· Public charity
Ruth Asawa Fund
Mission statement: to support education in the performing and visual arts in non-profit private and public elementary and secondary schools in san francisco, california
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 5 grants below total $116,633 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $121,633 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $5,000 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k1 grant · $6k
- $10k–50k3 grants · $55k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $56k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| RUTH ASAWA SCHOOL OF THE ARTS | $56,133 |
| FRIENDS OF SCRAP INC | $25,000 |
| CANTOR ARTS CENTER AT STANFORD | $20,000 |
| SAN JOSE MUSEUM OF ART | $10,000 |
| JAMES LICK MIDDLE SCHOOL - PTSA | $5,500 |
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, $12k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 0% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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.
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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 6% of Ruth Asawa Fund’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another. Read by recipient address, 95% of the giving stays in CA; read by stated purpose it is 100% — more of the work is directed home than the recipients' locations suggest.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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 +53% since the first grant, against +46% for the ones you funded once.
5 repeat relationships — 2 still active in FY2025, 3 since wound down; 2 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (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 FY2025, 32% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $66k 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
- FOFriends of SCRAP Inc9× · 2017–2025 · $150k · revenue +143%
- SFSan Francisco Bay Area Theatre Company2× · 2018–2019 · $6k · revenue +631%
- CMCOMMUNITY MUSIC CENTER2× · 2018–2021 · $6k · revenue +53%
Funded once
- CCCHINESE CULTURE FOUNDATION OF SAN FRANCISCOone grant, 2023 · $15k · revenue -29%
- AARTSMARTgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $10k · revenue +148%
- SMSTAVANGER MUSEUMone grant, 2023 · $8k
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.
San Francisco Arts and Science Academy (ASA) provides TK5 grade students with a strong foundation in the arts, language, math, and science, fostering creativity, curiosity, and character development. Our bilingual, hands-on curriculum…
See schedule osfmoma believes the art of our time is vital and shares it with passion and purpose, and that art and the creative process can open minds and help build a better world. for that reason, we assemble unparalleled collections,…
The san francisco jazz organization (the organization) is a recognized international leader in jazz creation, presentation, and education. the organization explores the full spectrum of jazz, from the music's origins in the african…
Young audiences creates art experiences that inspire young people, expand learning, and enliven communities.
Sf ballet's mission is to shape ballet's future by creating works of (see sch. o) uncompromising excellence, identifying and developing extraordinary talent, and serving as a catalys for cultural transformation. we blend innovation with…
Engaging community at the intersection of art, history and education through innovative, locally connected and globally relevant exhibits, programs and experiences.
The museum's mission is to inspire all californians to create a more vibrant future for themselves and their communities. through collections, exhibitions, education programs, and public dialogue, we inspire people of all ages and…
Oakland Ballet Company's mission is to inspire the community by keeping the tradition of ballet exciting, vibrant and accessible.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is San Francisco Youth Theatre and the most unlike its peers is James Lick Middle School Ptsa. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 57 years old; the field is 15. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 23% 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 11% 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.
19 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. 19 of the 21 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 Friends of SCRAP Inc ↗
- Who funds THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds CHINESE CULTURE FOUNDATION OF SAN FRANCISCO ↗
- Who funds James Lick Middle School PTSA ↗
- Who funds SAN JOSE MUSEUM OF ART ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds ARTSMART ↗
- Who funds Performing Arts Workshop Inc ↗
- Who funds TIDES CENTER ↗
- Who funds San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Company ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY MUSIC CENTER ↗
- Who funds SAN FRANCISCO YOUTH THEATRE ↗
- Who funds PTA CALIFORNIA CONGRESS OF PTA ALVARADO SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CONSERVATORY THEATRE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Destiny Arts Center ↗
- Who funds ODC ↗
- Who funds THE ARC SAN FRANCISCO ↗
- Who funds SPARK SF PUBLIC SCHOOLS ↗
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 Francisco Foundation · Walter and Elise Haas Fund · Silicon Valley Community Foundation · The Morris Stulsaft Foundation · The Zellerbach Family Foundation · McNabb Foundation · The William & Flora Hewlett Foundation · Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco the Peninsula Marin & Sonoma · Marin Community Foundation · The Nicholson Family Foundation · Kenneth Rainin Foundation · Koret 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 Ruth Asawa Fund 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.
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.
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How do I get to Ruth Asawa Fund?
Find your warmest path to Ruth Asawa Fund 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.