· Private foundation
Mellema Family 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 FY2021–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k9 grants · $50k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $30k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MONUMENT CRISIS CENTER | $20,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF ARKANSAS MYELOMA CENTER FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| ROOSMOOR SCHOLARSHIP FUND | $8,000 |
| JOHN MUIR LAND TRUST | $6,000 |
| TRUCKEE DONNER LAND TRUST | $6,000 |
| HABITAT FOR HUMANITY EAST BAY | $5,000 |
| DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS | $5,000 |
| LOAVES AND FISHES OF CONTRA COSTA | $5,000 |
| MEALS ON WHEELS OF CONTRACOSTA | $5,000 |
| WHITMAN COLLEGE | $5,000 |
| CONTRA COSTA SOLANO FOOD BANK | $5,000 |
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 (FY21–24, $131k) 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 +20% since the first grant, against +1% for the ones you funded once.
11 repeat relationships — 10 still active in FY2024, 1 since wound down; 1 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, 88% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $10k 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
- JMJOHN MUIR HEALTH FOUNDATION3× · 2021–2023 · $66k · revenue +113%
- BOBOARD OF TRUSTEES OF WHITMAN COLLEGE4× · 2021–2024 · $26k · revenue +63%
- JMJohn Muir Land Trust prev Muir Heritage Land Trust4× · 2021–2024 · $22k · revenue +35%
Funded once
- CUCALVIN UNIVERSITYone grant, 2022 · $15k · revenue +1%
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 john muir is to improve the health of the communities we serve with quality and compassion.
Malt's mission is to permanently protect marin's agricultural land for agricultural use. malt's vision for marin county is a thriving and inclusive agricultural community in a healthy and diverse natural environment.
To provide isolated homebound seniors in san francisco with nutritious meals, daily human contact, and supportive services to prevent their premature institutionalization.
Scu is a catholic and jesuit institution that makes student learning its central focus, promotes faculty and staff learning in its various forms, and exhibits organizational learning.
The union of concerned scientists puts rigorous, independent science into action, developing solutions and advocating for a healthy, safe, and just future.
Sustainable Conservation advances the collaborative stewardship of Californias land, air, and water for the benefit of nature and people. For over three decades, Sustainable Conservation has built coalitions of people with different…
Passionately deliver relevant products, services, and education tailored to help our members, employees, and communities achieve their financial goals.
Ciis is an institution of higher education that encourages an interdisciplinary approach to learning. over 1,700 students are enrolled in masters, doctoral, bachelor of arts completion programs, and certifications. ours is a mosaic of…
Land trust of santa cruz county (the organization) was incorporated in california as a not-for-profit corporation in 1978. the mission of the organization is to protect, care for, and connect all people to the vibrant natural and working…
Food forward fights hunger and prevents food waste by rescuing fresh surplus produce, connecting this abundance with people experiencing food insecurity, and inspiring others to do the same.
The mission of the California Farmland Trust is to help farmers protect the best farmland in the world.
The mission is to build health equity in silicon valley.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Monument Crisis Center and the most unlike its peers is Meals On Wheels Contra Costa Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
10 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. 10 of the 13 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 MONUMENT CRISIS CENTER ↗
- Who funds JOHN MUIR HEALTH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF WHITMAN COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds John Muir Land Trust prev Muir Heritage Land Trust ↗
- Who funds TRUCKEE DONNER LAND TRUST ↗
- Who funds Loaves and Fishes of Contra Costa ↗
- Who funds MEALS ON WHEELS CONTRA COSTA INC ↗
- Who funds HABITAT FOR HUMANITY EAST BAY SILICON VALLEY ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds CALVIN UNIVERSITY ↗
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: East Bay Community Foundation · The San Francisco Foundation · Shell USA Company Foundation · Hedco Foundation · Dean and Margaret Lesher Foundation · Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco the Peninsula Marin & Sonoma · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · The Ayco Charitable Foundation · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · National Philanthropic Trust · American Endowment Foundation · 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 Mellema Family 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 Mellema Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Mellema Family 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.