· Private foundation
Short Family Foundation
Its FY2018 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
95% of Short Family Foundation’s FY2018 grant dollars went to Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2018 names 22 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2018
- Under $10k37 grants · $26k
- $250k+1 grant · $501k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| FIDELITY INVESTMENT CHARITABLE GIFT FUND | $500,538 |
| MONMOUTH CONSERVATION FOUNDATION | $2,500 |
| CAPE HENRY COLLEGIATE | $2,500 |
| RONALD MCDONALD HOUSE CHARITIES | $2,000 |
| THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION | $2,000 |
| CHET & WILL GRISWOLD SUICIDE PREVENTIION FUND | $2,000 |
| THE GILDER LEHRMAN INSTITUTE | $1,000 |
| HAMPDEN SYDNEY COLLEGE | $1,000 |
| JOHNS HOPKINS | $1,000 |
| FRIENDS OF THE MONMOUTH COUNTY PARK SYSTEM INC | $1,000 |
| YOUNG AMERICA'S FOUNDATION | $1,000 |
| BARRIER ISLAND CENTER | $1,000 |
| FREEDOM ALLIANCE | $1,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $1,000 |
| CANCER RESEARCH INSTITUTE | $750 |
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 (FY18–18, $500) land where the poverty rate runs at 24%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 100% 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.
Which US states your grants reach
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.
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 jefferson scholars foundation (foundation) provides academic merit-based scholarship, fellowship and professorship support to students and faculty at the university of virginia (uva).
The university of virginia investment management company (uvimco) is organized to invest funds on behalf of the rector and visitors of the university of virginia (the university or uva) and university-associated organizations (uaos).
Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.
To provide administrative services to university of virginia (university) entities, university associated organizations, or other entities involved in activities which support the university. to engage in matters pertaining to real…
The mission of the school is to provide outstanding legal education in a collegial and supportive environment with attention to newly emerging areas of law, particularly those related to technological development, globalization and the…
Northeast college of health sciences (the college) is committed to academic excellence, leadership, and professional best practices in the health sciences.
The foreign policy research institute (frpi) is dedicated to producing the highest quality scholarship and nonpartisan policy analysis focused on crucial foreign policy and national security challenges facing the united states. we educate…
Wilson college empowers students to be confident and critical thinkers, creative visionaries, effective communicators, honorable leaders, and agents of justice.
The University of New Haven is a student-centered comprehensive university with an emphasis on excellence in liberal arts and professional education. Our mission is to prepare our students to lead purposeful and fulfilling lives in a…
Undergraduate, graduate, and professional education and research across a broad array of academic domains.
The primary mission of furman as a liberal arts institution is to provide a distinctive education in fine arts, humanities, social sciences, mathematics and the sciences, as well as selected professional disciplines.
Williams College strives to achieve educational excellence by fostering a community of learning in collaboration with students, faculty, staff, devoted alumni and parents.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Heritage Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Barry Goldwater Institute for Public Policy Research. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 48 years old; the field is 19. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 18% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 11% of the field you don’t fund.
Age = years since IRS exemption (a founding proxy). “Closed” = auto-revocation for 3 years of non-filing — a floor on closure, not proof, and bigger established orgs lapse least. Association, not causation.
23 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. 23 of the 38 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 FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ↗
- Who funds CAPE HENRY COLLEGIATE SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds MONMOUTH CONSERVATION FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds HAMPDEN-SYDNEY COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds Young America's Foundation ↗
- Who funds FREEDOM ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE MONMOUTH COUNTY PARK SYSTEM INC ↗
- Who funds CANCER RESEARCH INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds THOMAS JEFFERSON FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds HAMPTON ROADS COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds JACKSON FEILD HOMES ↗
- Who funds THE PHILANTHROPY ROUNDTABLE ↗
- Who funds BARRY GOLDWATER INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC POLICY RESEARCH ↗
- Who funds CHESAPEAKE BAY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds VIRGINIA HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds VIRGINIA WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds STATE POLICY NETWORK ↗
- Who funds REGENT UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds VIRGINIA HORSE CENTER FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds JAMESTOWN-YORKTOWN FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE NORFOLK ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds THOROUGHBRED RETIREMENT FOUNDATION 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: Hampton Roads Community Foundation · Tidewater Jewish Foundation Inc · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Bm Stanton Foundation · Folds of Honor Foundation · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · National Philanthropic Trust · The Pfizer Foundation Inc · Charities Aid Foundation America · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program
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 Short Family 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 or a single department — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Chesapeake Bay Foundation 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.