· Private foundation
Norman & Marcia Burnam Family Foundation
Its FY2025 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
100% of Norman & Marcia Burnam Family Foundation’s FY2025 grant dollars went to Jewish Community Federation Of San Francisco The Peninsula Marin & Sonoma, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2025 names 0 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2020, the last year Norman & Marcia Burnam Family Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 8 organizations, $46k. 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
By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).
A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 70% of NORMAN & MARCIA BURNAM FAMILY FOUNDATION’s grantee dollars fall outside its nine largest cause areas, whether because the recipient carries no IRS cause code or because its cause sits in the long tail. A chart would be mostly one residual band and misrepresent the portfolio.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2020
- Under $10k6 grants · $13k
- $10k–50k3 grants · $33k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| PLANNED PARENTHOOD | $12,500 |
| TUFTS UNIVERSITY | $10,000 |
| CROWDEN MUSIC CENTER | $10,000 |
| SANTA CATALINA SCHOOL | $5,000 |
| NORTH BAY AQUATICS | $2,500 |
| TREE PEOPLE | $2,500 |
| GOLDEN GATE BOYS CHOIR | $1,000 |
| MITCHELL COLLEGE | $1,000 |
| WELLESLEY COLLEGE | $1,000 |
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 (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 29% 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.
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.
11 repeat relationships — 8 still active in FY2020, 3 since wound down; 6 grantees were first funded in FY2020 (too recent to call). Read against FY2020, 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, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
- TCThe Crowden Music Center7× · 2018–2024 · $432k · revenue +6%
- JLJEWISH LEARNINGWORKS2× · 2021–2022 · $105k · revenue +0%
Trustees of Tufts College4× · 2017–2020 · $20k · revenue +50%
Funded once
- TLTHE LOWEN SOCCER CLUBgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $5k · revenue +140%
- UWUNITED WAY INCone grant, 2019 · $1k · revenue -16%
- WFWESTMINISTER FOUNDATIONone grant, 2019 · $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.
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.
A private school that cultivates and celebrates the intellectual, imaginative, and humanitarian promise of each student in a community that practices mutual respect, embraces diversity, and inspires passion for learning.
At san francisco friends school, students learn in a community grounded in the quaker values of reflection, integrity, peaceful problem-solving and stewardship. our teachers challenge students with a dynamic curriculum that inspires…
California college of the arts educates students to shape culture and society through the practice and critical study of art, architecture, design, and writing. benefitting from its san francisco bay area location, the college prepares…
At san franicisco university high school, we engage our community of diverse voices in a transformational experience that embraces the spirited pursuit of learning and empowers purpose larger than self.
Guided by the principles of academic rigor and diversity, the international school of san francisco offers programs of study in french and english to prepare its graduates for a world in which the ability to think critically and to…
Menlo school's mission is to empower students to explore and expand their interests, reach their fullest potential, develop the skills necessary for success in college, and become ethical, responsible, and engaged members of ever wider…
The buckley school is a dynamic, nurturing learning community committed to equity and inclusion. our innovative teachers and challenging programs inspire creativity, courage, and collaboration. by promoting a balanced development of mind,…
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…
Provide clinical instruction to and supervision of medical school students, interns and residents and, incident thereto, rendering professional services.
Wns is committed to creating a deeply caring community of lifelong learners that nurtures students from diverse backgrounds to reach their full potential, develop cultural competency, and inspire the world with their curiosity, innovation,…
Marin academy asks every individual to think, question, and create in an environment of encouragement and compassion, and challenges each person to accept the responsibilities posed by education in a democratic society.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Santa Catalina School and the most unlike its peers is The Lowen Soccer Club. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
17 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. 17 of the 24 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 The Crowden Music Center ↗
- Who funds JEWISH LEARNINGWORKS ↗
- Who funds MITCHELL COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds Trustees of Tufts College ↗
- Who funds JEWISH COMMUNITY FEDERATION OF SAN FRANCISCO THE PENINSULA MARIN & SONOMA ↗
- Who funds SANTA CATALINA SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds Wellesley College ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY MUSIC CENTER ↗
- Who funds THE LOWEN SOCCER CLUB ↗
- Who funds NORTH BAY AQUATICS ↗
- Who funds STERNE SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds TREEPEOPLE INC ↗
- Who funds SAN FRANCISCO FREE CLINIC ↗
- Who funds GOLDEN GATE BOYS CHOIR ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY INC ↗
- Who funds SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY ↗
- Who funds UCLA 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: Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco the Peninsula Marin & Sonoma · The San Francisco Foundation · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · American Endowment Foundation · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · 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 Norman & Marcia Burnam 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.
- Trustees of Tufts College — 13% of income from government
- Mitchell College — 2% of income from government
- Wellesley College — 1% 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 Norman & Marcia Burnam Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Norman & Marcia Burnam 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.