· Private foundation
Sam Francis 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.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2021–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k25 grants · $25k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $21k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $50k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| 18TH STREET ARTS | $50,350 |
| SAN MATEO COUNTY OFFICE OF ARTS AND CULTURE | $10,500 |
| J PAUL GETTY TRUST | $10,000 |
| JAPANESE AMERICAN CULTURAL & COMMUNITY CENTER | $5,000 |
| THE MESA REFUGE | $3,500 |
| ARMORY CENTER FOR THE ARTS | $3,500 |
| SFAI LEGACY FOUNDATION | $2,075 |
| Individual grant recipient | $1,531 |
| JUNG INSTITUTE | $1,500 |
| WARSAW BAUHAUS FOUNDATION - ARDEN 2 | $1,500 |
| CALPOLY POMONA | $1,500 |
| ASPEN INSTITUTE | $1,000 |
| WORLD ARTS FOUNDATION | $933 |
| BRAILLE INSTITUTE | $540 |
| PHILOSOPHICAL RESEARCH SOCIETY | $515 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY21–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 89% of your 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 0% since the first grant, against -6% for the ones you funded once.
17 repeat relationships — 12 still active in FY2025, 5 since wound down; 16 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, 63% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $35k 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
- 1S18TH STREET ARTS3× · 2023–2025 · $125k
- ADArt Division3× · 2021–2024 · $15k · revenue -17%
- CPCALPOLY POMONA4× · 2021–2025 · $11k
Funded once
- 1S18TH STREET ARTS COMPLEXone grant, 2021 · $59k · revenue -11%
- CSCA STATE UNIVERSITY LONG BEACHone grant, 2021 · $26k
- NANSU ART 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.
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,…
Nurture empathy and connection by engaging communities with socially relevant contemporary art
To present the breadth of california art and design through exhibitions that explore the cultural dynamics and influence that are unique to california.
Engaging community at the intersection of art, history and education through innovative, locally connected and globally relevant exhibits, programs and experiences.
To serve the public through the collection, conservation, exhibition and interpretation of significant works of art from a broad range of cultures and historical periods, and through translation of these collections into meaningful…
Artpace san antonio is a nonprofit residency program which supports texas, national, and international artists in the creation of new art. see schedule o for continuation.
The museum of fine arts, houston serves as a welcoming and inclusive place for all people, connecting the communities of houston with diverse histories of art spanning 6,000 years and six continents. through our permanent collections,…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Autry Museum of the American West and the most unlike its peers is The J Paul Getty Trust. 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 41 years old; the field is 14. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 24% startups (under 5 years old) — 9% of your grantees by number, and just 3% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 14% 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.
33 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. 33 of the 71 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 18TH STREET ARTS COMPLEX ↗
- Who funds Art Division ↗
- Who funds THE J PAUL GETTY TRUST ↗
- Who funds MESA REFUGE A NONPROFIT CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds JAPANESE AMERICAN CULTURAL AND COMMUNITY CENTER ↗
- Who funds THE PHILLIPS COLLECTION ↗
- Who funds ARMORY CENTER FOR THE ARTS ↗
- Who funds INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds SAN LUIS OBISPO MUSEUM OF ART ↗
- Who funds TRUSTEES OF PHILLIPS ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds THE ASPEN INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds HAWAII COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SOUTHWEST FLORIDA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds THE PHILOSOPHICAL RESEARCH SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds WORLD ARTS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds APPRAISERS ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA INC ↗
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: Perenchio Foundation · The J Paul Getty Trust · California Community Foundation · California Humanities · The Ralph M Parsons Foundation · The Mike Kelley Foundation for the Arts · The Wilhelm Family Foundation Co Cascade Wilhelm · Terra Foundation for American Art · The Annenberg Foundation · National Philanthropic Trust · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · American Endowment 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 Sam Francis 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.
- Southwest Florida Community Foundation Inc — 69% 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 Sam Francis Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Sam Francis 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.