· Private foundation
Michele and Arnold Brustin Foundation
Its FY2021 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 FY2017–2021.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2021
- Under $10k6 grants · $11k
- $10k–50k3 grants · $41k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| OJAI MUSIC FESTIVAL | $15,000 |
| MUSIC ACADEMY OF THE WEST | $13,700 |
| SANTA BARBARA MUSEUM OF ART | $12,500 |
| MEMORIAL SLOAN KETTERING CANCER | $5,000 |
| OUR LADY OF GRACE CHURCH | $2,500 |
| CLUBBED THUMB INC | $1,000 |
| MONTECITO COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | $1,000 |
| SANTA BARBARA HISTORICAL MUSEUM | $500 |
| HEAL THE OCEAN | $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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–21) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 90% 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.
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.
10 repeat relationships — 5 still active in FY2021, 5 since wound down; 3 grantees were first funded in FY2021 (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 FY2021, 88% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $6k 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
- MAMUSIC ACADEMY OF THE WEST5× · 2017–2021 · $107k · revenue +18%
- OFOJAI FESTIVALS LTD4× · 2017–2021 · $45k · revenue +15%
- TITHE INDUSTRY PRODUCTIONS INC3× · 2017–2020 · $19k · revenue +18%
Funded once
- CFCANCER FOUNDATION OF SANTA BARBARAone grant, 2017 · $3k · revenue -8%
- SBSANTA BARBARA ITNL FILM FESTIVALone grant, 2020 · $3k
- MSMEMORIAL SLOAN KETTERING CANCER CTRone grant, 2019 · $2k
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.
To bring high quality classical musicians from around the globe to the santa barbara area to perform orchestral, vocal, solo instrumental, and chamber concerts.
We believe opera is a uniquely compelling, entertaining and emotionally thrilling art form. our mission is to bring together growing audiences to experience opera's transformative power.
To transform the orchestral experience for artists and audiences by building a vibrant community dedicated to the creation and performance of profound, relevant and innovative music
Camerata Pacifica's mission is to affect positively how people experience live performances of classical music. The Organization will engage our audience intellectually and emotionally by presenting the finest performance of familiar and…
Choral Music Performances: California Bach Society is a 30-voice chamber choir known for finely wrought interpretations of Renaissance and Baroque music, often accompanied by leading period instrumentalists. Each season, the choir performs…
To provide a vibrant performing arts center that generates and promotes excellence in the performing arts and enhances the quality of life in the region by offering outstanding and diverse entertainment, including events of cultural and…
The Culver City Symphony Orchestra strives to enlighten and inspire the diverse citizenry of Culver City and the Los Angeles area through the presentation of orchestral music concerts, to present works of American composers, and to…
Entertain and engage our community through musical performance and education.
The general purpose of the organization is to promote chamber music concerts to the general public.
Slo rep strengthens theatre's cultural influence and enriches the central coast by producing professional theatre, nurturing artists and providing theatre education for children and adults.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Opera Santa Barbara and the most unlike its peers is The Industry Productions 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 20 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 MUSIC ACADEMY OF THE WEST ↗
- Who funds OJAI FESTIVALS LTD ↗
- Who funds THE INDUSTRY PRODUCTIONS INC ↗
- Who funds Clubbed Thumb Inc ↗
- Who funds OPERA SANTA BARBARA ↗
- Who funds CANCER FOUNDATION OF SANTA BARBARA ↗
- Who funds Montecito Community Foundation ↗
- Who funds SANTA BARBARA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds HEAL THE OCEAN INC ↗
- Who funds SANTA BARBARA HISTORICAL MUSEUM ↗
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: Santa Barbara Foundation · Mosher Foundation · Ann Jackson Family Foundation · California Community Foundation · The Leslie S and Philip L Bernstein Family Fund · Elizabeth and John Moller Foundation · Schlinger Chrisman Foundation Northern Trust Company Trustee · Williams-Corbett Foundation · Www Foundation · Hutton Foundation Dba Hutton Parker Foundation · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc · American Endowment 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 Michele and Arnold Brustin 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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Find your warmest path to Michele and Arnold Brustin 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.