· Public charity
Sdsn Association Inc
The SDSN Association works to mobilize the world's universities for action on the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Paris Agreement; empower societies through free online education; and translate scientific evidence and ideas into solutions and accountability.
Read this first · the figures below need context
100% of Sdsn Association Inc’s FY2025 grant dollars went to The Trustees Of Columbia University In The City Of New York, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2025 names 0 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
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 1 grants below total $518,899 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $916,690 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $397,791 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.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Columbia University | $518,899 |
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 (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 99% 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.
Grants abroad, by region — $398k on the FY2025 return
Schedule F, as filed: 4 regions. The IRS asks for region and purpose, not the recipient, so no country or grantee can be named here.
Stated purpose: IIASA - will support the activities of the consortium, including, but not limited to, the technical assistance, training, and development of the FABLE tools, analysis, and products · Agreement with PAS to host 4 events in support of the Fraternal Economy of Integral and Sustainable Development initiative · To undertake the following specific activities as part of the Pathfinder 2 project: (1) Mapping and Analysis; (2) Identification of Complementarity and Gaps; (3) Stakeholder Engagement; and (4) Scale Up and Dissemination.
Stated purpose: IKI long-term strategies project
Stated purpose: Provide technical and analytical support to the Ethiopian government, specifically the FDRE Ministry of Planning and Development, for updating their NDC (NDC 3.0).
Stated purpose: World Happiness Report
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. Grants abroad on Schedule F are filed by region, purpose and amount with no recipient name, so they are shown by region and cannot be placed on the country map or matched to a grantee.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 59% of Sdsn Association Inc’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, 87% of the giving stays in NY; read by stated purpose it is 29% — less 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.
5 repeat relationships — 1 still active in FY2022, 4 since wound down.
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 FY2022, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
- TMTHE MILLENNIUM PROMISE ALLIANCE INC3× · 2017–2019 · $154k · revenue -61%
- ROREGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA AT SAN DIEGO3× · 2020–2022 · $148k
CONSERVATION INTERNATIONAL FOUNDATION2× · 2020–2021 · $33k · revenue +94%
Funded once
- ODOPEN DATA WATCH INCgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $8k · revenue +134%
- UOUNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND COLLEGE PARKone grant, 2017 · $7k
- TMTHE MAYOR'S FUND FOR LOS ANGELESgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $5k · revenue +45%
Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
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 10 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 THE TRUSTEES OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK ↗
- Who funds Yale University ↗
- Who funds THE MILLENNIUM PROMISE ALLIANCE INC ↗
- Who funds CONSERVATION INTERNATIONAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY SYSTEMS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds OPEN DATA WATCH INC ↗
- Who funds THE MAYOR'S FUND FOR LOS ANGELES ↗
Government reliance of your grantees
Every dot is one organization Sdsn Association Inc 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.
- Yale University — 12% 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.