· Private foundation
Mills 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.
Read this first · the figures below need context
63% of Mills Family Foundation’s FY2024 grant dollars went to Vipassana Community Foundation, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2024 names 8 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2021, the last year Mills Family Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 10 organizations, $24k. It is dated, not current.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2021
- Under $10k25 grants · $14k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $10k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| NO CAL VIPASSANA CENTER | $10,000 |
| VIPASSANA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| PARIYATTI | $1,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $1,000 |
| PETS LIFELINE ANIMAL SHELTER | $500 |
| UCSF FOUNDATION | $500 |
| ALZHEIMERS FOUNDATION | $500 |
| THOUSAND CURRENTS | $500 |
| UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS | $500 |
| BERKELEY HUMANE SOCIETY | $500 |
| FSEEE | $250 |
| HEIFER INTERNATIONAL | $250 |
| ALS FOUNDATION | $250 |
| YOSEMITE FOUNDATION | $250 |
| CA STATE PARKS 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 (FY20–20, $500) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 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.
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.
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.
23 repeat relationships — 21 still active in FY2021, 2 since wound down; 14 grantees were first funded in FY2021 (too recent to call). Read against FY2021, the last year this funder named its own grantees directly; its giving has since run through a sponsor, which reports no donor behind each grant.
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, 86% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $1k 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
- PPARIYATTI4× · 2020–2024 · $4k · revenue +8%
- AFALZHEIMER'S FOUNDATION OF AMERICA INC5× · 2020–2024 · $3k · revenue +83%
- POProject Open Hand4× · 2021–2024 · $1k · revenue +60%
Funded once
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2020 · $10k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2020 · $5k
- UCUCSF CANCER FOUNDATIONone grant, 2020 · $1k
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 organization provides professional investment management services for endowed gifts and financial assets entrusted to the ucsf foundation.
Ca fwd drives action to identify solutions that can be taken to scale to meet the challenges the state is facing. the organization is driven by the belief that regional solutions across the state will help ensure economic, environmental,…
To research and develop healthy climate solutions comprising global food security, ecosystem regeneration and carbon balance in seas and soils.
The mission of the uc davis foundation is to secure, steward and manage private gifts for uc davis.
Friends of the earth strives for a more healthy and just world by defendng the environment and human health while advancing social and economic justice by conducting research and education, transforming the economy so it protects the…
The Climate Center is a climate and energy policy nonprofit working to rapidly reduce climate pollution at scale, starting in California.
Our mission is to protect local nature and farmland to ensure a healthy environment for everyone.
Fossil Free California works to end financial support for climate-damaging fossil fuels and promotes the transition to a socially just and environmentally sustainable society.
Clsa advances californias world-leading life sciences innovation ecosystem by advocating for effective national, state and local public policies and supporting entrepreneurs and life sciences businesses.
The Sierra Fund (TSF) is a non-profit organization with a mission to restore ecosystem and community resiliency in the Sierra Nevada.
Optimizing the clean energy transition - 100%+ clean energy economy for the 100%.
Our mission is to build a unique institute that bridges basic research and drug discovery, and that attracts the best and brightest scientists, physicians and students to work together synergistically to find cures for neglected human…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Medecins Sans Frontieres Usa Inc and the most unlike its peers is Flockworks. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
16 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. 16 of the 48 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 Vipassana Community Foundation ↗
- Who funds PARIYATTI ↗
- Who funds ALZHEIMER'S FOUNDATION OF AMERICA INC ↗
- Who funds THOUSAND CURRENTS ↗
- Who funds THE UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS INC ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN FRANCISCO FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Project Open Hand ↗
- Who funds ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds YOSEMITE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds FINCA INTERNATIONAL INC ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds Flockworks ↗
- Who funds LATINO COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CALIFORNIA FIRE FOUNDATION ↗
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: Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · 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 Mills 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 Mills Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Mills 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.