· Public charity
Martin V and Martha K Smith Foundation
To enhance the quality of life for the residents of ventura county, with a preference for serving the oxnard plains.
Read this first · the figures below need context
100% of Martin V and Martha K Smith Foundation’s FY2023 grant dollars went to Ventura County Community Foundation, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2023 names 0 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2021, the last year Martin V and Martha K Smith Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 12 organizations, $4M. 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 FY2017–2023.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2021
- $10k–50k7 grants · $220k
- $50k–250k5 grants · $300k
- $250k+1 grant · $3.5M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY CHANNEL ISLANDS FOUNDATION | $3,532,000 |
| FOOD SHARE INC | $75,000 |
| BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF GREATER OXNARD & PORT HUENEME | $75,000 |
| DRAGG INC | $50,000 |
| WESTMINSTER FREE CLINIC | $50,000 |
| LIVINGSTON MEMORIAL VNA | $50,000 |
| GOLD COAST VETERANS FOUNDATION | $40,000 |
| CAREGIVERS | $35,000 |
| BIG BROTHERS BIG SISTERS OF VENTURA COUNTY | $35,000 |
| TURNING POINT FOUNDATION | $35,000 |
| TERRA MARINE RESEARCH AND EDUCATION INC | $25,000 |
| VENTURA COUNTY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION FBO SMITH SCHOLARSHIP FUND | $25,000 |
| MUSEUM OF VENTURA COUNTY | $25,000 |
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 (FY17–21, $270k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 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 +94% since the first grant, against +9% for the ones you funded once.
11 repeat relationships — 10 still active in FY2021, 1 since wound down; 2 grantees were first funded in FY2021 (too recent to call). Read against FY2021, 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 FY2022, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
- CSCALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY CHANNEL ISLANDS FOUNDATION4× · 2018–2022 · $7.7M · revenue +302%
- BGBOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF GREATER OXNARD & PORT HUENEME4× · 2017–2021 · $325k · revenue +108%
- MOMUSEUM OF VENTURA COUNTY4× · 2017–2021 · $225k · revenue +42%
Funded once
- ANAmerican National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branchesone grant, 2018 · $100k · revenue +9%
- ROREINS OF HOPEone grant, 2019 · $20k · revenue +7%
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 mission of the ventura land trust is to permanently protect the land, water, wildlife and scenic beauty of the ventura region for current and future generations.
To improve, in partnership with others, access to needed health care for the most vulnerable and underserved children and seniors of ventura county.
The Ventura College Foundation transforms students lives through education by providing innovative and vital resources and financial support. The Foundation collaborates with Ventura College to enhance human potential, civic engagement,…
To provide quality primary health care to people in need.
The ventura county ombudsman program's mission is to assure the highest quality of life and care possible for those elderly persons in long term care, most of whom are frail and vulnerable and unable to represent themselves.
Provides employment skills to challenged individuals, serves the community by helping people with barriers to employment achieve economic independence through training, educating and employment
Building partnerships to advance research and education for the health of our nation's veterans.
To strengthen and sustain vibrant communities by empowering individuals and families to build wealth through education and homeownership with a primary focus on serving low-to-moderate income clients.
To provide high quality health care services to people of all ages, to promote realization of the individuals' full potential, and to enhance independent living.
The organization provides residential and vocation support to persons with developmental disabilities.
Our mission is to be the local advocate for realtors; to enhance the professionalism, integrity, and compentency of members; and to promote private property rights.
With compassion, collaboration and commitment to action, vic provides services and program that engage and enrich the lives of older adults, families, and youth through a lens of inclusion to strengthen diverse communities in the valley
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Ventura County Community Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Terra Marine Research and Education. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
15 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. 15 of the 16 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 CALIFORNIA STATE UNIVERSITY CHANNEL ISLANDS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds VENTURA COUNTY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF GREATER OXNARD & PORT HUENEME ↗
- Who funds MUSEUM OF VENTURA COUNTY ↗
- Who funds FOOD SHARE INC ↗
- Who funds Dragg Inc ↗
- Who funds TURNING POINT FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds LIVINGSTON MEMORIAL VISITING NURSE ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds TERRA MARINE RESEARCH AND EDUCATION ↗
- Who funds American National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches ↗
- Who funds CAREGIVERS VOLUNTEERS ASSISTING THE ELDERLY ↗
- Who funds Gold Coast Veterans Foundation ↗
- Who funds WESTMINSTER FREE CLINIC ↗
- Who funds BIG BROTHERS BIG SISTERS OF VENTURA COUNTY INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds REINS OF HOPE ↗
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: Ventura County Community Foundation · Conrad N Hilton Foundation · Sherwood Country Club Charitable Foundation · The Wood-Claeyssens Foundation · Mufg Union Bank Foundation Ag · California Community Foundation · Told Foundation · The Amgen Foundation Inc · Weingart Foundation · Charities Aid Foundation America · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation 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 Martin V and Martha K Smith 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.
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How do I get to Martin V and Martha K Smith Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Martin V and Martha K Smith 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.