· Public charity
San Diego Regional Fire & Emergency
To strengthen the system of fire and emergency services in san diego county.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 38 grants below total $2,380,595 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $2,488,312 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $107,717 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 $10k10 grants · $75k
- $10k–50k22 grants · $398k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $257k
- $250k+4 grants · $1.7M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| THE PATRIOT GROUP | $469,169 |
| SAN MIGUEL FIRE DISTRICT | $401,940 |
| SAN DIEGO CENTRAL FIRE ZONE | $393,207 |
| Individual grant recipient | $386,119 |
| SAN DIEGO COUNTY FIRE DISTRIC | $191,882 |
| IMPERIAL BEACH FIRE DEPT | $65,342 |
| PALOMAR COMM COLLEGE | $46,234 |
| KENSINGTON FSC | $30,177 |
| Individual grant recipient | $23,146 |
| Individual grant recipient | $22,396 |
| Individual grant recipient | $22,262 |
| CITY OF LA MESA FIRE DEPT | $21,478 |
| CITY OF EL CAJON FIRE DEPT | $21,248 |
| CAMPO FIRE SAFE COUNCIL | $21,122 |
| FALLBROOK FSC | $20,000 |
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 (FY20–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 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.
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.
34 repeat relationships — 19 still active in FY2025, 15 since wound down; 12 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2025, 19% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $1.9M 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
- JCJOSEPHINE COUNTY FOUNDATION4× · 2020–2023 · $410k · revenue -31%
- RCRESOURCE CONSERVATION FOUNDATION OF GREATER SAN DIEGO COUNTY4× · 2022–2025 · $206k · revenue -18%
- IGIndividual grant recipient2× · 2024–2025 · $140k
Funded once
- SDSAN DIEGO COUNTY FIRE AUTHORIone grant, 2020 · $221k
- CVCHULA VISTA FIRE DEPTone grant, 2024 · $110k
- RSRANCHO SANTE FE FIRE DISTRICTone grant, 2023 · $52k
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.
Protect the people of amador county and their property from the effects of catastrophic fires through education, cooperation, innovation and action
Removal of dead and dying Trees and defensible space
Promote fire safety by providing information, education, support incentives and projects that encourage fire safety in a service area in eastern Fresno and Tulare counties.
Promote fire safety in Mariposa County through educating home owners about clearing PRC Section 4291 defensible space, coordinating efforts with various agencies to clear PRC Section 4291 defensible space, etc. Obtain/administer/manage…
Nsbcuw is organized to improve lives by mobilizing the caring power of communities in northern santa barbara county, california. nsbcuw works with individuals and organizations to identify and resolve pressing community issues through its…
To reduce the risk of loss of life and property in the Timberview and adjacent areas through promotion of fire safety, education, prevention and suppression as well as related emergency procedures.
The fire safe council-siskiyou county is a non-profit volunteer organization dedicated to improve wildfire safety through public education and demonstration wildfire fuel reduction projects.
To provide education, assistance and outreach programs for Fire Prevention and preparedness to all South Skyline Residents within the council area in order to prevent the loss of lives and reduce losses of personal and public property and…
Planning and participation in activities to increase safety and reduce fire hazards in the Eastern Madera County area.
Promoting wildfire safety through education and action in the ojai valley area.
Fire prevention and safety
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Palomar Mountain Fire Safe Council Foundation Dba Pmfsc and the most unlike its peers is Alvarado Community Association. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
7 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. 7 of the 58 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.
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 Diego Foundation · Amazonsmile 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 San Diego Regional Fire & Emergency 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to San Diego Regional Fire & Emergency?
Find your warmest path to San Diego Regional Fire & Emergency 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.