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· Private foundation

Mount Baker Foundation

Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.

$2.1M
Granted FY2024still arriving
45
Grants FY2024still arriving
2
States reached
$300k
Largest
01What you fundRead
02The needRead
03Your edgeRead
04Your fieldRead
05Through PlinthRead
01What you fund
01100% classified

What you funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2024.

Education$2.6MHousing & Shelter$1.8MHuman Services$1.5MHealth$1.1MReligion$576kArts & Culture$310kPhilanthropy$306kYouth Development$247kOther$0
02FY2024 · 45 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

By grant size · FY2024

  • Under $10k12 grants · $75k
  • $10k–50k19 grants · $268k
  • $50k–250k12 grants · $1.2M
  • $250k+2 grants · $550k
$10,000
Median grant
2
States reached
$37M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
Western Washington University$300,000
Kuleana Technology Inc$250,000
Meridian School District$207,045
Whatcom Center for Early Learning$192,946
Whatcom Family and Community Network$110,000
University of Washington Foundation$100,000
Kulshan Community Land Trust$100,000
Chuckanut Health Foundation$100,000
Communities in Schools$100,000
Opportunity Council$70,000
Washington State Family and Community Engagement Trust (WAFE)$50,000
Chuckanut Health Foundation$50,000
Common Threads Farm$50,000
Racial Unity Now (RUN)$50,000
Individuals with CKD various under$33,349
02The need
03

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.

show:

Your human-services grants (FY20–24, $754k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 7%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 7%Bellingham SeaFeast: $10k → 12%THE WHATCOM COUNCIL ON AGING: $125k → 12%Whatcom Family YMCA: $105k → 12%OPPORTUNITY COUNCIL: $100k → 12%Opportunity Council: $70k → 12%The Opportunity Council: $70k → 12%OPPORTUNITY COUNCIL: $50k → 12%OPPORTUNITY COUNCIL: $50k → 12%WHATCOM FAMILY YMCA: $44k → 12%WHATCOM FAMILY YMCA: $40k → 12%Northwest Youth Services: $25k → 12%Opportunity Council: $20k → 12%OPPORTUNITY COUNCIL: $20k → 12%The Restorative CommUnity Coalition: $10k → 12%Northwest Youth Services: $10k → 12%Northwest Youth Services: $5k → 12%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

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.

03Your edge
repeat funding

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.

63%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.
$5.5M · 24 repeat orgs$3.2M to everyone else

And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +50% since the first grant, against +20% for the ones you funded once.

24 repeat relationships — 19 still active in FY2024, 5 since wound down; 17 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

24
29

Total granted

$5.5M
$2.2M

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+50%
+20%

Still filing today

63%
52%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 54% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $949k went to new ones.

50%100%’20’21’22’23’24
RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

’20’21’22’23’24
EducationHuman ServicesHealthYouth DevelopmentPhilanthropyHousing & ShelterOther

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

  • UO
    UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON FOUNDATION
    3× · 2021–2024 · $1.3M · revenue +11%
  • WF
    WHATCOM FAMILY & COMMUNITY NETWORK
    4× · 2021–2024 · $756k · revenue +24% · 36% of their budget
  • OC
    OPPORTUNITY COUNCIL
    5× · 2020–2024 · $380k · revenue +77%

Funded once

  • MH
    MERCY HOUSING NORTHWEST
    one grant, 2022 · $1.0M · revenue +21%
  • BG
    Boys & Girls Clubs of Whatcom County
    one grant, 2020 · $140k · revenue +7%
  • WC
    WHATCOM COUNCIL ON AGING
    one grant, 2020 · $125k · revenue +20%

Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Your field

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.

1
Whatcom Dispute Resolution Center

Provide and promote constructive and collaborative approaches to conflict resolution through mediation, training, facilitation, supervised visits and community education.

Unclassified
2
Whatcom Land Trust

The mission of the Whatcom Land Trust is to preserve and protect wildlife habitat, scenic, agricultural and open space lands in Whatcom County for future generations by securing interests in land and promoting land stewardship.

Environment
3
United Way of Snohomish County

United way of snohomish county improves lives for families in snohomish county by bringing people, resources, and strategy together.

Philanthropy
4
Washington Indian Civil Rights Commission

Washington Indian Civil Rights Commission is led by and for Indigenous people, and envisions a just society in which we are treated with honor, fairness and respect. Our mission is to uphold our individual civil rights through education…

Human Services
5
Washington Wildlife & Recreation Coalition

Creating a greener, healthier, more equitable, and better Washington for all through community outreach, network building, and advocacy for conservation and outdoor recreation funding.

—
6
Futurewise

Futurewise works throughout Washington state to encourage healthy, equitable and opportunity-rich communities, and to protect our most valuable farmlands, forests and water resources through wise land use policies and practices.

Environment
7
Whatcom Sports & Recreation

The whatcom sports commission is committed to develop and maintain athletic facilities of the highest standards for the benefit of the citizens of whatcom county.

Recreation & Sports
8
Cowiche Canyon Conservancy

Protecting our shrub-steppe and connecting people to this vanishing landscape.

—
9
Whatcom Alliance for Healthcare Access C/O Chuckanut Health Fdn

Waha is a nonprofit organization based in bellingham, washington whose mission is to connect people to health care and facilitate transformation of the current system into one that improves health, reduces cost and improves the experience…

—
10
Whatcom Mountain Bike Coalition

Whatcom Mountain Bike Coalition's (WMBC) mission is to preserve and enhance non-motorized trail access in Whatcom County through stewardship, education and advocacy.WMBC is a federal non-profit 501(c)(3) organization. We work with many…

Recreation & Sports
11
Re Sources

RE Sources mobilizes people of Northwest Washington to build just and thriving communities and to protect the land, water, and climate on which we all depend.

Environment
12
Invest in Washington Now Campaign

Advocate for tax policy in Washington State

—

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Whatcom Council On Aging and the most unlike its peers is American Diabetes Association. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

Your grantees are a median of 31 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.

THE FIELDby orgYOUR GRANTEESby number18%12%<5yr15%17%5–10yr24%10%10–20yr18%31%20–35yr14%21%35–55yr12%10%55yr+
THE FIELDby orgYOUR MONEYby value18%2%<5yr15%1%5–10yr24%17%10–20yr18%27%20–35yr14%40%35–55yr12%13%55yr+

The field is 18% startups (under 5 years old) — 12% of your grantees by number, and just 2% of your money.

Closures · last 5 years

The orgs you fund almost never close — 2% lost their exemption, against 12% of the field you don’t fund.

orgs you fund
2%1/53
the rest of the field
12%
147/1,214

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.

04the grantee network

44 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. 44 of the 72 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.

2
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
8
Early backer (in before they grew)
44/44
Grantees still filing
25/44
Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

MERCY HOUSING NORTHWEST — $1,000,000 · OtherMERCY HOUSING NORTHWESTLIGHTHOUSE MISSION MINISTRIES — $560,000 · OtherLIGHTHOUSE MISSION MINISTRIESCHUCKANUT HEALTH FOUNDATION — $373,200 · OtherCHUCKANUT HEALTH FOUNDATIONWestern Washington University — $300,000 · OtherWestern Washington UniversityCommunities in Schools — $300,000 · OtherCommunities in SchoolsLYDIA PLACE — $250,000 · OtherLYDIA PLACEKuleana Technology Inc — $250,000 · OtherKuleana Technology IncMERIDIAN SCHOOL DISTRICT #505 — $227,045 · OtherWhatcom Center for Early Learning — $192,946 · Other+34 more — $1,021,704 · Other+34 moreUNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON FOUNDATION — $1,300,000 · EducationUNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTO…COMMON THREADS FARM — $110,000 · EducationCOMMON THREADS FARMBellingham Technical College Foundation — $107,500 · EducationBellingham Technical Co…NORTHWEST INDIAN COLLEGE FOUNDATION — $100,000 · EducationWHATCOM COMMUNITY COLLEGE FOUNDATION — $100,000 · EducationFOUNDATION FOR WESTERN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY AND ALUMNI — $100,000 · Education+4 more — $59,000 · EducationWHATCOM FAMILY & COMMUNITY NETWORK — $756,205 · Youth DevelopmentWHATCOM FAM…Boys & Girls Clubs of Whatcom County — $140,000 · Youth DevelopmentBoys & Girl…+1 more — $23,981 · Youth DevelopmentOPPORTUNITY COUNCIL — $380,000 · Human ServicesOPPORTUNI…WHATCOM FAMILY YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION — $189,000 · Human ServicesWHATCOM F…WHATCOM COUNCIL ON AGING — $125,000 · Human ServicesWHATCOM C…NORTHWEST YOUTH SERVICES — $40,000 · Human Services+2 more — $20,000 · Human ServicesCHILDREN OF THE SETTING SUN PRODUCT — $310,000 · PhilanthropyWashington State Family And Community Engagement Trust — $144,200 · PhilanthropyWHATCOM COMMUNITY FOUNDATION — $131,611 · PhilanthropyUNITED WAY OF WHATCOM COUNTY — $30,000 · PhilanthropyInterfaith Coalition of Whatcom County — $100,000 · HealthUNITY CARE NORTHWEST — $50,000 · HealthDOMESTIC VIOLENCE & SEXUAL ASSAULT SERVICES OF WHATCOM COUNTY — $8,500 · Health+1 more — $5,000 · HealthKULSHAN COMMUNITY LAND TRUST — $100,000 · Housing & ShelterROAD2HOME — $35,000 · Housing & Shelter
Other$4,474,895Education$1,876,500Youth Development$920,186Human Services$754,000Philanthropy$615,811Health$163,500Housing & Shelter$135,000

Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$100k$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ your share of their budgetUNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON FOUNDATION — $1,300,000 over 3y, 0.3% of budgetMERCY HOUSING NORTHWEST — $1,000,000 over 1y, 5.4% of budgetWHATCOM FAMILY & COMMUNITY NETWORK — $756,205 over 4y, 36% of budgetOPPORTUNITY COUNCIL — $380,000 over 5y, 0.3% of budgetCHUCKANUT HEALTH FOUNDATION — $373,200 over 5y, 7.1% of budgetCHILDREN OF THE SETTING SUN PRODUCT — $310,000 over 2y, 15% of budgetLYDIA PLACE — $250,000 over 3y, 2.1% of budgetWhatcom Center for Early Learning — $192,946 over 1y, 2.8% of budgetWHATCOM FAMILY YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION — $189,000 over 3y, 1.1% of budgetWashington State Family And Community Engagement Trust — $144,200 over 3y, 11% of budgetBoys & Girls Clubs of Whatcom County — $140,000 over 1y, 2.2% of budgetWHATCOM COMMUNITY FOUNDATION — $131,611 over 2y, 1.7% of budgetWHATCOM COUNCIL ON AGING — $125,000 over 1y, 4.2% of budgetCOMMON THREADS FARM — $110,000 over 2y, 4.9% of budgetBellingham Technical College Foundation — $107,500 over 2y, 8.3% of budgetCOMMUNITIES IN SCHOOL OF WHATCOM SKAGIT — $100,000 over 1y, 10.0% of budgetKULSHAN COMMUNITY LAND TRUST — $100,000 over 1y, 14% of budgetWHATCOM COMMUNITY COLLEGE FOUNDATION — $100,000 over 1y, 7.3% of budgetFOUNDATION FOR WESTERN WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY AND ALUMNI — $100,000 over 1y, 1.0% of budgetInterfaith Coalition of Whatcom County — $100,000 over 1y, 7.4% of budgetLHAQ'TEMISH FOUNDATION — $63,000 over 2y, 3.0% of budgetTHE BELLINGHAM PUBLIC SCHOOL FOUNDATION — $60,000 over 4y, 3.6% of budgetUNITY CARE NORTHWEST — $50,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetNORTHWEST YOUTH SERVICES — $40,000 over 2y, 0.5% of budgetWILD WHATCOM — $35,000 over 2y, 5.0% of budgetROAD2HOME — $35,000 over 1y, 7.5% of budgetUNITED WAY OF WHATCOM COUNTY — $30,000 over 1y, 1.9% of budgetWHATCOM HUMAN RIGHTS TASK FORCE — $27,000 over 2y, 18% of budgetVAMOS OUTDOORS PROJECT — $23,981 over 2y, 2.3% of budgetINTERGENERATIONAL HIGH SCHOOL — $10,000 over 1y, 0.4% of budgetRestorative CommUnity Coalition — $10,000 over 1y, 32% of budgetFatherhood the Foundation — $10,000 over 1y, 14% of budgetMAX HIGBEE COMMUNITY RECREATION CENTER — $10,000 over 1y, 1.0% of budgetBellingham SeaFeast — $10,000 over 1y, 5.1% of budgetFERNDALE PUBLIC SCHOOLS FOUNDATION — $9,000 over 1y, 4.0% of budgetDOMESTIC VIOLENCE & SEXUAL ASSAULT SERVICES OF WHATCOM COUNTY — $8,500 over 1y, 0.4% of budgetRECREATION NORTHWEST — $8,000 over 1y, 8.9% of budgetThe AIROW Project — $8,000 over 1y, 4.1% of budgetLAW ADVOCATES — $8,000 over 1y, 1.1% of budgetFERNDALE COMMUNITY SERVICES — $5,000 over 1y, 0.8% of budgetSALISH CURRENT — $5,000 over 1y, 2.8% of budgetBellingham Makerspace — $5,000 over 1y, 5.1% of budgetAmerican Diabetes Association — $5,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budget
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.

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.

Whatcom Community Fou…Chuckanut Health Foun…North Sound Accountab…Puget Sound Energy Fo…PeaceHealthFirst Fed FoundationJerry H Walton Founda…Mary H Storer Foundat…United Way of Whatcom…Eleanor and Henry Jan…The Norcliffe Foundat…The Albertsons Compan…
Whatcom Community FoundationWA83.5× affinity38 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Whatcom Community Foundation · Chuckanut Health Foundation · North Sound Accountable Community of Health · Puget Sound Energy Foundation · PeaceHealth · First Fed Foundation · Jerry H Walton Foundation · Mary H Storer Foundation · United Way of Whatcom County · Eleanor and Henry Jansen Foundation · The Norcliffe Foundation · The Albertsons Companies 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 Mount Baker 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.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%3%10%23%40%your share of their income ↑0%25%50%75%100%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    19report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    typical government reliance, FY20–25

    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.

    05Through Plinth

    Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

    How do I get to Mount Baker Foundation?

    Find your warmest path to Mount Baker 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 directly from IRS e-file XML — your own 990/990-PF and the multi-year returns of the 72 grantees we resolved across every year we hold, several hundred filings in all (a different count from the grant rows on the cover, which are one fiscal year)— each linked to its source. Grantee achievements and outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III); we read these as association with sustained funding — the foundation is one of several forces — suppress low-confidence name matches rather than guess, and say so where a figure rests on a single grant or filing. Not everything on this page is a filed figure, and the difference matters. Filed is what you reported on your 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. How we build these →

    Generated from your IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2024, released 2024. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

    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 camps
    funders cluster by geography, not ideology
    By state
    where grant money is based, and what stays home
    State money flows
    the interactive map of money crossing state lines