· Public charity
Sima Environmental Fund
The specific purpose of this corporation is to server as the environmental arm of the surf industry manufactures association ("sima") by raising money from the public through fundraisers and solicitations and using such funds to promote and support ecological and environmental organizations.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2018.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 10 grants below total $221,250 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $250,000 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $28,750 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 · FY2018
- Under $10k4 grants · $29k
- $10k–50k5 grants · $73k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $120k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| SURFRIDER FOUNDATION | $120,000 |
| WILDCOAST | $25,000 |
| SAVE THE WAVES COALITION | $13,750 |
| HEAL THE BAY | $12,500 |
| ORANGE COUNTY COASTKEEPER | $11,250 |
| OCEAN INSTITUTE | $10,000 |
| SURFING EDUCATION ASSOCIATION | $8,750 |
| 5 GYRES INSTITUTE | $7,500 |
| SANTA BARBARA CHANNELKEEPER | $6,250 |
| CLEAN OCEAN ACTION | $6,250 |
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 (FY17–18) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 87% 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +80% since the first grant, against +53% for the ones you funded once.
7 repeat relationships — 7 still active in FY2018, 0 since wound down; 3 grantees were first funded in FY2018 (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 FY2018, 91% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $20k 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
- TSTHE SURFRIDER FOUNDATION2× · 2017–2018 · $205k · revenue +107%
- WWILDCOAST2× · 2017–2018 · $44k · revenue +80%
- STSave the Waves Coalition2× · 2017–2018 · $23k · revenue +191%
Funded once
- T5The 5 Gyres Institutegraduatedone grant, 2018 · $8k · revenue +112%
- COCLEAN OCEAN ACTION INCone grant, 2018 · $6k · revenue +23%
- SBSANTA BARBARA CHANNELKEEPER INCgraduatedone grant, 2018 · $6k · revenue +53%
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.
Ocean conservancy unites science, people, and policy to protect our ocean, today and for generations to come.
California Coastkeeper Alliance unites Waterkeeper programs statewide to fight for swimmable, fishable, and drinkable waters for all Californians.
Protecting and promoting the marine biodiversity of Hawai'i through coral restoration, ecological monitoring, regenerative tourism, and cultural integration
The mission of the California Ocean Alliance is to conduct world-class marine research which leads directly to sound policy decisions that safeguard the oceans and allow marine mammals to thrive into the next century.
The organizations mission is to steward clean shores, healthy habitats, and livingwaters to foster a thriving monterey bay and monterey bay national marine sanctuary.we focus on these three areas because we believe they are the most…
To mobilize people in local communities around the world to protect marine wildlife and the oceans and inland watersheds that sustain them.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Save the Waves Coalition and the most unlike its peers is The 5 Gyres Institute. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
10 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. 10 of the 11 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 SURFRIDER FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds WILDCOAST ↗
- Who funds Save the Waves Coalition ↗
- Who funds HEAL THE BAY ↗
- Who funds Orange County Coastkeeper ↗
- Who funds OCEAN INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds CHARITIES AID FOUNDATION AMERICA ↗
- Who funds The 5 Gyres Institute ↗
- Who funds CLEAN OCEAN ACTION INC ↗
- Who funds SANTA BARBARA CHANNELKEEPER 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: The Marisla Foundation · Patagoniaorg · Silicon Valley Community Foundation · Resources Legacy Fund · Orange County Community Foundation · Marin Community Foundation · Sempra Foundation · Network for Good · American Endowment Foundation · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · Paypal Charitable Giving Fund · National Philanthropic Trust
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 Sima Environmental Fund 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 Sima Environmental Fund?
Find your warmest path to Sima Environmental Fund 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.