· Private foundation
Ross Stores Foundation
Its FY2026 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 FY2021–2026.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2026
- Under $10k70 grants · $108k
- $10k–50k63 grants · $1.6M
- $50k–250k5 grants · $574k
- $250k+2 grants · $2.0M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF AMERICA | $1,603,333 |
| FIRST BOOK | $366,700 |
| BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF THE PENINSULA | $210,000 |
| AMERICAN ONLINE GIVING FOUNDATION INC | $153,558 |
| GOLDEN STATE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | $100,000 |
| EDUCATIONAL ALLIANCE | $60,000 |
| COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF THE TEXAS HILL COUNTRY | $50,000 |
| ALL PEOPLES COMMUNITY CENTER | $30,000 |
| HEART OF LOS ANGELES INC | $30,000 |
| DEV MISSION | $30,000 |
| ENLIGHTENED MENTOR CORPORATION | $30,000 |
| GIRLS INCORPORATED OF ALAMEDA COUNTY | $30,000 |
| HACK THE HOOD | $30,000 |
| SCHOOLS MENTORING AND RESOURCE TEAM | $30,000 |
| OAKLAND CAREER TRAINING DEPOT CORP | $30,000 |
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 (FY21–26, $2.9M) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 97% 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 +10% since the first grant, against +7% for the ones you funded once.
143 repeat relationships — 83 still active in FY2026, 60 since wound down; 54 grantees were first funded in FY2026 (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 FY2026, 84% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $643k 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
- BGBOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF AMERICA6× · 2021–2026 · $6.6M · revenue +5%
- ANAmerican National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches6× · 2021–2026 · $1.9M · revenue +27%
- BGBOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF THE PENINSULA6× · 2021–2026 · $395k · revenue +23%
Funded once
- UWUNITED WAY INCone grant, 2025 · $350k · revenue 0%
DIRECT RELIEFone grant, 2021 · $250k · revenue +24%
NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE & EDUC FUND INCone grant, 2021 · $175k · revenue -61%
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.
Talent is equally distributed, but opportunity is not. STEM Advantage mentors, prepares, and inspires first-generation, low-income, and underserved college students for careers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). We level…
The California School-Age Consortium (CalSAC) builds professional networks that provide training, leadership development and advocacy to ensure that all young people have access to high quality out-of-school time programs and to create a…
Institute for Applied Tinkering IAT develops, practices and shares educational methods that challenge and support all children to engage deeply in their learning via real interests and real tools.
Berkeley Community Scholars empowers Berkeley youth who face racial, economic, and other barriers to achieving their college dreams by providing a unique experience of scholarships, advising, mentoring, and a community of support.
The peak school seeks to ignite a passion for learning, to develop students of diverse talents and backgrounds who think critically and act with integrity, and to graduate compassionate, confident, capable students who will embrace their…
Equal opportunity schools' mission is to strengthen educator and system leader capacity to break down barriers to increase access, belonging, and success in rigorous college and career-prep secondary school courses for students of color…
Cincinnati Youth Collaborative ("CYC") empowers young people to overcome barriers and excel in education, career, and life.
Impacting generational change by empowering youth who are facing the greatest obstacles through relationships with professional mentors - 12+ years, no matter what.
With love and respect, we partner with opportunity youth to build the skillsets and mindsets that lead to lifelong learning, livelihood, and leadership. youthbuild strives to create a world where all young people are seen for their…
Springboard collaborative combines targeted student instruction with parent training in an incentivized system that closes the literacy gap, by transferring the summer from a barrier into a springboard for financially disadvantaged…
Provide in school programs that educate and inspire young people to value free enterprise, understand business, economics and improve the quality of their lives.
Our mission is to encourage a diverse population of high-need young people to explore their full potential through academic, career, family, and community life. Every year, CYC impacts over 8,000 San Francisco youth and their families,…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Read and Feed and the most unlike its peers is Bbp Gem Inc. 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 30 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) — 3% 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.
345 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.
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 2017–2026, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 345 of the 510 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
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
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 BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF AMERICA ↗
- Who funds FIRST BOOK ↗
- Who funds American National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN ONLINE GIVING FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds GOLDEN STATE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF THE PENINSULA ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY INC ↗
- Who funds THE EDUCATIONAL ALLIANCE INC ↗
- Who funds DIRECT RELIEF ↗
- Who funds LOS ANGELES REGIONAL FOOD BANK ↗
- Who funds NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE & EDUC FUND INC ↗
- Who funds NAACP EMPOWERMENT PROGRAMS INC ↗
- Who funds Scientific Adventures dba Scientific Adventures for Girls ↗
- Who funds ALAMEDA COUNTY COMMUNITY FOOD BANK ↗
- Who funds CITY HARVEST INC ↗
- Who funds A PLACE CALLED HOME ↗
- Who funds AIM HIGH FOR HIGH SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds BEYOND EMANCIPATION ↗
- Who funds SCHOOLS MENTORING AND RESOURCES TEAM INC (SMART) ↗
- Who funds FOUNDATION FOR STUDENTS RISING ABOVE ↗
- Who funds LOS ANGELES URBAN FOUDATION ↗
- Who funds GIRL SCOUTS OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA ↗
- Who funds NETWORK FOR TEACHING ENTREPRENEURSHIP ↗
- Who funds JUMPSTART FOR YOUNG CHILDREN INC ↗
- Who funds SUMMER PROGRAM FOR YOUTH ↗
- Who funds PS Science ↗
- Who funds THE BELL FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds THINK TOGETHER ↗
- Who funds CASA YOUTH SHELTER ↗
- Who funds NEW DOOR VENTURES FKA GOLDEN GATE COMMUNITY INC ↗
- Who funds GIRLS INCORPORATED OF ALAMEDA COUNTY ↗
- Who funds Young Eisner Scholars ↗
- Who funds Larkin Street Youth Services ↗
- Who funds LAVENDER YOUTH RECREATION & INFORMATION CENTER INC LYRIC ↗
- Who funds ENTERPRISE FOR YOUTH ↗
- Who funds Bayview-Hunters Point Center for Arts and Technology DBA BAYCAT ↗
- Who funds READING PARTNERS ↗
- Who funds Junior Achievement of Northern California ↗
- Who funds 826 Valencia ↗
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: Golden State Community Foundation · The Morris Stulsaft Foundation · Quest Foundation · East Bay Community Foundation · Bothin Foundation · The Barrios Trust · The San Francisco Foundation · Crankstart Foundation · Bernard E & Alba Witkin Charitable Foundation · Kaiser Foundation Hospitals · Tipping Point Community · Atkinson 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 Ross Stores 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.
- Integral Youth Services — 29% of income from government
- Helping Advance and Nurture the Development of Youth Inc (Handy Inc) — 21% of income from government
- City Year Inc — 11% of income from government
- The Arc of Cape May County Inc — 2% of income from government
- Uaspire Inc — 1% of income from government
- Wounded Warrior Project Inc — 0% 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Ross Stores Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Ross Stores 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.