· Private foundation
Olafson Foundation
Its FY2019 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 FY2017–2018.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2018
- Under $10k15 grants · $32k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $30k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| COLUMBUS FOUNDATION | $20,000 |
| UTAH AUTISM ACADEMY | $10,000 |
| RONALD MCDONALD HOUSE | $5,000 |
| LUEKEMIA AND LYMPHOMA SOCIETY | $5,000 |
| HELTER FOR HOMELESSINC | $2,500 |
| THE LANTERN HOUSE | $2,500 |
| KUER | $2,500 |
| FOURTH STREET CLINIC | $2,500 |
| GUADALUPE SCHOOL | $2,500 |
| UTAH ANIMAL ADOPTION CENTER | $2,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $2,000 |
| BAD DOG ARTS | $1,000 |
| CROHNS AND COLITIS FOUNDATION | $1,000 |
| UTAH PRIDE CENTER | $1,000 |
| LGBERG HEIMSKRINGLA INC | $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.
Your human-services grants (FY18–18, $1k) land where the poverty rate runs at 8%, against an area that typically sits at 5%. 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.
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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +69% since the first grant, against -63% for the ones you funded once.
8 repeat relationships — 8 still active in FY2018, 0 since wound down; 9 grantees were first funded in FY2018 (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 FY2018, 73% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $17k 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
- UAUTAH AUTISM ACADEMY2× · 2017–2018 · $35k · revenue +69%
- RMRonald McDonald House Charities of the Intermountain Area Inc2× · 2017–2018 · $10k · revenue +140%
- WHWasatch Homeless Health Care2× · 2017–2018 · $5k · revenue +94%
Funded once
- LALEUKEMIA AND LYMPHOMA SOCIETYone grant, 2017 · $10k
- STSHELTER THE HOMELESS INCone grant, 2017 · $5k · revenue -63%
- CACROHNS AND COLITIS FOUNDATIONS INCone grant, 2017 · $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 promotion of low-income housing within the state of utah.
We help families experiencing homelessness find lasting independence and security.
Provide housing to low-income families in provo, utah.
To help people experiencing or at risk of homelessness build new lives through construction, community engagement, and education.
Provides services and supports to individuals in Utah County who have intellectual disabilities.
Assisting persons with disabilities to develop independent living and social skills, assisting with housing and transportation needs, rights advocacy, and counseling.
Stimulate local business establishment, growth, and development by facilitating business to business and business to community relationships throughout Utah County.
Provide increased access to comprehensive health care to medically underserved.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Utah Pride Center Inc and the most unlike its peers is Wasatch Backcountry Alliance. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
12 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. 12 of the 22 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 UTAH AUTISM ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds COLUMBUS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Ronald McDonald House Charities of the Intermountain Area Inc ↗
- Who funds SHELTER THE HOMELESS INC ↗
- Who funds Wasatch Homeless Health Care ↗
- Who funds ST ANNE'S CENTER ↗
- Who funds BAD DOG ARTS ↗
- Who funds UTAH ANIMAL ADOPTION CENTER ↗
- Who funds CROHN'S & COLITIS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds WASATCH BACKCOUNTRY ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds Utah Pride Center Inc ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF UTAH AVALANCHE FORE CAST CENTER INC ↗
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: Lawrence & Janet Dee Foundation · The Community Foundation of Utah · Hemingway Foundation · George S and Dolores Dore Eccles Foundation · American Express Foundation · Herbert I & Elsa B Michael Foundation US Bank National Association · Willard L Eccles Charitable Foundation · McCarthey Family Foundation · Ihc Health Services Inc · Pacificorp Foundation Aka Pacific Power Foundation Aka Rocky Mountain Power Foundati · Sorenson Legacy Foundation · Dominion Energy Charitable 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 Olafson 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 Olafson Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Olafson 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.