· Private foundation
Michelson Philanthropies Inc
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 FY2022–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k11 grants · $25k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $67k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $112k
- $250k+3 grants · $3.1M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| THE MICHELSON 20MM FOUNDATION INC | $1,384,055 |
| THE MICHELSON FOUND ANIMALS FOUNDATION INC | $1,031,256 |
| HUMAN IMMUNOME PROJECT INC | $690,000 |
| American Association for the Advancement of Scienc | $62,000 |
| THE REPRESENTATION PROJECT | $50,000 |
| First Gen Fund | $25,000 |
| COMMUNITY PARTNERS | $15,000 |
| America Share USA Inc | $14,000 |
| World Brain Mapping Foundation (WBMF) | $12,500 |
| UNITED NEGRO COLLEGE FUND INC | $9,000 |
| Council for the Advancement of Science Writing | $8,500 |
| American Friends of the Hebrew University Inc | $5,300 |
| The Education Trust Inc | $319 |
| REDROVER | $250 |
| NASPA Foundation | $250 |
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 (FY24–24, $250) land where the poverty rate runs at 8%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 0% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 20% of Michelson Philanthropies Inc’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another. Read by recipient address, 64% of the giving stays in CA; read by stated purpose it is 30% — less of the work is directed home than the recipients' locations suggest.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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.
7 repeat relationships — 7 still active in FY2024, 0 since wound down; 13 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, 24% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2.5M 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
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE2× · 2023–2024 · $112k · revenue +5%- CPCOMMUNITY PARTNERS3× · 2022–2024 · $30k · revenue +78%
- CFCOUNCIL FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE WRITING INC2× · 2023–2024 · $14k · revenue +30%
Funded once
- KSKEYSTONE SYMPOSIA ON MOLECULAR AND CELLULAR BIOLOGYone grant, 2023 · $40k · revenue -24%
- FFFOUNDATION FOR CALIFORNIA COMMUNITY COLLEGESgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $30k · revenue +50%
- SOSociety of Refugee Healthcare Providersone grant, 2023 · $25k
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.
Aamc leads & serves the academic medicine community to improve the health of people everywhere.
The american astronomical society (aas), established in 1899, is the major organization of professional astronomers in north america. the basic objective of the aas is to promote the advancement of astronomy and closely related branches of…
Agu's mission is to advance and support an inclusive community of earth and space scientists and partners dedicated to discovery and solutions to societal challenges. agu seeks to catalyze discovery and solutions to scientific and societal…
The union of concerned scientists puts rigorous, independent science into action, developing solutions and advocating for a healthy, safe, and just future.
Gsa serves an international community of scientists who use genetics to make new discoveries and improve lives. we advance biological research by supporting professional development of scientists, by communicating advances and fostering…
To promote and advance the microbial sciences
American gas association's (the association) mission is to develop and advocate for informed, innovative, and durable policy that fulfills our nation's energy needs, environmental aspirations and economic potential. we are committed to…
The organization provides professional investment management services for endowed gifts and financial assets entrusted to the ucsf foundation.
Aauw advances gender equity for women and girls through research, education, and advocacy.
The common application is a not-for-profit membership organization of over 1,100 colleges and universities across the globe committed to access, equity, and integrity in the college admission process. every year, over 1.5 million students…
The AIA California, in collaboration with local components, is the voice of the architectural profession.
Marin humane transforms lives through exceptional animal care, humane education, and advocacy. every day, marin humane inspires compassion and positive relationships between people and animals.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is United Animal Nations Dba Redrover and the most unlike its peers is Wake Forest University. 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.
Your grantees are a median of 26 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) — 3% 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.
33 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. 33 of the 37 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 THE MICHELSON 20MM FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds HUMAN IMMUNOME PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds THE MICHELSON FOUND ANIMALS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE ↗
- Who funds The Representation Project ↗
- Who funds KEYSTONE SYMPOSIA ON MOLECULAR AND CELLULAR BIOLOGY ↗
- Who funds AMERICA SHARE USA INC ↗
- Who funds FOUNDATION FOR CALIFORNIA COMMUNITY COLLEGES ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY PARTNERS ↗
- Who funds UPWARDLY GLOBAL ↗
- Who funds COUNCIL FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE WRITING INC ↗
- Who funds THE AMERICAN SOCIETY OF GENE & CELL THERAPY ↗
- Who funds UNITED NEGRO COLLEGE FUND INC ↗
- Who funds HURU INTERNATIONAL INC ↗
- Who funds LATINO MEDICAL STUDENT ASSOCIATION NORTHEAST ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN FRIENDS OF HEBREW UNIVERSITY INC ↗
- Who funds VEGGIELUTION ↗
- Who funds CORO SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA INC ↗
- Who funds THE AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF IMMUNOLOGISTS INC ↗
- Who funds Inner City Law Center ↗
- Who funds The Education Trust Inc ↗
- Who funds BITTER ROOT HUMANE ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds Women's and Children's Alliance ↗
- Who funds Wags and Walks ↗
- Who funds WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds NASPA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY ANIMAL MEDICINE PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds EVERYDAY ARTS ↗
- Who funds OXFAM-AMERICA INC ↗
- Who funds UNITED ANIMAL NATIONS DBA REDROVER ↗
- Who funds California Historical Radio Society ↗
- Who funds THE MARINE MAMMAL CENTER ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE ALAMEDA ANIMAL SHELTER ↗
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: Michelson Medical Research Foundation Inc · The Annenberg Foundation · California Community Foundation · The California Endowment · Greater Good Charities · Silicon Valley Community Foundation · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · American Endowment Foundation · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Network for Good
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 Michelson Philanthropies Inc 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.
- Oxfam-America Inc — 0% of income from government
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 Michelson Philanthropies Inc?
Find your warmest path to Michelson Philanthropies Inc 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.