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Massachusetts · Private foundation

Richard & Deborah Polonsky Charitable Foundation

Its FY2020 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

$12k
Granted FY2020
19
Grants FY2020
19
Organizations funded FY2020
32%
First-time grantees FY2020
Read the full brief
Median grant, FY2020
$150
Largest grant, FY2020
$7,330
Organizations funded a year
19 to 25
FY2017 to FY2020
States reached, FY2020
5
Total assets, FY2020
$179
Applications
Preselected organizations only
Per its most recent filing; check its own site

How open it is to new grantees

In FY2020, 32% of the organizations Richard & Deborah Polonsky Charitable Foundation funded were first-time grantees, receiving 4% of its grant dollars.

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2020, 96% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $525 went to new ones.

50%100%’18’19’20
RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

’18’19’20
HealthArts & CultureEducationPublic BenefitRecreation & SportsOther
How this is measured
First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). The earliest year is left-censored: relationships that predate the data read as new. Theme is the grantee’s IRS cause.
The numbers by year
Fiscal yearOrganizations fundedTo those organizationsFirst-time grantees
FY202019$12k32%
FY201922$8k27%
FY201824$7k42%
FY201725$8kn/a
89% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2020.

Arts & Culture$17kReligion$10kHuman Services$4kHealth$2kEducation$2kPhilanthropy$475Crime & Legal$225International$200Other$0

Where its grants go

Grant dollars by states, across the years we hold.

Which US states its grants reach

NY
MA
IA
RI
CA
MD
TN
DC
TX

Top grantees

Largest recipients by total granted, FY2017 to FY2020, and the share of each one’s budget the grants supplied at peak.

Show all 27 grantees

Plus 20 recipients with no EIN on record ($7k), not named here.

Where it is load-bearing

Each grantee by its size and the share of its budget Richard & Deborah Polonsky Charitable Foundation supplied at peak.

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetPhilharmonic Society of Orange County: $11,100 over 4y, 0.1% of budgetJewish Home for the Aging of Orange County: $2,711 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetThe United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: $790 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetAARP Foundation: $669 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetNational Yiddish Book Center Inc: $662 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetNewport Beach Public Library Foundation: $620 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetThe Willows Community School: $350 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetThe Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles: $317 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetHoag Hospital Foundation: $300 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetTrustees of Boston University: $250 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetNewport Beach Police Association: $225 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetBirthright Israel Foundation: $200 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetFriends of the Academy of Music Inc: $200 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetPancreatic Cancer Action Network Inc: $150 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetSegerstrom Center for the Arts: $100 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetCrystal Cove Conservancy: $100 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetSt Jude Children's Research Hospital Inc: $50 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetMAZON A Jewish Response to Hunger: $50 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetNational Pancreas Foundation: $50 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetUniversity of California Irvine Foundation: $50 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetAmerican National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches: $50 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetAmerican Heart Association Inc: $40 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetCedars-Sinai Medical Center: $25 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetNational Park Foundation: $15 over 1y, 0.0% of budget

Tap a dot to name the grantee.

How this is measured
Share of budget is the funder’s grant in a year over the grantee’s total revenue that year, at its highest across the years we hold; revenue is from all sources. Only grantees confirmed against their own filings, whose grants do not exceed their revenue, are plotted: the largest 24.

Nonprofits that may fit its grantmaking

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Argyros Family FoundationCA15.7× affinity5 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Argyros Family Foundation · Jewish Community Foundation of Orange County · Samueli Foundation · Orange County Community Foundation · The Bassman Family Charitable Trust · California Community Foundation · American Endowment Foundation · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · National Philanthropic Trust · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · American Online Giving Foundation Inc

How this is measured
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

Compare Richard & Deborah Polonsky Charitable Foundation with peer funders

About Richard & Deborah Polonsky Charitable Foundation

How much does Richard & Deborah Polonsky Charitable Foundation give?
Richard & Deborah Polonsky Charitable Foundation reported 19 grants totaling $12,068 in its FY2020 IRS filing. It funded between 19 and 25 organizations a year over FY2017 to FY2020.
What does Richard & Deborah Polonsky Charitable Foundation fund?
By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2020, its largest causes are Arts & Culture (48%), Religion (27%), Human Services (10%).
Who are Richard & Deborah Polonsky Charitable Foundation's largest grantees?
By total granted over FY2017 to FY2020: Philharmonic Society of Orange County ($11k), Temple Bat Yahm ($9k), Jewish Home for the Aging of Orange County ($3k).
Does Richard & Deborah Polonsky Charitable Foundation fund new organizations?
In FY2020, 32% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.
Does Richard & Deborah Polonsky Charitable Foundation accept unsolicited applications?
Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Which funders back the same organizations as Richard & Deborah Polonsky Charitable Foundation?
Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Argyros Family Foundation, Jewish Community Foundation of Orange County, Samueli Foundation.
Where is Richard & Deborah Polonsky Charitable Foundation based?
Richard & Deborah Polonsky Charitable Foundation is based in MA.

On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 49 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

How this is measured
Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears.

Generated from the IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2020, released 2020. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Source object · view filing

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