· Private foundation
Leighton Foundation Inc
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
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k14 grants · $83k
- $10k–50k31 grants · $486k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| SCRIPPS MESA STEAM LAB | $30,000 |
| THURGOOD MARSHALL MIDDLE SCHOOL | $30,000 |
| FORMOSA GENERATIONS OF FAMILY CHAMBER OF MU | $26,000 |
| SRHS BASEBALL BOOSTER CLUB | $22,700 |
| ELLEN BROWNING SCRIPPS ELEMENTARY SCHOOL (EDUCATIONAL FIELD TRIP) | $20,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN DIGO FOUNDATION OPALS | $20,000 |
| MARSHALL MUSTANG ORGANIZATION MMO SCIENCE OLYMPIAD | $20,000 |
| MIRMAR RANCH ELEMENTARY PTA VIOLIN ENSEMBLE CLASSES AND SPECIAL ADD PROGRAM | $20,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $17,500 |
| COMMUNITY MONTESSORI FARM PROJECT | $15,000 |
| SCRIPPS RANCH WRESTLING BOOSTER CLUB | $15,000 |
| HIGHLAND RANCH ELEMENTARY PTA CODING CLASSES | $15,000 |
| UC SAN DIEGO FOUNDATION OPALS | $15,000 |
| SCRIPPS RANCH HIGH SCHOOL | $15,000 |
| SRHS DANCE CLUB | $15,000 |
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 (FY20–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 100% 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.
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.
20 repeat relationships — 11 still active in FY2025, 9 since wound down; 32 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, 26% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $423k 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
- UOUniversity of Nevada3× · 2020–2022 · $110k
- TMTHURGOOD MARSHALL MIDDLE SCHOOL3× · 2023–2025 · $55k
- SRScripps Ranch High School3× · 2023–2025 · $53k
Funded once
- USUC SAN DIEGO FOUNDATIONgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $25k · revenue +61%
- EBEllen Browning Scripps Elementary Sone grant, 2022 · $10k
- UPUCSDMFA programone grant, 2023 · $10k
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.
To support terra vista elementary school.
To provide support for the educational programs of the student body of ortega elementary school, a public school in pacifica, ca. programs supported include: performing arts, visual arts, teacher grants, physical fitness, field trips,…
To support the education and art program at the vista academy of visual and performing arts, elementary and middle school.
Raises funds to pay for programs that are not funded by the Saddleback Valley Unified School District. The funds go directly to help the approximately 650 students of Cordillera Elementary.
Parent Teachers Association
Student and teacher support, classroom enrichment and educational supplies.
Subsidizing student assistance and parent education for tulita elementary school
School parent teacher association
Supported student programs geared toward education and enrichment of students
To provide support for science enrichment, music, art, garden club, teacher support, campus beautification and campus events.
Support parents, teachers, and students at Mira Vista School
The pta supports students programs focusing on enrichment of education, art and student wellbeing.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Uc San Diego Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Wildcoast. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
8 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. 8 of the 66 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.
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 set of overlaps that mostly run through you, not between each other.
Open a dossier: 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 Leighton 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.
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.