How much does Shepher Foundation give?

Shepher Foundation reported 19 grants totaling $590,850 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 6 and 21 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does Shepher Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Human Services (59%), International (23%), Education (12%).

Who are Shepher Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: Israeli-American Council ($5.4M), American Israel Education Foundation Inc ($850k), Birthright Israel Foundation ($454k).

Does Shepher Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 37% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Shepher 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 Shepher Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles, Saidoff Foresight Foundation, Jewish Communal Fund.

Where is Shepher Foundation based?

Shepher Foundation is based in CA.

Shepher Foundation

Shepher Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

Shepher 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.

$591k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$340k

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, FY2017 to 2025.

Human Services$5.5MInternational$2.1MEducation$1.1MReligion$254kHealth$190kArts & Culture$99kPhilanthropy$45kHousing & Shelter$30kOther$0

02FY2025 · 19 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k10 grants · $40k
$10k–50k6 grants · $111k
$50k–250k2 grants · $100k
$250k+1 grant · $340k

$7,500

Median grant

States reached

$2.4M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
ISRAELI-AMERICAN COUNCIL	$340,000
GIFT OF LIFE	$50,000
ISRAEL EMERGENCY ALLIANCE DBA STAND WITH US	$50,000
FRIENDS OF THE IDF	$36,000
ISRAEL CHRISTIAN NEXUS	$25,000
STAND BY ME	$20,000
PEF ENDOWMENT FUNDS INC	$10,000
MACCABI WORLD UNION INC	$10,000
FREINDS OF NAHAL HAREDI	$10,000
Individual grant recipient	$7,500
UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM	$5,000
KESHET CHAIM DANCE ENSEMBLE	$5,000
LARGER THAN LIFE	$5,000
CHP 11-99 FOUNDATION	$5,000
OSEH CHESSED INC	$5,000

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.

US giving: 89% of grant dollars ($8.4M). The need read here covers only this US portion; the 11% that went abroad ($1.0M) is mapped below.

show:

Its human-services grants (FY17–25, $5.5M) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-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.

Beyond the US: 11% of all-years giving ($1.0M)

1 country, by the recipient’s country on the filing.

grant dollars sentlessmore

Israel$1.0M · 2 grants

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. International giving is mapped by the recipient’s country from the same 990 filings; comparable need data isn’t available at that grain.

Where the work is directed

The same grants placed two ways: where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose sends the money.

About 9% of Shepher Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked for a different county than the recipient’s own address. By recipient address, 69% of the giving stays in CA; by stated purpose, 63%.

Shepher Foundationlessmore of its giving

Placed by recipient address · 24% directed abroad (not shown)

How this is measured

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 funder’s own 990 grant descriptions.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

87%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$8.2M · 27 repeat orgs$1.2M to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +2% since the first grant, against 0% for those funded once.

27 repeat relationships: 14 still active in FY2025, 13 since wound down; 5 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$8.2M

$1.2M

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+2%

Still filing today

67%

48%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 96% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $26k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

InternationalHuman ServicesArts & CultureHealthEducationRecreation & SportsOther

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

IE
ISRAEL EMERGENCY ALLIANCE
7× · 2019–2025 · $405k · revenue +52%
CF
Central Fund of Israel
3× · 2018–2024 · $155k · revenue +145%
FRIENDS OF THE ISRAEL DEFENSE FORCES
5× · 2020–2025 · $148k · revenue +211%

Funded once

MO
MUNICIPALITY OF BAT YAM
one grant, 2018 · $1.0M
FO
FRIENDS OF UNITED HATZALAH INC
one grant, 2024 · $36k · revenue 0%
HORIZONS GREATER BOSTON INC
one grant, 2023 · $25k · revenue +9%

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.

Sherit Isroel

—

Idf Memorial Foundation

Philanthropy

The Nochim & Rivka Zeldes Foundation

—

Yeshiva Ohr Yisroel

Philanthropy

Zichron Avrohom Yosef

Philanthropy

Yad Laniyim

Philanthropy

Connect Israel

Connect israel is a life-long program that aims to strengthen the gap between american jews and israelis through business, creative teamwork, and developing personal relationships.

International

Voices United for Israel

Educational information regarding Israel and the Middle East.

International

Natan and Lidia Peisach Family Foundation - C/O Monica Sasson

Philanthropy

American Friends of Yeshiva Aish Hatorah

—

The Jerusalem Connection

—

Vaad Hapula Inc

Support jewry in Israel

Religion

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Birthright Israel Foundation; the most unlike its peers is The Dmb Fund. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

05the grantee network

33 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

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 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 33 of the 53 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)

31/33

Grantees still filing

16/33

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Human Services$5,478,500International$2,046,300Other$1,458,775Religion$227,000Health$130,050Arts & Culture$55,600Philanthropy$35,000

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 Community Foundation of Los AngelesCA20.5× affinity8 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles · Saidoff Foresight Foundation · Jewish Communal Fund · Israeli-American Council · The Milstein Family Foundation · Jewish Federation Council of Greater La · Jewish Community Foundation of San Diego · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc

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

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

2get no government money at all

4report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–5%

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 Shepher Foundation?

Find your warmest path to Shepher 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 Shepher’s 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