How much does Samis Foundation give?

Samis Foundation reported 73 grants totaling $8,322,959 in its FY2024 IRS filing. It funded between 42 and 73 organizations a year over FY2019 to FY2023.

What does Samis Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2019 to FY2024, its largest causes are Education (47%), Religion (27%), International (14%).

Who are Samis Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2019 to FY2024: Northwest Yeshiva High School ($6.6M), Seattle Hebrew Academy ($6.2M), Northend Jewish School ($3.6M).

Does Samis Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2023, 21% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Samis 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 Samis Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle, Seattle Foundation, Jewish Communal Fund.

Where is Samis Foundation based?

Samis Foundation is based in WA.

Samis Foundation

Samis Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

Samis Foundation

Its FY2024 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

$8.3M

Granted FY2024still arriving

Grants FY2024still arriving

States reached

$1.6M

Largest

01What it funds

01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2019 to 2024.

Education$20MReligion$11MInternational$6.0MPhilanthropy$2.2MYouth Development$720kHuman Services$636kRecreation & Sports$484kCommunity Improvement$221kOther$0

02FY2024 · 73 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2024

Under $10k29 grants · $87k
$10k–50k24 grants · $535k
$50k–250k13 grants · $1.2M
$250k+7 grants · $6.5M

$20,000

Median grant

States reached

$109M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
NORTHWEST YESHIVA HIGH SCHOOL	$1,636,448
SEATTLE HEBREW ACADEMY	$1,501,814
JEWISH DAY SCHOOL	$1,049,769
MENACHEM MENDEL SEATTLE CHEDER	$861,189
SEATTLE JEWISH COMMUNITY SCHOOL	$734,862
PEF ISRAEL ENDOWMENT FUNDS	$416,980
NLI USA INC	$250,000
CENTRAL FUND OF ISRAEL	$200,000
TORAH DAY SCHOOL	$182,913
JEWISH FEDERATION OF GREATER SEATTLE	$181,442
ISRAEL NATURE & HERITAGE OF AMERICA	$100,000
SEPHARDIC ADVENTURE CAMP	$88,366
CAMP SOLOMON SCHECHTER	$81,180
URJ CAMP KALSMAN	$81,000
HAROLD GRINSPOON FOUNDATION	$65,000

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:

Its human-services grants (FY20–24, $337k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 15% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants skew toward lower-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.

98%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$36M · 77 repeat orgs$851k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +49% since the first grant, against +17% for those funded once.

77 repeat relationships: 51 still active in FY2024, 26 since wound down; 19 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$36M

$516k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+49%

+17%

Still filing today

57%

62%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 96% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $335k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

InternationalHuman ServicesReligionEducationArts & CulturePhilanthropyOther

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

NY
NORTHWEST YESHIVA HIGH SCHOOL
6× · 2019–2024 · $6.6M · revenue +75% · 50% of their budget
SH
Seattle Hebrew Academy
6× · 2019–2024 · $6.2M · revenue +35% · 26% of their budget
NB
Nefesh B'Nefesh Jewish Souls United Inc
2× · 2020–2021 · $1.0M · revenue +58%

Funded once

UF
UNION FOR REFORM JUDAISM
one grant, 2019 · $159k
CT
COMMUNITY TECHNOLOGY INITIATIVE INC
one grant, 2019 · $41k
NI
NEWCAJE INC
one grant, 2019 · $39k · revenue -36%

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.

University of Judaism Foundation

—

The Jewish Agency for Israel

The jewish agency binds jews across ideologies and civilizations together in a worldwide jewish family with israel at its center. it provides the global framework for aliyah, ensures global jewish safety, strengthens jewish identity and…

—

Sherit Isroel

—

Jewish Coalition for Immigrant Justice Northwest

The jewish coalition builds a jewish voice in the pacific northwest advancing immigrant justice and domestic policy, following the leadership of impacted community.

Human Services

The Jerusalem Connection

—

Eastern European Jewish Heritage Foundation

Philanthropy

New Jewish Narrative Inc

To support a strong and secure israel and to carry out public information activities on the middle east peace issues in the united states.

International

Foundation for Conservative Judiasm of South Florida

—

American Friends of Ish El Rayahu

To promote, benefit, and support Jewish religious, charitable & educational activities in Israel and the USA.

Religion

The Steinhardt Foundation for Jewish Life Inc

Religion

Jewish Electorate Institute

The jewish electorate institute (jei) is an independent, non-partisan 501(c)(3) organization that surveys, interprets, reports, and educates the public about the perspectives, voting behaviors, and motivations of the american jewish…

Civil Rights

American Friends of Neveh Zion

To voluntarily assist the house of religious learning known as yeshiva neveh zion in israel

Religion

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco the Peninsula Marin & Sonoma; the most unlike its peers is Friends of Bshvil Hamachar Inc. 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

92 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. 92 of the 153 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)

90/92

Grantees still filing

64/92

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$21,972,009Religion$7,393,432Philanthropy$4,485,281Education$4,182,508International$3,370,446Recreation & Sports$358,495Human Services$337,000

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.

Jewish Federation of Greater SeattleWA52.9× affinity23 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Jewish Federation of Greater Seattle · Seattle Foundation · Jewish Communal Fund · Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston Inc · The Harold Grinspoon Foundation · Newman Family Foundation · Tillie & Alfred Shemanski Testamentary Trust · Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago · The Shimon Ben Joseph Foundation Dba Jim Joseph Foundation · Lott Foundation · Fjc · United Way of King County

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

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

11get no government money at all

15report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

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.

05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to Samis Foundation?

Find your warmest path to Samis 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.

Play a game based on Samis’ 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