiritual renewal.
Land trust of santa cruz county (the organization) was incorporated in california as a not-for-profit corporation in 1978. the mission of the organization is to protect, care for, and connect all people to the vibrant natural and working…
California state parks foundation is an independent, member-supported nonprofit dedicated to protecting and preserving the california state park system for the benefit of all.
The organization provides professional investment management services for endowed gifts and financial assets entrusted to the ucsf foundation.
The catalina island conservancy protects and stewards 88% of catalina island. more than 42,000 acres of wildlands, coves and coastal habitats. founded to preserve the island's natural resources, the conservancy advances a mission rooted in…
Rainforest trust saves endangered wildlife and protects our planet by creating rainforest reserves through partnerships, community engagement, and donor support.
Preserving and enhancing the habitat of wildlife, such as sandhill cranes, waterfowl, raptors, which habitat expenses are supported by agricultural activities.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Parks California and the most unlike its peers is San Anselmo Montessori School. 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 34 years old; the field is 14. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 24% startups (under 5 years old) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 2% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 14% 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.
61 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. 61 of the 73 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 WATER FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds Big Sur Land Trust ↗
- Who funds LAND TRUST ALLIANCE INC ↗
- Who funds PARKS CALIFORNIA ↗
- Who funds NEW VENTURE FUND ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL PARK FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Sustainable Conservation ↗
- Who funds NATUREBRIDGE ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds TIDES CENTER ↗
- Who funds THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds Watershed Solutions Network ↗
- Who funds SAVE THE REDWOODS LEAGUE ↗
- Who funds John Muir Land Trust prev Muir Heritage Land Trust ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN FRANCISCO FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ROCKEFELLER PHILANTHROPY ADVISORS INC ↗
- Who funds THE TRUST FOR PUBLIC LAND ↗
- Who funds MONTEREY BAY AQUARIUM FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds WINDWARD FUND ↗
- Who funds PUBLIC POLICY INSTITUTE OF CALIFORNIA ↗
- Who funds TIDES FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ONE EARTH PHILANTHROPY ↗
- Who funds THE HEAD ROYCE SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds CORO NORTHERN CALIFORNIA INC ↗
- Who funds CALIFORNIA ENVIRONMENTAL VOTERS EDUCATION FUND ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL PARKS CONSERVATION ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds IDAHO CONSERVATION LEAGUE INC ↗
- Who funds The Thacher School Inc ↗
- Who funds Craig Hospital Foundation ↗
- Who funds CRYSTAL SPRINGS UPLANDS SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds CALIFORNIA RANGELAND TRUST ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL DISASTER SEARCH DOG FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds HUMBOLDT AREA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR CLIMATE AND ENERGY SOLUTIONS 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: The San Francisco Foundation · Am Dachs Foundation · Esb Charitable Foundation · Marin Community Foundation · Resources Legacy Fund · Gordon E and Betty I Moore Foundation · Silicon Valley Community Foundation · Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco the Peninsula Marin & Sonoma · The William & Flora Hewlett Foundation · The David and Lucile Packard Foundation · Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr Fund · The Keith Campbell Foundation for the Environment Inc
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 Laural 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.
- American Academy of Arts & Sciences — 3% of income from government
- Wesleyan University — 1% 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 Laural Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Laural 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.