· Private foundation
Our Little Light Foundation
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k1 grant · $5k
- $10k–50k12 grants · $226k
- $50k–250k5 grants · $400k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Young Center Immigrant Children's R | $100,000 |
| The University Foundation at CSUS | $100,000 |
| Yolo Crisis Nursery Inc | $100,000 |
| California CASA | $50,000 |
| Growth Factory | $50,000 |
| UC Regents | $46,000 |
| Inner-City Arts | $25,000 |
| Academy STAY | $20,000 |
| Union Station Homeless Services | $20,000 |
| Standford Sierra Youth Families | $20,000 |
| The Eli Home for Abused Children | $20,000 |
| Habitat for Humanity of Greater Sac | $15,000 |
| Powerhouse Ministry | $15,000 |
| Me-One Foundation | $15,000 |
| Child Advocates of Nevada County | $10,000 |
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 (FY17–25, $894k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 81% 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 +27% since the first grant, against +4% for the ones you funded once.
28 repeat relationships — 7 still active in FY2025, 21 since wound down; 11 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (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 FY2025, 54% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $290k 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
- CCCALIFORNIA COURT APPOINTED SPECIAL ADVOCATE ASSOCIATION6× · 2018–2025 · $410k · revenue ×26
- TUTHE UC DAVIS FOUNDATION2× · 2021–2023 · $390k · revenue +6%
- FSFIRST STAR INC5× · 2018–2024 · $120k · revenue +11%
Funded once
- MIMERISTEM INCone grant, 2018 · $120k · revenue +4%
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2017 · $100k
- RTREACH THE VALLEYone grant, 2024 · $66k · revenue 0%
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.
All children need a childhood. Allies for Every Child brings together and strengthens families, cultivating conditions for children to succeed in life. (Continues on Schedule O)
San Francisco CASA transforms the lives of children and youth traumatized and displaced in the foster care and related systems by providing one consistent, caring volunteer advocate, trained to address each childs needs in the court and…
The mission of Wayfinder Family Services is to ensure that children, youth and adults facing challenges always have a place to turn. Founded in 1953 as the Foundation for the Junior Blind, the organization initially enabled visually…
California Alliance of Caregivers represents the voices of relative and non-relative caregivers to promote the well-being of children in foster care. California Alliance of Caregivers provides training information support and advocacy for…
The Sonoma County Court Appointed Special Advocates (CASA) Program serves abused and neglected children coming before the Juvenile Court of Protection and Rehabilitation Services.
Advocates for abused, neglected and other identified children within the court system, with the belief that every child is entitled to a safe and stable home.
None
Through a holistic approach to emotional well-being, Wellnest offers hope, healing, and opportunity to the children, young adults, families, and communities we serve. Our commitment remains steadfast as we enter our second century of…
We support and empower foster children, at-risk youth, and families in crisis by connecting them with compassionate volunteer advocates who provide hope, guidance, and a pathway to stability and lasting permanency.
Youth For Change (YFC) mission is to enhance the well being of children, families, individuals, and communities.
At the sacramento children's home, we are committed to opening doors to the future by maximizing the potential of children and families.
The court appointed special advocates (casa) program recruits, trains, and supports volunteer advocates to support abused and neglected children during the court process, to help every child find a permanent home and complete their…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is M F Place Inc and the most unlike its peers is Teams and Dreams Foundation. 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 27 years old; the field is 13. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 24% startups (under 5 years old) — 9% of your grantees by number, and just 3% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 15% of the field you don’t fund.
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.
49 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. 49 of the 77 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 CALIFORNIA COURT APPOINTED SPECIAL ADVOCATE ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds Yolo Crisis Nursery ↗
- Who funds THE UC DAVIS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds BAYVIEW FUTURES FKA CENTER FOR YOUTH WELLNESS ↗
- Who funds MERISTEM INC ↗
- Who funds FIRST STAR INC ↗
- Who funds PRIDE Industries ↗
- Who funds CASA OF LOS ANGELES ↗
- Who funds Court Appointed Special Advocates of Monterey County Inc ↗
- Who funds REACH THE VALLEY ↗
- Who funds COMPASSION PLANET ↗
- Who funds SIERRA FOREVER FAMILIES ↗
- Who funds KOINONIA FOSTER HOMES INC ↗
- Who funds CAMP TO BELONG ↗
- Who funds GROWTH FACTORY ↗
- Who funds Project Access Inc ↗
- Who funds THE CHILDREN'S PARTNERSHIP ↗
- Who funds The Rightway Foundation ↗
- Who funds INNER-CITY ARTS ↗
- Who funds TICKET TO DREAM FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds UPWARD BOUND HOUSE ↗
- Who funds IMPROVE YOUR TOMORROW INC ↗
- Who funds PLACER PEOPLE OF FAITH TOGETHER ↗
- Who funds SAINT JOHN'S PROGRAM FOR REAL CHANGE ↗
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: Kaiser Foundation Hospitals · Teichert Foundation · Sacramento Region Community Foundation · In-N-Out Burgers Foundation · Kelly Foundation · California Foundation for Stronger Communities · Placer Community Foundation · The California Endowment · Conrad N Hilton Foundation · Ticket to Dream Foundation · Sutter Valley Hospitals · Mufg Union Bank Foundation Ag
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 Our Little Light 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.