· Private foundation
S4 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.
Read this first · the figures below need context
63% of S4 Foundation’s FY2024 grant dollars went to Trustees Of The University Of Pennsylvania, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2024 names 5 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 FY2021–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k7 grants · $15k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $25k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $200k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| University of Pennsylvania | $150,000 |
| Ananda Church of Self Realization | $50,000 |
| St Stephens School | $25,000 |
| Trinity Episcopal School | $6,250 |
| Cradles to Crayons | $6,000 |
| Wonders & Worries | $1,000 |
| Texas Book Festival | $650 |
| Abercrombie & Kent Charities | $550 |
| Nari Satya Foundation | $500 |
| American Foundation for Suicide Prevention | $104 |
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.
Your human-services grants (FY22–24, $17k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 94% of those 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +36% since the first grant, against +9% for the ones you funded once.
6 repeat relationships — 4 still active in FY2024, 2 since wound down; 5 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 69% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $28k 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
- ACAnanda Church of Self Realization3× · 2022–2024 · $300k
- TETrinity Episcopal School3× · 2022–2024 · $27k
- BBookwallah2× · 2022–2023 · $16k
Funded once
- PUPRATHAM USAone grant, 2023 · $9k · revenue +6%
- LPLAKE PARK PARENT TEACHER ORGANIZATION INCone grant, 2022 · $5k · revenue -25%
- ACAnanda Church of Self-Realizaton Nevada Countyone grant, 2021 · $950
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.
The mission of the american academy of pediatrics is to obtain optimal physical, mental and social health for all infants, children, adolescents, and young adults. the academy seeks to promote this goal by encouraging and assisting its…
The american psychiatric association (apa) was incorporated in 2000 as a 501(c)(6) trade association. its 38,000 u.s. and international physician members specialize in the diagnosis and treatment of mental health and disorders, including…
The children's hospital of philadelphia, the oldest hospital in the united states dedicated exclusively to pediatrics, strives to be the world leader in the advancement of health care for children by integrating excellent patient care,…
The principal objects of the University are the advancement of learning by teaching and research, and its dissemination by every means. We work as one Oxford bringing together our staff, students and alumni, our colleges, faculties,…
As a leading research university with a distinctive commitment to undergraduate education, Rice University aspires to path breaking research, unsurpassed teaching, and contributions to the betterment of our world. It seeks to fulfill this…
We are an intl. scientific & educational org. dedicated to advancing art, science & technology.
Teachers College, Columbia Universitys (TC or the College) mission is to empower committed learners and leaders to build a smarter, healthier, more just and equitable world through multidisciplinary knowledge creation, policy engagement,…
The mission of Texas Heart Institute (THI) is to reduce the devastating toll of cardiovascular disease through innovative and progressive programs in research, education, and improved patient care.
Advancing medicine through excellence in the science, education and professional practice of medical physics. the mission is carried out through driving scientific and clinical innovation in medical physics to improve human health,…
Advance science, engineering, and innovation throughout the world for the benefit of all. the world's largest multidisciplinary scientific society and a leading publisher of cutting-edge research through its science family of journals,…
Research, education and general - princeton university is a private not-for-profit, non-sectarian institution of higher learning with approximately 5,700 undergraduate and 3,300 graduate students. 2,500 students graduated in the 2024-2025…
Drexel university fulfills its founder's vision of preparing each new generation of students for productive professional and civic lives while also focusing its collective expertise on solving society's greatest problems. drexel is an…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Cradles to Crayons Inc and the most unlike its peers is Lake Park Parent Teacher Organization Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
9 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. 9 of the 17 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 TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA ↗
- Who funds CRADLES TO CRAYONS INC ↗
- Who funds PRATHAM USA ↗
- Who funds LAKE PARK PARENT TEACHER ORGANIZATION INC ↗
- Who funds Wonders & Worries Inc ↗
- Who funds Texas Book Festival ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN FOUNDATION FOR SUICIDE PREVENTION ↗
- Who funds CHINMAYA MISSION AUSTIN ↗
- Who funds American Heart Association 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: Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · 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 S4 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, a single department, or state — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Cradles to Crayons Inc — 2% 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 S4 Foundation?
Find your warmest path to S4 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.