How much does Sa Ming Foundation give?

Sa Ming Foundation reported 10 grants totaling $22,750 in its FY2024 IRS filing. It funded between 12 and 16 organizations a year over FY2017 to FY2023.

What does Sa Ming Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Philanthropy (55%), Education (20%), Animals (8%).

Who are Sa Ming Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: Spring Island Trust ($36k), Folds of Honor Foundation ($20k), South Carolina Coastal Conservation League Inc ($12k).

Does Sa Ming Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2023, 40% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Sa Ming 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 Sa Ming Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Community Foundation of the Lowcountry, Coastal Community Foundation of South Carolina Inc, Laurel Charitable Trust.

Where is Sa Ming Foundation based?

Sa Ming Foundation is based in DE.

Sa Ming Foundation

Sa Ming Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

Sa Ming Foundation

Its FY2025 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

$23k

Granted FY2024still arriving

Grants FY2024still arriving

States reached

$5k

Largest

Read this first · the figures below need context

99% of Sa Ming Foundation’s FY2025 grant dollars went to Schwab Charitable Fund, not to grantees.

Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2025 names 2 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2024, the last year Sa Ming Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 9 organizations, $23k. It is dated, not current.

Organizations named directly on the return

’17

’18

’19

’20

’21

’22

’23

’24

’25

Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.

01What it funds

01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.

Philanthropy$260kEducation$96kAnimals$40kEnvironment$24kHealth$17kArts & Culture$11kYouth Development$10kReligion$8kOther$0

02FY2024 · 10 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

$2,500

Median grant

States reached

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
SPRING ISLAND TR	$5,000
COLLEGE OF THE MAINLAND FOUNDATION INC	$5,000
NATURE CONSERVANCY	$2,500
FOLDS OF HONOR FOUNDATION	$2,500
SOUTH CAROLINA COASTAL CONSERVATION LEAGUE INC	$2,500
MUSIC FOR LIFE	$1,500
PARKINSONS FOUNDATION INC	$1,000
BEAUFORT COUNTY OPEN LAND TRUST INC	$1,000
HOPEFUL HORIZONS	$1,000
PLANNED PARENTHOOD SOUTH ATLANTIC	$750

02The need

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 (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 82% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

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.

Which US states its grants reach

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 grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

79%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$172k · 20 repeat orgs$46k to everyone else

20 repeat relationships: 8 still active in FY2024, 12 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call). Read against FY2024, the last year this funder named its own grantees directly; its giving has since run through a sponsor, which reports no donor behind each grant.

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$172k

$45k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+29%

+48%

Still filing today

65%

46%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

HealthEnvironmentArts & CultureEducationAnimalsYouth DevelopmentOther

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.

Backed again, and grew

SI
SPRING ISLAND TRUST
7× · 2018–2024 · $36k · revenue +71%
FO
FOLDS OF HONOR FOUNDATION
8× · 2017–2024 · $20k · revenue +204%
SC
South Carolina Coastal Conservation League Inc
7× · 2017–2024 · $12k · revenue +177%

Funded once

DL
D Ladino Alvarez
one grant, 2023 · $7k
KN
K N Middleton
one grant, 2021 · $5k
VC
V CHU
one grant, 2022 · $5k

How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden Inc

We harness the power of plants for humankind and share the joy and beauty of tropical gardening with everyone. fairchild tropical botanic garden is a museum of tropical plants within a world famous, 83-acre designed landscape. it was…

Environment

Conservation International Foundation

Ci works to spotlight and secure the critical benefits that nature provides to humanity.

Environment

Rainforest Trust

Rainforest trust saves endangered wildlife and protects our planet by creating rainforest reserves through partnerships, community engagement, and donor support.

International

World Wildlife Fund Inc

Wwf's mission is to conserve nature and reduce the most pressing threats to the diversity of life on earth. (continued on schedule o)

Environment

Lowcountry Land Trust Inc

To protect land and water forever, nurture relationships between people and place, and connect conservation to community.

Environment

United States Naval Institute

Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.

—

Washington Forest Law Center

Dedicated to protecting the world's natural environment on behalf of the public by serving as a public interest law firm. refer to schedule o, part iii, line 4a, for list of litigated cases or advocacy work.

—

Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Foundation

To engage and catalyze global seafood supply chains in rebuilding depleted fish stocks and reducing the environmental impacts of fishing and fish farming.

Animals

Atlantic Coast Conservancy Inc

The mission of the atlantic coast conservancy is to provide 21st century solutions and sound scientific applications for conservation of critical natural resources in the face of a changing climate, focusing on the southeasthern united…

Environment

The Conservancy of Southwest Florida

We are a grassroots organization focused on the critical environmental issues of sw florida. we accomplish this through a myriad of efforts by the teams in our programmatic departments: science, policy, education and wildlife…

—

North Carolina Biotechnology Center

The north carolina biotechnology center aids the biotechnology-related efforts of researchers, businesses, state and federal governments, and other agencies primarily through awards of grants and loans related to specific programs and…

Science & Tech

National Audubon Society Inc

We work towards a future where birds thrive across the americas because audubon is a powerful, diverse, and ever-growing force for conservation. (continued on schedule o).

Environment

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is South Carolina Wildlife Federation; the most unlike its peers is Smithsonian Institution. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

04the grantee network

29 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.

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 2026, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 29 of the 49 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

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

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

28/29

Grantees still filing

20/29

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Philanthropy$255,228Other$99,125Environment$52,100Education$35,220Health$11,950Arts & Culture$11,500Youth Development$10,000

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

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.

Community Foundation of the LowcountrySC21.8× affinity8 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Community Foundation of the Lowcountry · Coastal Community Foundation of South Carolina Inc · Laurel Charitable Trust · Dan and Merrie Boone Foundation Inc · Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation · Amg Charitable Gift Foundation · Dominion Energy Charitable Foundation · Heritage Classic Foundation · The Susan Morrow Legacy Foundation · Worldwide Small Change Foundation Co Roy Kaufmann · The Ayco Charitable Foundation · Foundation for the Carolinas

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 Sa Ming Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Sa Ming Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

3get no government money at all

5report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–25%

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.

Play a game based on Sa Ming’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