· Private foundation
Leo and Sydelle Ward Foundation
Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
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 $10k9 grants · $36k
- $10k–50k13 grants · $225k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| WOODLAND HILLS ROTARY FOUNDATION | $40,500 |
| ALLIANCE FOR CHILDREN'S RIGHTS | $30,000 |
| OVARIAN CANCER CIRCLE | $25,000 |
| THE HEART FOUNDATION | $24,000 |
| BREAKTHROUGH T1D | $18,000 |
| CITY OF HOPE | $15,000 |
| STILLPOINT FAMILY SERVICES | $12,300 |
| SEARCH DOG FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| HOPE THE MISSION | $10,000 |
| SHRINERS CHILDREN'S | $10,000 |
| ST JUDES CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPIT | $10,000 |
| DIRECT RELIEF | $10,000 |
| GUIDE DOGS OF AMERICA | $10,000 |
| MINI THERAPY HORSES | $7,500 |
| RONALD MCDONALD HOUSE | $7,500 |
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, $48k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 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.
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 +27% since the first grant, against +3% for the ones you funded once.
22 repeat relationships — 14 still active in FY2024, 8 since wound down; 7 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, 81% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $51k 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
- THTHE HEART FOUNDATION5× · 2020–2024 · $91k · revenue +26%
- TOTHE OVARIAN CANCER CIRCLE5× · 2020–2024 · $70k · revenue +161% · 29% of their budget
- AFALLIANCE FOR CHILDREN'S RIGHTS4× · 2021–2024 · $60k · revenue +73%
Funded once
- HOHOPE OF THE VALLEYone grant, 2022 · $25k
- AFARTHRITIS FOUNDATIONone grant, 2020 · $10k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2020 · $8k
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.
City of Hope's mission is to make hope a reality for all touched by cancer and diabetes. PLEASE SEE SCHEDULE O FOR A CONTINUATION OF OUR MISSION
The samuel waxman cancer research foundation (the "foundation") funds innovative research to bring faster cures to patients. in addition to supporting ongoing collaborative research in specific cancers, our scientists are investigating the…
City of Hope National Medical Center's mission is to make hope a reality for all touched by cancer and diabetes. PLEASE SEE SCHEDULE O FOR A CONTINUATION OF OUR MISSION
The Institute is a scientific research center dedicated to conducting basic and applied research to advance the understanding of human disease and the improvement of human health. The Institute fosters an innovative research environment…
To support cancer research and public education relating to prevention, earlier diagnosis, better treatments and ultimately, a cure for cancer.
Our mission is to accelerate scientific progress, understand the root causes of disease, and narrow the gap between discoveries and impact on patients.
See schedule ocri is a nonprofit organization dedicated to advancing cancer immunotherapy through scientific discovery and global collaboration. since 1953, cri has funded research that deepens understanding of the immune system and its…
Susan g. komen 's mission is to save lives by meeting the most critical needs in our communities & investing in breakthrough research to prevent & cure breast cancer.
Curesearch's mission is to fund & support targeted & innovative cancer research with measurable results, & to be the authoritative source of information & resources for all those affected by children's cancer. see schedule o for…
The mission of dfci is to provide expert, compassionate, and equitable care to children, adults, and their families, while advancing the understanding, diagnosis, treatment, cure, and prevention of cancer and related diseases. we train new…
The jonsson cancer center foundation is the single most important vehicle for raising private funds for cancer research at ucla and plays a key role in advancing cancer treatments and care. please see schedule o for additional information.
To be the preeminent pediatric, multispecialty medical group in the nation, dedicated to providing the highest quality medical care to infants, children and adolescents; and supporting the finest teaching and research endeavors of our…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Saint John's Health Center Foundation and the most unlike its peers is American Diabetes Association. 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 33 years old; the field is 13. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 24% startups (under 5 years old) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 20% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 4% lost their exemption, against 15% 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.
26 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. 26 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 HEART FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE OVARIAN CANCER CIRCLE ↗
- Who funds ALLIANCE FOR CHILDREN'S RIGHTS ↗
- Who funds Children's Hospital Los Angeles ↗
- Who funds BREAKTHROUGH T1D ↗
- Who funds International Guiding Eyes Inc DBA Guide Dogs of America ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL DISASTER SEARCH DOG FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE ALLIANCE FOR CLIMATE PROTECTION ↗
- Who funds HOPE THE MISSION ↗
- Who funds DIRECT RELIEF ↗
- Who funds SHRINERS HOSPITALS FOR CHILDREN ↗
- Who funds CITY OF ANGELS BALLET ↗
- Who funds CANINE COMPANIONS FOR INDEPENDENCE INC ↗
- Who funds MINI THERAPY HORSES ↗
- Who funds SHARE OUR STRENGTH ↗
- Who funds DEBO INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICANA DANCE THEATER INC ↗
- Who funds WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN INC ↗
- Who funds American Diabetes Association ↗
- Who funds SAINT JOHN'S HEALTH CENTER FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds PANCREATIC CANCER ACTION NETWORK INC ↗
- Who funds Mending Kids International dba Mending Kids ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL PEDIATRIC CANCER FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds ROTARY CLUB OF WOODLAND HILLS ↗
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 Hainer Foundation · California Community Foundation · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · 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 Leo and Sydelle Ward 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.
- Shriners Hospitals for Children — 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 Leo and Sydelle Ward Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Leo and Sydelle Ward 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.