· Private foundation
Nicholas Endowment
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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k10 grants · $40k
- $50k–250k21 grants · $1.9M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| SOUTH COAST REPERTORY | $175,000 |
| OCEAN INSTITUTE | $150,000 |
| PACIFIC SYMPHONY | $150,000 |
| ORANGE COUNTY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | $122,400 |
| MISSION SAN JUAN CAPISTRANO | $115,000 |
| BOWERS MUSEUM | $115,000 |
| ORANGE COUNTY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | $115,000 |
| ST MARGARET'S OF SCOTLAND EPISCOPAL SCHOOL | $115,000 |
| CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OF ORANGE COUNTY | $115,000 |
| UCLA - SCHOOL OF LAW | $75,000 |
| UCI - GAVIN HERBERT EYE INSTITUTE | $75,000 |
| UCLA - VETERANS INITIATIVES & PARTNERSHIPS | $75,000 |
| UCI - OC VETFAM COLLABORATIVE | $70,000 |
| UCLA - LETTERS AND SCIENCE | $65,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $60,000 |
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 (FY17–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 21% 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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 9% of Nicholas Endowment’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, 100% of the giving stays in CA; read by stated purpose it is 87% — 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.
31 repeat relationships — 20 still active in FY2024, 11 since wound down; 1 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, 96% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $75k 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
- SCSOUTH COAST REPERTORY INC8× · 2017–2024 · $1.4M · revenue +1%
- PSPacific Symphony8× · 2017–2024 · $1.3M · revenue +87%
- CWCHARLES W BOWERS MUSEUM CORPORATION8× · 2017–2024 · $933k · revenue +26%
Funded once
- URUC REGENTSone grant, 2017 · $347k
- UIUCLA - INSTITUTE FOR CARBON MGMTone grant, 2022 · $100k
- UGUCLA - GRADUATE SCHOOL OF EDUCATIONone grant, 2018 · $100k
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 association serves its members by creating resources that enable california school administrators to develop and apply creative leadership and management skills and in turn, improve the educational process for all students.
Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.
A diverse and sustainable learning community dedicated to discovery and excellence in teaching, scholarship and practice, pacific university inspires students to think, care, create and pursue justice in our world.
The aquarium of the pacific's mission is to instill a sense of wonder, respect, and stewardship for the pacific ocean, its inhabitants, and ecosystems.
To support educational, research and public functions and programs of the riverside campus of the university of california.
The catalina island conservancy protects and stewards 88% of catalina island. more than 42,000 acres of wildlands, coves and coastal habitats. founded to preserve the island's natural resources, the conservancy advances a mission rooted in…
The uc santa barbara foundation actively works to further the goals of the university of california, santa barbara. the foundation seeks to maintain and nurture the university's quality and distinction. on behalf of the campus, the…
Rooted in the liberal arts & sciences & lutheran expression of the christian faith, & is committed to offering a challenging education that develops qualities of mind, spirit, & body necessary for a rewarding life of leadership & service…
To provide a superior, student-centered learning experience integrating liberal arts and professional education and preparing individuals for lasting achievement and responsible leadership in their careers and communities.
Scu is a catholic and jesuit institution that makes student learning its central focus, promotes faculty and staff learning in its various forms, and exhibits organizational learning.
The organization provides professional investment management services for endowed gifts and financial assets entrusted to the ucsf foundation.
The mission of the uc davis foundation is to secure, steward and manage private gifts for uc davis.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Orange County Community Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Achievement Institute for Stem Scholars. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
11 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. 11 of the 57 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 ORANGE COUNTY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SOUTH COAST REPERTORY INC ↗
- Who funds Pacific Symphony ↗
- Who funds OCEAN INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds CHARLES W BOWERS MUSEUM CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OF ORANGE COUNTY ↗
- Who funds ST MARGARET OF SCOTLAND EPISCOPAL SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA IRVINE 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: Orange County Community Foundation · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · American Endowment Foundation · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · 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 Nicholas Endowment 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 Nicholas Endowment?
Find your warmest path to Nicholas Endowment 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.