· Private foundation
Paulsen Family Foundation
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 $10k20 grants · $86k
- $10k–50k10 grants · $140k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| DEMOCRACY FORWARD FOUNDATION | $20,000 |
| EARTH JUSTICE | $20,000 |
| SHE JUMPS | $15,000 |
| OUTDOOR ALLIANCE | $15,000 |
| TRUST FOR PUBLIC LAND | $15,000 |
| OUTDOOR AFRO | $15,000 |
| ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND | $10,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $10,000 |
| ASHEVILLE ON BIKES | $10,000 |
| LIVE THRIVE | $10,000 |
| GEORGIA CYCLING ASSOCIATION | $7,500 |
| ASHEVILLE GREENWORKS | $5,000 |
| NORTH CAROLINA SUSTAINABLE ENERGY ASSOC | $5,000 |
| BEACON HILL MIDDLE SCHOOL | $5,000 |
| BIKEPACKING ROOTS | $5,000 |
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 (FY23–24, $5k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 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.
Which US states your grants reach
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 +35% since the first grant, against +19% for the ones you funded once.
61 repeat relationships — 20 still active in FY2024, 41 since wound down; 10 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, 63% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $83k 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
- ASASHEVILLE SCHOOL INC5× · 2017–2023 · $192k · revenue +12%
- OAOUTDOOR AFRO2× · 2023–2024 · $35k · revenue +55%
THE TRUST FOR PUBLIC LAND2× · 2023–2024 · $35k · revenue +1%
Funded once
- HBHAZELDEN BETTY FORD FOUNDATIONone grant, 2021 · $100k
- CPCAROLINE PAULSEN DONOR ADVISED FUNDone grant, 2023 · $25k
- KCKATHERINE COBB DONOR ADVISED FUNDone grant, 2023 · $25k
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 new york botanical garden is a museum of plants and a scientific research center devoted to the study of plants and their uses. it is the garden's mission to improve public understanding of the natural world, horticulture, and the…
Brooklyn bridge park corporation's mission, d/b/a brooklyn bridge park ("bbp") mission is to provide an exceptional public space that connects people, nature, and the waterfront, through inclusive, innovative, and sustainable management…
The mission of denver botanic gardens is to connect people with plants, especially plants from the rocky mountain region and similar regions around the world, providing delight and enlightenment to everyone.
The adirondack council ensures the ecological integrity (clean water and air, wildlife habitat, etc.), wild character (solitude, scenic beauty, etc.), and vibrant communities of new york's six-million-acre adirondack park. the adirondack…
Nashville public radio's mission is to be the most trusted & independent nashville voice, connecting our communities through non-partisan journalism, compelling storytelling, civil conversation and music discovery.
The architectural league of new york supports critically transformative work in the allied fields that shape the built environment. as a vital, independent forum, the league stimulates thinking, debate, and action on today's (continued on…
Wwf's mission is to conserve nature and reduce the most pressing threats to the diversity of life on earth. (continued on schedule o)
Rainforest trust saves endangered wildlife and protects our planet by creating rainforest reserves through partnerships, community engagement, and donor support.
The natural areas conservancy champions urban natural areas in new york city and across the nation through innovative research, partnerships, and advocacy. we increase the health and resilience of urban forests and wetlands, catalyze…
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
The organization's mission is to conserve and promote new england's native plants to ensure healthy, biologically diverse landscapes.
Heal utah's mission is to protect utah's environment and its people by promoting clean air, clean energy, and comprehensive solutions to radioactive and toxic waste.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Brooklyn Bridge Park Conservancy Inc and the most unlike its peers is Metropolitan Museum of Art. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 36 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 2% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
58 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. 58 of the 98 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 ASHEVILLE SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds MUSEUM OF ARTS AND DESIGN ↗
- Who funds READSOURCE INC ↗
- Who funds BROOKLYN ACADEMY OF MUSIC INC ↗
- Who funds OUTDOOR AFRO ↗
- Who funds THE TRUST FOR PUBLIC LAND ↗
- Who funds SheJumps ↗
- Who funds ASHEVILLE ON BIKES INC ↗
- Who funds LIVE-THRIVE INC ↗
- Who funds DECATUR EDUCATION FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds GEORGIA AQUARIUM INC & SUBSIDIARY ↗
- Who funds DUKE UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds Southern Appalachian Highlands Conservancy ↗
- Who funds HAZELDEN NEW YORK ↗
- Who funds DEMOCRACY FORWARD FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds EARTHJUSTICE ↗
- Who funds Asheville GreenWorks ↗
- Who funds Davidson College ↗
- Who funds NEW YORK PUBLIC RADIO ↗
- Who funds Soccer In the Streets Inc ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN KENNEL CLUB CANINE HEALTH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Green Built Alliance ↗
- Who funds THE GIVING KITCHEN INITIATIVE INC ↗
- Who funds RiverLink 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: The Community Foundation of Western North Carolina Inc · The Community Foundation for Greater Atlanta Inc · Foundation for the Carolinas · Patagoniaorg · Richard Eckerd Foundation Inc · Luluma Charitable Trust Xxxxx8009 · Bailey Family Foundation Inc · The Harold T Southern Family Foundation · The Frances & William H Beattie Fdn · The Wilderness Society · Z Smith Reynolds Foundation Inc · THDF II Inc DBA The Home Depot Foundation & Homer Fund
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 Paulsen 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.
- Newark Public Radio Inc — 51% of income from government
- Wgbh Educational Foundation — 1% of income from government
- Nantucket Historical Association — 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.