· Private foundation
Maximum Difference 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.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k2 grants · $9k
- $10k–50k3 grants · $63k
- $50k–250k3 grants · $244k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| FARHANG FOUNDATION | $143,927 |
| THE VILLAGE SCHOOL | $50,000 |
| AMERICAN NEAR EAST REFUGEE AID | $50,000 |
| SOCIARTS PRODUCTIONS LLC | $23,312 |
| IRANIAN MUSLIM ASSOCIATION OF NORTH | $20,000 |
| MIDDLE EAST CHILDREN'S ALLIANCE | $20,000 |
| BUBBLES DOG RESCUE | $7,500 |
| NATIONAL MS SOCIETY | $1,000 |
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 (FY17–24, $1.0M) 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.
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.
20 repeat relationships — 4 still active in FY2024, 16 since wound down; 4 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, 56% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $140k 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
- FFFARHANG FOUNDATION8× · 2017–2024 · $922k · revenue +25%
- AJA JEWISH VOICE FOR PEACE3× · 2017–2020 · $65k · revenue +215%
- TITHE INNOCENCE PROJECT INC3× · 2018–2022 · $50k · revenue +178%
Funded once
- EENCORPSINCone grant, 2021 · $500k · revenue -70% · 45% of their budget
- PAPALESTINE ADVOCACY PROJECTone grant, 2017 · $40k
- AFASSOC FOR INVESTMENT IN POPULAR ACone grant, 2019 · $40k
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 Iran Human Rights Documentation Center is to: Establish a comprehensive and objective historical record of the human rights situation in Iran, and on the basis of this record, establish responsibility for patterns of…
The middle east media research institute (memri) explores the middle east through its media, providing timely translations from arabic, farsi, urdu, pashtu, and turkish media and publishing original analysis of political, ideological,…
Eastwest institute (ewi) works to reduce international conflict, addressing seemingly intractable problems that threaten world security and stability. (continued on schedule o)
Facilitating dialogue among iranians
Working to advance civil liberties in iran by advocating for human rights, supporting civil soceity, and engaging citizens through technology.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Kids in Need of Development Education and Relief Kinder Usa and the most unlike its peers is Quantum Gravity Research. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 19 years old; the field is 14. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 24% startups (under 5 years old) — 10% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 14% 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.
38 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.
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 2017–2026, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 38 of the 83 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 FARHANG FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ENCORPSINC ↗
- Who funds AMIN ARASTEH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds VASHT ↗
- Who funds A JEWISH VOICE FOR PEACE ↗
- Who funds THE INNOCENCE PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds TIDES CENTER ↗
- Who funds VILLAGE SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN NEAR EAST REFUGEE AID ↗
- Who funds National Iranian American Council ↗
- Who funds MIDDLE EAST CHILDREN'S ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds OMID FOUNDATION USA ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS ↗
- Who funds ASSOC FOR INVEST IN POP ACTION COMM ↗
- Who funds IRANIAN AMERICAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds Bubbles Dog Rescue ↗
- Who funds BABY2BABY ↗
- Who funds PERSIAN-AMERICAN CANCER INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds THE TOY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds Two Chairs 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: Mozaik Philanthropy Inc · Gramian-Emrani Foundation · Declaration of Trust of the Bijan Amin and Soraya Amin Foundation · Iranian American Women Foundation · Wjo Foundation · The Razi Family Foundation · Pivotal Foundation · Tides Foundation · Impactassetsinc · California Community Foundation · Silicon Valley Community Foundation · Charities Aid Foundation America
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 Maximum Difference 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.