· Public charity
Microsoft Alumni Foundation
To catalyze the collective power of the microsoft alumni family and leverage our resources to make a difference for others.
Read this first · the figures below need context
93% of Microsoft Alumni Foundation’s FY2017 grant dollars went to Seattle Foundation, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2017 names 8 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 9 grants below total $818,447 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $1,991,206 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $1,172,759 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 · FY2017
- Under $10k6 grants · $30k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $25k
- $250k+1 grant · $763k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| SEATTLE FOUNDATION | $763,447 |
| GRAMEEN FOUNDATION | $12,500 |
| GLOBAL PARTNERSHIPS | $12,500 |
| GOLDEN WEST HUMANITARIAN | $5,000 |
| SOCIAL VENTURE PARTNERS SEATTLE | $5,000 |
| TSNE ADA DEVELOPERS ACADEMY | $5,000 |
| UNIV OF WA FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| BIRMINGHAM CIVIL RIGHTS INSTITUTE | $5,000 |
| CITY YEAR SEATTLE | $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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–17) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 3% of your 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.
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.
Partnersglobal (partners) works through a global network to support local leaders and create partnerships that transform conflict, strengthen democratic institutions, and achieve sustainable development.
Global greengrants fund seeds grassroots environmental action and social justice through small grants. we support change from the ground up by channeling donations to local projects and grassroots campaigns for environmental justice around…
Golden gate university prepares individuals to lead and serve by providing high quality, practice-based educational programs in law, taxation, business and related professions - as a nonprofit institution - in an innovative and challenging…
The mission of the george washington university (gw) is to educate individuals in liberal arts, languages, sciences, learned professions, and other courses and subjects of study, and to conduct scholarly research and publish the findings…
Central indiana corporate partnership (cicp) is an alliance of indiana's business and research university leaders coming together to foster long-term prosperity for the region. cicp's mission is to transform the economy of indiana in order…
Reduce global poverty and improve lives through innovative economic research that drives better policy and practice by the world's top decision makers. we focus on the intersection of developing countries and the governments, institutions…
The global entrepreneurship network operates programs in 180 countries aimed at making it easier for anyone, anywhere to start and scale a business. by fostering deeper cross-border collaboration between entrepreneurs, researchers,…
To secure concrete commitments from governments to their citizenry to promote transparency, empower citizens, fight corruption and harness new technologies to strengthen citizen centered governance.
Making our government work better is a daunting task, and we are a small organization seeking to transform a government that employs millions of civilians and manages trillions of dollars in taxpayer revenue needed to protect public…
Cgc operates as a nonprofit financial institution that invests directly and through partners to transform financial markets by using public and private investing to accelerate the deployment of projects that strengthen the grid, reduce…
Improve the food value chain in developing countries by mobilizing corporate volunteers to share knowledge and expertise with small and growing food processors.
Wri is committed to creating change that improves people's lives and ensures the natural world can thrive. (see schedule o)wri's bold vision requires a formula for success we call "count it. change it. scale it.":- count it: our work is…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Seattle Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Golden West Humanitarian Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
9 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.
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 SEATTLE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds GLOBAL PARTNERSHIPS ↗
- Who funds GRAMEEN FOUNDATION USA ↗
- Who funds SOCIAL VENTURE PARTNERS ↗
- Who funds THIRD SECTOR NEW ENGLAND INC ↗
- Who funds CITY YEAR INC ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds GOLDEN WEST HUMANITARIAN FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds BIRMINGHAM CIVIL RIGHTS INSTITUTE ↗
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 set of overlaps that mostly run through you, not between each other.
Open a dossier: 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 Microsoft Alumni 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, a single department, or state — and drag the year to watch it move.
- City Year Inc — 11% of income from government
- Third Sector New England Inc — 3% 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 Microsoft Alumni Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Microsoft Alumni 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.