· Private foundation
Philip E Fess 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 $10k8 grants · $35k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $17k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| FEEDING SAN DIEGO | $17,000 |
| THE ROSS K MCNEILL FDN | $8,000 |
| AMERICAN BRAIN TUMOR ASSOCIATION | $7,000 |
| ST JUDE'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL | $6,000 |
| FENIX FAMILY HEALTH CENTER | $6,000 |
| LUCKY DUCK FOUNDATION | $3,000 |
| THE BISHOP'S SCHOOL | $2,000 |
| CABRILLO NATIONAL MONUMENT FOUNDATI | $1,500 |
| LEUKEMIA LYMPHOMA SOCIETY | $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 (FY18–21, $10k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 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 +42% since the first grant, against +12% for the ones you funded once.
24 repeat relationships — 8 still active in FY2024, 16 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, 94% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $3k 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
- FSFEEDING SAN DIEGO5× · 2020–2024 · $63k · revenue +29%
- FFFenix Family Health Center8× · 2017–2024 · $56k · revenue +157%
- JCJACOBS & CUSHMAN SAN DIEGO FOOD BANK5× · 2017–2021 · $50k · revenue +169%
Funded once
- SDSAN DIEGUITO SURF SOCCER CLUBone grant, 2022 · $5k · revenue -99%
Best Buddies International Incone grant, 2023 · $4k · revenue +18%- CACHALLENGED ATHLETES INCone grant, 2019 · $4k · revenue +12%
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 organization's mission is to provide funding for the best cancer research ideas in san diego. all proceeds from curebound stay in san diego to fund innovative and collaborative cancer research.
The organization provides professional investment management services for endowed gifts and financial assets entrusted to the ucsf foundation.
Balboa Park Conservancy (the Conservancy) was organized on November 3, 1923. The Conservancy is the City of San Diegos (the City) partner and advocated for the greater good of Balboa Park (the Park). The Conservancy collaborated with and…
The mission of st. francis foundation of santa barbara is to promote and support health care.
Our mission is to build a unique institute that bridges basic research and drug discovery, and that attracts the best and brightest scientists, physicians and students to work together synergistically to find cures for neglected human…
Acquire, manage and protect land in perpetuity that supports sensitive habitats and species, and to educate and inspire people and communities as stewards and advocates of their natural environment.
City of Hope's mission is to make hope a reality for all touched by cancer and diabetes. PLEASE SEE SCHEDULE O FOR A CONTINUATION OF OUR MISSION
The GI Research Foundation works to treat, prevent, and cure digestive diseases. In collaboration with the physicians and scientists at the University of Chicago Digestive Diseases Center, we fund innovative clinical and laboratory…
To promote philanthropy to make santa cruz county a better place to live, now and in the future.we bring together people, ideas, and resources to inspire philanthropy and accomplish great things.
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…
The foundation's mission is to improve the oral health of all californians by supporting the dental profession and its efforts to meet community needs.
Pasadena bio collaborative incubator is a nonprofit organization focused on economic development and job creation in southern california. we encourage the growth of an innovative biotechnology industry by providing educational/training…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The San Diego Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Evans School Foundation. 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 34 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) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% 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.
30 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. 30 of the 47 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 FEEDING SAN DIEGO ↗
- Who funds Fenix Family Health Center ↗
- Who funds JACOBS & CUSHMAN SAN DIEGO FOOD BANK ↗
- Who funds ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INC ↗
- Who funds TOP BOX FOODS ↗
- Who funds American Brain Tumor Association ↗
- Who funds The Anti-Cruelty Society ↗
- Who funds WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN INC ↗
- Who funds BLACK MOUNTAIN HOME FOR CHILDREN YOUTH AND FAMILIES INC ↗
- Who funds SAN DIEGUITO SURF SOCCER CLUB ↗
- Who funds Best Buddies International Inc ↗
- Who funds THE UC DAVIS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CHALLENGED ATHLETES INC ↗
- Who funds LUCKY DUCK FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Girls on the Run of San Diego ↗
- Who funds Cabrillo National Monument Foundation ↗
- Who funds The Susan G Komen Breast Cancer Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds SCRIPPS HEALTH ↗
- Who funds GLOBAL COMMUNITIES ↗
- Who funds THE SAN DIEGO FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Mt Helix Park Foundation ↗
- Who funds Emilio Nares Foundation ↗
- Who funds BLOOD CANCER UNITED INC ↗
- Who funds CROHN'S & COLITIS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds ALBION 12 FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Montana Wild Wings Recovery Center ↗
- Who funds Torrey Pines Association DBA Torrey Pines Conservancy ↗
- Who funds THE OCTOBER SAVES GOALIE CHALLENGE ↗
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 San Diego Foundation · Sempra Foundation · Rancho Santa Fe Foundation · Jewish Community Foundation of San Diego · Charities Aid Foundation America · National Philanthropic Trust · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · American Endowment Foundation · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc
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 Philip E Fess 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.
- Global Communities — 44% of income from government
- Best Buddies International Inc — 4% 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.