· Public charity
Maui Pono Foundation
The MAUI PONO FOUNDATION was created to help the people of our community, by the people of our community.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2023–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 10 grants below total $220,013 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $317,296 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $97,283 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k3 grants · $22k
- $10k–50k5 grants · $82k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $116k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| OPERATION HOPE | $65,000 |
| PACIFIC WHALE FOUNDATION | $51,250 |
| KAHAKUKAHI FOUNDATION | $20,000 |
| HAWAII WILDFIRE MANAGEMENT ORGANIZATION | $20,000 |
| LAHAINALUNA HIGH SCHOOL FOUNDATION | $20,000 |
| MAUI UNITED WAY | $12,000 |
| LAHAINA ARTS GUILD | $10,000 |
| COOL CAT CAFE LLC | $8,750 |
| GO CYCLING MAUI | $7,500 |
| MAUI FOOD BANK | $5,513 |
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 (FY23–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, 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.
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 rehabilitate, curate, and steward the natural and cultural resources of Kawa to honor the past, benefit the present, and preserve for the future generations of Ka'u, the Island of Hawaii and all humankind.
Kaiaulu initiatives is regreening and rebuilding lahaina one tree and one person at a time through education, training, community networking & sustainability while incorporating hawaiian cultural practices.
The KiHa Mana Foundation is a non-profit organization with the mission to educate, preserve, restore and conserve the culture of Native Hawaiians and their resources.
Hoa aina o makaha (land of makaha shared in friendship) is more than a destination farm or nonprofit organization. the embrace of a sanctuary is felt by whoever enters the gates and a sense of belonging usually follows. once a barren piece…
Environmental conservation and education, community land stewardship, preservation, protection, and conservation of Kau's natural and cultural resources.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Maui United Way and the most unlike its peers is Akua Seva Inc. 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.
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 52 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 HUI NO'EAU ↗
- Who funds LAHAINA ARTS GUILD ↗
- Who funds OPERATION HOPE INC ↗
- Who funds PACIFIC WHALE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Akua SEVA INC ↗
- Who funds POSITIVELY KAI FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds COUNCIL FOR NATIVE HAWAIIAN ADVANCEMENT ↗
- Who funds DOWNTOWN ATHLETIC CLUB HAWAII ↗
- Who funds HAWAII WILDFIRE MANAGEMENT ORGANIZATION ↗
- Who funds Kaha Kukahi ↗
- Who funds LAHAINALUNA HIGH SCHOOL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds International Mountain Bicycling Association ↗
- Who funds MAUI UNITED WAY ↗
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: Maui Economic Development Board Inc · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · 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 Maui Pono 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Maui Pono Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Maui Pono 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.