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Rubens Family Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

Rubens Family Foundation

Its FY2018 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

$3.3M
Granted FY2018
7
Grants FY2018
1
States reached
$3.0M
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its fieldRead
01What it funds
01FY2018 · 7 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2018

  • Under $10k1 grant · $1k
  • $10k–50k3 grants · $35k
  • $50k–250k2 grants · $250k
  • $250k+1 grant · $3.0M
$15,000
Median grant
1
States reached
$854k
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
WASHINGTON STEM CENTER$3,000,000
RAINIER SCHOLARS$200,000
COLLEGE ACCESS NOW$50,000
SEATTLE GOODWILL INDUSTRIES$15,000
PROGRESSIVE ANIMAL WELFARE SOCIETY INC$10,250
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON FOUNDATION$10,000
PASADOS SAFE HAVEN$1,050
02The need
02

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY18–18) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 7%. 100% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 7%RAINIER SCHOLARS: $200k → 9%PROGRESSIVE ANIMAL WELFARE SOCIETY INC: $10k → 9%UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON FOUNDATION: $10k → 9%COLLEGE ACCESS NOW: $50k → 9%PASADOS SAFE HAVEN: $1k → 9%SEATTLE GOODWILL INDUSTRIES: $15k → 9%WASHINGTON STEM CENTER: $3.0M → 9%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount
How this is measured
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.
How this is measured
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.
03Its field
03the grantee network

7 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
1
Early backer (in before they grew)
6/7
Grantees still filing
5/7
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

THE WASHINGTON STEM CENTER: $3,000,000 · EducationTHE WASHINGTON STEM CENTERRAINIER SCHOLARS: $200,000 · EducationRAINIER SCHOLARS+1 more: $10,000 · EducationCollege Access Now: $50,000 · OtherEVERGREEN GOODWILL OF NORTHWEST WASHINGTON: $15,000 · OtherProgressive Animal Welfare Society aka PAWS: $10,250 · AnimalsPASADO'S SAFE HAVEN: $1,050 · Animals
Education$3,210,000Other$65,000Animals$11,300

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetTHE WASHINGTON STEM CENTER: $3,000,000 over 1y, 23% of budgetRAINIER SCHOLARS: $200,000 over 1y, 4.4% of budgetCollege Access Now: $50,000 over 1y, 3.6% of budgetEVERGREEN GOODWILL OF NORTHWEST WASHINGTON: $15,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetProgressive Animal Welfare Society aka PAWS: $10,250 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetUNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON FOUNDATION: $10,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetPASADO'S SAFE HAVEN: $1,050 over 1y, 0.0% of budget
Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

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.

Seattle FoundationUnited Way of King Co…Gs Donor Advised Phil…Jpmorgan Chase Founda…The Bank of America C…American Online Givin…Donor Advised Charita…Fidelity Investments …Amazonsmile Foundation
Seattle FoundationWA15.2× affinity5 shared granteesties to 8 of 8Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Seattle Foundation · United Way of King County · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile Foundation

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.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Rubens Family Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Rubens Family Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%0%1%3%5%funder's share of their income ↑0%1%3%4%5%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    2report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–5%
    typical government reliance, FY20–25
    How this is measured
    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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

    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 7 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 2018, released 2018. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

    Play a game based on Rubens Family’s filings →

    More from the funding graph

    The unnamed billions
    grants reported with no recipient in the public record
    The regranting layer
    51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer
    The DAF merry-go-round
    $9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds
    The endowment market
    who holds foundation money, and what just moved
    The camps
    funders cluster by geography, not ideology
    By state
    where grant money is based, and what stays home