Skip to content
Simon Edison Foundation Inc at a glance

· Private foundation

Simon Edison Foundation Inc

Its FY2019 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

$450k
Granted FY2019
11
Grants FY2019
4
States reached
$80k
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its granteesRead
04Its fieldRead
05Through PlinthRead
01What it funds
0185% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2019.

Environment$210kEducation$81kHealth$43kHuman Services$41kArts & Culture$38kOther$0
02FY2019 · 11 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2019

  • $10k–50k10 grants · $370k
  • $50k–250k1 grant · $80k
$36,977
Median grant
4
States reached
$0
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
Center for Bio Diversity$80,094
Brandeis University$36,977
Natural Resources Defense Cncl$36,977
Earth Island$36,977
Mendocino Unified School District$36,977
Whidbey Camano Land Trust$36,977
Bleeding Disorders Foundation$36,977
Herbert Lipke Memorial UMass$36,977
EPIC$36,977
Greenwood Community Center$36,977
Individual grant recipient$36,977
02The need
03

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY17–19) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 90% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 8%Brandeis University: $37k → 8%Center for Bio Diversity: $80k → 14%Greenwood Community Center: $37k → 18%Natural Resources Defense Cncl: $37k → 17%Whidbey Camano Land Trust: $37k → 7%Bleeding Disorders Foundation: $37k → 9%Nature Conservancy: $2k → 7%Brandeis University: $2k → 8%Earth Island: $37k → 14%Elk Fire Department: $37k → 18%Natural Resources Defense Cncl: $1k → 17%Whidbey Camano Land Trust: $2k → 7%Bleeding Disorders Foundation: $1k → 9%Nature Conservancy: $2k → 7%Brandeis University: $2k → 8%EPIC: $37k → 14%Greenwood Community Center: $1k → 18%Natural Resources Defense Cncl: $1k → 17%Whidbey Camano Land Trust: $2k → 7%Bleeding Disorders Foundation: $500 → 9%Earth Island: $5k → 14%Elk Fire Department: $1k → 18%Planned Parenthood: $1k → 17%Berkshire Immigration Center: $2k → 14%Greenwood Community Center: $1k → 18%Planned Parenthood: $1k → 17%Center for Bio Diversity: $2k → 14%Elk Fire Department: $1k → 18%EPIC: $2k → 14%Mendocino Unified School District: $37k → 18%Center for Bio Diversity: $1k → 14%Mendocino Unified School District: $2k → 18%EPIC: $1k → 14%Mendocino Unified School District: $1k → 18%Trustee of Reservations: $1k → 14%Mendocino Coast Clinic: $2k → 18%Mendocino Coast Clinic: $1k → 18%0%20%40%50%more need →
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.
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.
03Its grantees
repeat funding

Who it funds again

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

99%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$444k · 12 repeat orgs$3k to everyone else

12 repeat relationships: 10 still active in FY2019, 2 since wound down.

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

12
2

Total granted

$444k
$3k

Still filing today

33%
0%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2019, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.

50%100%’17’18’19
RenewedFirst-time
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

  • WC
    WHIDBEY CAMANO LAND TRUST
    3× · 2017–2019 · $41k · revenue +139%
  • NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL INC
    3× · 2017–2019 · $39k · revenue +41%
  • GC
    Greenwood Community Center Inc
    3× · 2017–2019 · $39k · revenue +69% · 49% of their budget

Funded once

  • BI
    Berkshire Immigration Center
    one grant, 2017 · $2k
  • TO
    Trustee of Reservations
    one grant, 2017 · $1k
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
04the grantee network

6 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. 6 of the 16 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.

1
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
2
Early backer (in before they grew)
6/6
Grantees still filing
5/6
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Center for Bio Diversity: $83,094 · OtherCenter for Bio DiversityEarth Island: $41,977 · OtherEarth IslandMendocino Unified School District: $39,977 · OtherMendocino Unified School DistrictEPIC: $39,477 · OtherEPICIndividual grant recipient: $38,977 · OtherIndividual grant recipientGreenwood Community Center Inc: $38,977 · OtherGreenwood Community Center IncBleeding Disorders Foundation: $38,477 · OtherBleeding Disorders FoundationHerbert Lipke Memorial UMass: $38,477 · OtherHerbert Lipke Memorial UMass+5 more: $11,500 · OtherWHIDBEY CAMANO LAND TRUST: $40,977 · EnvironmentWHIDBEY CAMANO LAN…NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL INC: $38,977 · EnvironmentNATURAL RESOURCES …BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY: $40,977 · EducationBRANDEIS …
Other$370,933Environment$79,954Education$40,977

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$100k$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetWHIDBEY CAMANO LAND TRUST: $40,977 over 3y, 1.2% of budgetBRANDEIS UNIVERSITY: $40,977 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetNATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL INC: $38,977 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetGreenwood Community Center Inc: $38,977 over 3y, 49% of budgetTHE NATURE CONSERVANCY: $3,500 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetMENDOCINO COAST CLINICS INC: $3,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budget
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.

  • Who funds WHIDBEY CAMANO LAND TRUST ↗
  • Who funds BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY ↗
  • Who funds NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL INC ↗
  • Who funds Greenwood Community Center Inc ↗
  • Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
  • Who funds MENDOCINO COAST CLINICS INC ↗

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Simon Edison Foundation Inc funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Simon Edison Foundation Inc. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%0%1%3%5%funder's share of their income ↑0%13%25%38%50%share of the org’s income from government →median 9%
  • Brandeis University: 9% of income from government
no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
0get no government money at all
0rely on government for over half their income
⤢ axis zoomed · 0–50%
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 Simon Edison Foundation Inc?

Find your warmest path to Simon Edison Foundation Inc 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.

On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 16 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

How this is measured
Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears.

Generated from the IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2019, released 2019. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Source object · view filing

Play a game based on Simon Edison’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