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Microsoft Alumni Foundation at a glanceAlso receives grants: funding profile →

· 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.

$2.0M
Granted FY2017
9
Grants FY2017
5
States reached
$763k
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its fieldRead
04Through PlinthRead

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.

01What it funds
01FY2017 · 9 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

How this is measured
The 9 grants below total $818,447, the rows itemized in this filing. The $1,991,206 headline is the total grant expense on the return; the other $1,172,759 is giving the schedule does not break out (grants under the $5,000 itemization floor, grants to individuals, grants on other schedules). Every figure below describes the itemized rows only.

By grant size · FY2017

  • Under $10k6 grants · $30k
  • $10k–50k2 grants · $25k
  • $250k+1 grant · $763k
$5,000
Median grant
5
States reached
$0
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
SEATTLE FOUNDATION$763,447
GRAMEEN FOUNDATION$12,500
GLOBAL PARTNERSHIPS$12,500
UNIV OF WA FOUNDATION$5,000
TSNE ADA DEVELOPERS ACADEMY$5,000
SOCIAL VENTURE PARTNERS SEATTLE$5,000
BIRMINGHAM CIVIL RIGHTS INSTITUTE$5,000
CITY YEAR SEATTLE$5,000
GOLDEN WEST HUMANITARIAN$5,000
02The need
02

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY17–17) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 3% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.

area typical 11%TSNE ADA DEVELOPERS ACADEMY: $5k → 16%GOLDEN WEST HUMANITARIAN: $5k → 14%GRAMEEN FOUNDATION: $13k → 14%BIRMINGHAM CIVIL RIGHTS INSTITUTE: $5k → 16%SEATTLE FOUNDATION: $763k → 9%GLOBAL PARTNERSHIPS: $13k → 9%CITY YEAR SEATTLE: $5k → 9%UNIV OF WA FOUNDATION: $5k → 9%SOCIAL VENTURE PARTNERS SEATTLE: $5k → 9%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount
How this is measured
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.
How this is measured
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.
03Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

1
Partnersglobal

Partnersglobal (partners) works through a global network to support local leaders and create partnerships that transform conflict, strengthen democratic institutions, and achieve sustainable development.

International
2
Global Greengrants Fund

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…

Environment
3
Golden Gate University

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…

Education
4
The George Washington University

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…

Education
5
Central Indiana Corporate Partnership Inc

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…

Community Improvement
6
Center for Global Development

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…

Human Services
7
Global Entrepreneurship Network

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,…

Education
8
Open Government Partnership Secretariat

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.

International
9
Partnership for Public Service Inc

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…

Employment
10
Coalition for Green Capital D/B/a American Green Bank Consortium

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…

Environment
11
Partners in Food Solutions

Improve the food value chain in developing countries by mobilizing corporate volunteers to share knowledge and expertise with small and growing food processors.

International
12
World Resources Institute

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…

International
How this is measured
The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Seattle Foundation; 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.
03the grantee network

9 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
2
Early backer (in before they grew)
9/9
Grantees still filing
7/9
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

SEATTLE FOUNDATION: $763,447 · PhilanthropySEATTLE FOUNDATION+2 more: $10,000 · PhilanthropyGRAMEEN FOUNDATION USA: $12,500 · InternationalGOLDEN WEST HUMANITARIAN FOUNDATION: $5,000 · InternationalGLOBAL PARTNERSHIPS: $12,500 · HealthTHIRD SECTOR NEW ENGLAND INC: $5,000 · Community ImprovementCITY YEAR INC: $5,000 · OtherUNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON FOUNDATION: $5,000 · Education
Philanthropy$773,447International$17,500Health$12,500Community Improvement$5,000Other$5,000Education$5,000

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetSEATTLE FOUNDATION: $763,447 over 1y, 0.5% of budgetGLOBAL PARTNERSHIPS: $12,500 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetGRAMEEN FOUNDATION USA: $12,500 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetSOCIAL VENTURE PARTNERS: $5,000 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetTHIRD SECTOR NEW ENGLAND INC: $5,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetCITY YEAR INC: $5,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetGOLDEN WEST HUMANITARIAN FOUNDATION: $5,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetBIRMINGHAM CIVIL RIGHTS INSTITUTE: $5,000 over 1y, 0.2% of budget
Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a set of overlaps that mostly run through this funder rather than between each other.

Amazonsmile Foundation
Amazonsmile FoundationWA3.3× affinity4 shared granteesties to 0 of 0Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Amazonsmile Foundation

How this is measured
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Microsoft Alumni Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Microsoft Alumni Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%0%1%3%5%funder's share of their income ↑0%15%30%45%60%share of the org’s income from government →median 11%
  • City Year Inc: 11% of income from government
  • Third Sector New England Inc: 3% of income from government
no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
0get no government money at all
2report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
0rely on government for over half their income
⤢ axis zoomed · 0–60%
typical government reliance, FY20–25
How this is measured
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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.
04Through Plinth

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.

On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 9 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

How this is measured
Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears.

Generated from the IRS Form 990 e-file return for fiscal year 2017, released 2017. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Possibly out of date. A more recent filing (FY2018) is on record and reports $1.2M of grant expense, but none of it to a named recipient. On a Form 990 that can mean grants abroad, filed by region only (Schedule F), grants under $5,000, which are not itemized, or a schedule referenced as an attachment the e-file does not carry. The figures above are therefore from FY2017, the most recent year this funder named its grantees.

Source object · view filing

Play a game based on Microsoft Alumni’s filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions
grants reported with no recipient in the public record
The regranting layer
51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer
The DAF merry-go-round
$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds
The endowment market
who holds foundation money, and what just moved
The camps
funders cluster by geography, not ideology
By state
where grant money is based, and what stays home