· Private foundation
Madrona 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.
Read this first · the figures below need context
50% of Madrona Foundation’s FY2023 grant dollars went to Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2023 names 3 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2020, the last year Madrona Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 5 organizations, $2M. 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 FY2019–2023.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2020
- $10k–50k6 grants · $60k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $200k
- $250k+1 grant · $1.4M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Free Speech For People | $1,375,000 |
| Voter Participation Center | $200,000 |
| DESC | $10,000 |
| Women for Women International | $10,000 |
| DAWN | $10,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $10,000 |
| Just Vision | $10,000 |
| NWIRP | $10,000 |
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 (FY19–23, $20k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 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 +41% since the first grant, against +22% for the ones you funded once.
8 repeat relationships — 6 still active in FY2020, 2 since wound down; 13 grantees were first funded in FY2020 (too recent to call). Read against FY2020, 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 FY2023, 6% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $255k 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
- FSFREE SPEECH FOR PEOPLE INC2× · 2019–2020 · $1.4M · revenue +142% · 44% of their budget
- TVTHE VOTER PARTICIPATION CENTER2× · 2019–2020 · $310k · revenue +96%
- LLifeWire3× · 2019–2023 · $22k · revenue +9%
Funded once
- VRVOTER REGISTRATION PROJECTgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $100k · revenue +50%
- NENational Election Defense Coalitionone grant, 2019 · $75k
NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL INCgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $10k · revenue +37%
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 NW Energy Coalition is an alliance of over 100 environmental, civic, and human service organizations, utilities, and businesses in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, and British Columbia, plus many individual members. The NW Energy…
Disability rights washington's mission is to advance the dignity, equality, and self determination of people with disabilities. we work to pursue justice on matters related to human and legal rights.
We are workers, united across different industries to improve our working conditions and our lives. We come together as working people to build power through education, organizing, and enforcement. We work to raise and uphold standards in…
Partnership for Policy Integrity (PFPI) uses data-driven advocacy and litigation to fight for forests, communities and the climate.
Women donors network advances a just, equitable, and sustainable world through the power of philanthropy, women's leadership, and collective and individual action.
Washington Progress Fund is building a permanent and powerful social change movement in Washington state supported by a network of committed donors. WPF envisions a Washington state where government serves the public interest and we all…
Improving the transparency and scientific integrity of climate solutions through open data and tools.
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…
Lavender Rights Project elevates the power, autonomy, and leadership of the black intersex & gender diverse community through intersectional legal and social services. We utilize the law as an organizing principle to affirm our civil…
Fsc i&p promotes environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial, and economically viable management of the world's forests. this mission aligns with the forest stewardship council (fsc), its network of offices, and other organizations.…
Seeding justice builds collective power by transforming philanthropy and funding movements, in the pursuit of justice and liberation for all communities. our programs are based on trust, relationships, and partnership. they are founded on…
Engage more individuals in legislative advocacy, educate them about the impact of public policies on their lives and our economy, and build support for policies that empower individuals by giving them greater freedom and autonomy.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Voter Registration Project and the most unlike its peers is Natural Resources Defense Council Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
20 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. 20 of the 28 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 FREE SPEECH FOR PEOPLE INC ↗
- Who funds THE VOTER PARTICIPATION CENTER ↗
- Who funds VANGUARD CHARITABLE ENDOWMENT PROGRAM ↗
- Who funds VOTER REGISTRATION PROJECT ↗
- Who funds Washington Physicians for Social Responsibility ↗
- Who funds LifeWire ↗
- Who funds Just Vision Inc ↗
- Who funds NORTHWEST IMMIGRANT RIGHTS PROJECT ↗
- Who funds WOMEN FOR WOMEN INTERNATIONAL ↗
- Who funds WA THERAPY FUND FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds NEW BEGINNINGS ↗
- Who funds Farmore WA ↗
- Who funds DOMESTIC ABUSE WOMEN'S NETWORK ↗
- Who funds NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL INC ↗
- Who funds METHOW CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds COLLABORISING INC ↗
- Who funds BLACK FARMERS COLLECTIVE ↗
- Who funds THE SOPHIA WAY ↗
- Who funds CLIMATE SCIENCE LEGAL DEFENSE FUND ↗
- Who funds Bread for the World Institute ↗
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 · United Way of King County · Impactassetsinc · Aven Foundation · Peg and Rick Young Foundation · Moccasin Lake Foundation · Medina Foundation · Employees Community Fund of the Boeing Company · The Norcliffe Foundation · Puget Sound Energy Foundation · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program
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 Madrona 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.
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.