· Private foundation
Make a Difference 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.
Read this first · the figures below need context
100% of Make a Difference Foundation Inc’s FY2025 grant dollars went to Schwab Charitable Fund, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2025 names 0 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2019, the last year Make a Difference Foundation Inc named its own grantees at scale: 19 organizations, $91k. 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 FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2019
- Under $10k39 grants · $80k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $11k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ALZHEIMNER'S ASSOC | $11,000 |
| JAFCO | $5,500 |
| THE WOODLANDS | $5,000 |
| TEMPLE JUDEA OF PALM BEACH CO INC | $5,000 |
| AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION | $5,000 |
| CONGREGATION BETH TIKVAH | $4,000 |
| THE WELLINGTON SCHOOL | $4,000 |
| TAKE STOCK IN CHILDREN | $3,500 |
| UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCES OF | $3,000 |
| THE WOODLANDS | $3,000 |
| HARVARD UNIVERSITY | $3,000 |
| AMERICRES | $3,000 |
| JAFCO | $3,000 |
| WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY | $2,500 |
| WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY | $2,500 |
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 (FY17–19, $12k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, 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.
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.
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 +67% since the first grant, against +46% for the ones you funded once.
32 repeat relationships — 21 still active in FY2019, 11 since wound down; 13 grantees were first funded in FY2019 (too recent to call). Read against FY2019, 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 FY2019, 53% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $40k 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
- WSWELLINGTON SCHOOL3× · 2017–2019 · $24k · revenue +45%
- ADALZHEIMER'S DISEASE & RELATED DISORDERS ASSOCIATION INC2× · 2017–2018 · $19k · revenue +40%
WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY3× · 2017–2019 · $10k · revenue +76%
Funded once
- ANAmerican National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branchesgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $5k · revenue +46%
- COColation of Indenpendent Living Optionsone grant, 2018 · $2k
AMERICARES FOUNDATION INCone grant, 2017 · $2k · revenue -22%
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 children's hospital of philadelphia, the oldest hospital in the united states dedicated exclusively to pediatrics, strives to be the world leader in the advancement of health care for children by integrating excellent patient care,…
Provider of pediatric healthcare, education, research & community service
Mass general brigham incorporated is developing an integrated health care delivery system throughout the region that offers patients a continuum of coordinated, high-quality care.
Nyu is a private university with approximately 60,000 matriculating students in 20 schools and institutes. nyu's primary missions are education, research and scholarship, and patient care.
Assist banner health complete its mission to make health care easier so life can be better by providing integrated & coordinated care & population health management.
Our mission at the university of chicago medicine is to provide superior health care through rigorous research, innovative education, and comprehensive care and healing. in partnership with our colleagues, we pursue life-changing…
To inspire hope and promote lifelong health by providing the best care to every child.
Leadership in the prevention, treatment, and cure of cancer through excellence, vision and cost effectiveness in patient care, outreach programs, research, and education.
The central mission of the university of southern california is the development of human beings and society as a whole through the cultivation and enrichment of the human mind and spirit. the principal means by which our mission is…
We champion the health needs of children and families. we are committed to improving children's health by providing the highest-quality, family centered care, advanced through research and education.
As part of the baptist health network, the mission of baptist hospital of miami is to improve the health and well-being of individuals, and to promote the sanctity and preservation of life, in the communities we serve. baptist health is a…
Patient care, teaching, research and serving the community.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County Inc and the most unlike its peers is Greensburg Fire Dept Board of Control. 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 44 years old; the field is 12. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 27% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 17% 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.
37 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. 37 of the 68 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 DONOR ADVISED CHARITABLE GIVING INC ↗
- Who funds WELLINGTON SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE & RELATED DISORDERS ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds President and Fellows of Harvard College ↗
- Who funds TSIC INC DBA/TAKE STOCK IN CHILDREN ↗
- Who funds Rehabilitation Center for Children and Adults Inc ↗
- Who funds JEWISH FEDERATION OF PALM BEACH COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds BEST FOOT FORWARD FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds American National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches ↗
- Who funds Caridad Center Inc ↗
- Who funds Baylor College of Medicine ↗
- Who funds ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INC ↗
- Who funds FLORENCE FULLER CHILD DEVELOPMENT CENTERS INC ↗
- Who funds BOCA HELPING HANDS INC ↗
- Who funds WESTMORELAND COUNTY FOOD BANK INC ↗
- Who funds PLACE OF HOPE INC ↗
- Who funds Mid-Ohio Foodbank ↗
- Who funds RUTH & NORMAN RALES JEWISH FAMILY SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds The Soup Kitchen Inc ↗
- Who funds MEALS ON WHEELS OF THE PALM BEACHES 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: Community Foundation for Palm Beach and Martin Counties Inc · United Way of Palm Beach County Inc · Lost Tree Village Charitable Foundation · Ibis Charities Foundation Inc · The Chamber of Nonprofit Health and Human Agencies in Palm Beach County Inc · The Jim Moran Foundation Inc · Quantum Foundation Inc · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc · Frenchmans Reserve Charitable Foundation Inc · John E & Nellie J Bastien Memorial Foundation · The Batchelor Foundation Inc · Extraordinary Charities 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 Make a Difference 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, a single department, or state — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Hias Inc — 88% of income from government
- Grandmas Place Inc — 12% of income from government
- Center for Child Counseling Inc — 8% of income from government
- President and Fellows of Harvard College — 7% of income from government
- Tsic Inc Dba/Take Stock in Children — 0% of income from government
- Americares Foundation Inc — 0% of income from government
- Caridad Center Inc — 0% of income from government
- Place of Hope Inc — 0% of income from government
- Mae Volen Senior Center Inc — 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 Make a Difference Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to Make a Difference Foundation Inc 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.