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Simpson Psb Fund at a glance

· Private foundation

Simpson Psb Fund

Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.

$17M
Granted FY2024still arriving
34
Grants FY2024still arriving
3
States reached
$10M
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its granteesRead
04Its fieldRead
05Through PlinthRead
01What it funds
01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2020 to 2024.

Education$17MHealth$11MArts & Culture$10MYouth Development$6.3MEnvironment$446kHousing & Shelter$393kHuman Services$103kFood & Nutrition$82kOther$0
02FY2024 · 34 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2024

  • Under $10k13 grants · $42k
  • $10k–50k9 grants · $217k
  • $50k–250k8 grants · $844k
  • $250k+4 grants · $16M
$25,000
Median grant
3
States reached
$128M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY FOUNDATION$10,020,372
UCSF FOUNDATION$4,970,473
GIRLS INC OF ALAMEDA COUNTY$790,000
OAKLAND MUSEUM OF CALIFORNIA$525,000
UC THEATRE BERKELEY MUSIC GROUP$200,000
NEW LITERARY PROJECT$160,000
Individual grant recipient$110,000
CALIFORNIA COLLEGE OF THE ARTS$100,000
Individual grant recipient$87,500
CANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY SAN FRANCISCO BAY AREA$85,000
RUTH BANCROFT GARDEN$51,000
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA REGENTS$50,000
CALIFORNIA SHAKESPEARE THEATER$40,000
BIG WAVE PROJECT$40,000
DIABLO REGIONAL ARTS ASSOCIATION$30,000
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:

Its human-services grants (FY20–24, $3.4M) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 97% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 10%PARA LOS NINOS: $25k → 14%GIRLS INC OF ALAMEDA COUNTY: $790k → 10%GIRLS INC OF ALAMEDA COUNTY: $685k → 10%GIRLS INC OF ALAMEDA COUNTY: $646k → 10%GIRLS INC OF ALAMEDA COUNTY: $620k → 10%GIRLS INC OF ALAMEDA COUNTY: $485k → 10%FIRST PLACE FOR YOUTH: $50k → 10%FAMILIES WITHOUT BORDERS: $10k → 9%FAMILIES WITHOUT BORDERS: $3k → 9%FAMILIES WITHOUT BORDERS: $1k → 9%MONUMENT CRISIS CENTER: $3k → 9%LAS TRAMPAS: $45k → 9%LAS TRAMPAS: $15k → 9%LAS TRAMPAS: $12k → 9%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.
04

Where the work is directed

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

About 19% of Simpson Psb Fund’s grant dollars are earmarked for a different county than the recipient’s own address. By recipient address, 100% of the giving stays in CA; by stated purpose, 81%.

Simpson Psb Fundlessmore of its giving
Placed by recipient address
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.

88%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$40M · 50 repeat orgs$5.3M to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +23% since the first grant, against +22% for those funded once.

50 repeat relationships: 30 still active in FY2024, 20 since wound down; 4 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

50
35

Total granted

$40M
$5.3M

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+23%
+22%

Still filing today

80%
60%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $33k went to new ones.

50%100%’20’21’22’23’24
RenewedFirst-time

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

’20’21’22’23’24
EducationArts & CultureHuman ServicesHealthEnvironmentHousing & ShelterOther
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

  • GL
    GIRLSMART LITERACY PROGRAM
    4× · 2020–2023 · $2.5M · revenue +25% · 100% of their budget
  • CC
    CALIFORNIA COLLEGE OF THE ARTS
    5× · 2020–2024 · $1.7M · revenue +17%
  • CS
    CALIFORNIA SHAKESPEARE THEATER
    5× · 2020–2024 · $578k · revenue +22%

Funded once

  • UB
    UC BERKELEY ART MUSEUM & PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE
    one grant, 2020 · $3.4M
  • BA
    BERKELEY ART MUSEUM AND PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE
    one grant, 2022 · $1.0M
  • US
    UC SANTA CRUZ FOUNDATION
    one grant, 2020 · $178k · revenue +8%
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.

1
California Institute of Contemporary Art
—
2
Monterey Museum of Art

The monterey museum of art cultivates curiosity in the visual arts and engages community with the diversity of california art - past, present, and future.

Arts & Culture
3
Sonoma Botanical Garden
—
4
The Uc Davis Foundation

The mission of the uc davis foundation is to secure, steward and manage private gifts for uc davis.

Education
5
California Film Institute

The california film institute celebrates film and videos as art and education. its goal is to present and support emerging and established independent filmakers whose works address issues relevant to contemporary society. this is…

Arts & Culture
6
Ucsf Foundation Investment Company

The organization provides professional investment management services for endowed gifts and financial assets entrusted to the ucsf foundation.

Education
7
Ucla Foundation

The ucla foundation is the giving, receiving, and investing arm of the ucla campus. the foundation enables private donors to help build, sustain and advance one of the world's finest academic and research institutions. private philanthropy…

Education
8
Asian Art Museum Foundation of San Francisco

The asian art museum celebrates, preserves, and promotes asian and asian american art and cultures for local and global audiences. we provide a dynamic forum for exchanging ideas, inviting collaboration, and fueling imagination to deepen…

Arts & Culture
9
The American Institute of Architects California

The AIA California, in collaboration with local components, is the voice of the architectural profession.

—
10
Association of California School Administrators

The association serves its members by creating resources that enable california school administrators to develop and apply creative leadership and management skills and in turn, improve the educational process for all students.

—
11
Mills College

Mills college is an independent liberal arts college for women and gender nonbinary students, with graduate programs for all genders. the college educates students to think critically and communicate responsibly and effectively, to accept…

—
12
Museum of Modern Art

The Museum of Modern Art is a private, non-profit institution chartered by the State of New York Department of Education in 1929 to foster public awareness of modern and contemporary art. (Continued in Schedule O)

Arts & Culture
How this is measured
The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is California Public Interest Research Group Inc; the most unlike its peers is Girlsmart Literacy Program. 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

63 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. 63 of the 90 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.

3
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
17
Early backer (in before they grew)
63/63
Grantees still filing
44/63
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY FOUNDATION: $14,031,372 · EducationUNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY FOUNDATIONUNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN FRANCISCO FOUNDATION: $5,115,473 · EducationUNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN FRANCISCO FOUNDATIONCALIFORNIA COLLEGE OF THE ARTS: $1,706,689 · EducationCALIFORNIA COLLEGE OF THE ARTS+15 more: $1,332,433 · Education+15 moreUC BERKELEY ART MUSEUM & PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE: $3,420,000 · OtherUC BERKELEY ART MUS…BERKELEY ART MUSEUM AND PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE: $1,000,000 · OtherBERKELEY ART MUSEUM…Individual grant recipient: $664,644 · OtherIndividual grant re…UC THEATRE BERKELEY MUSIC GROUP: $615,000 · OtherUC THEATRE BERKELEY…CALIFORNIA SHAKESPEARE THEATER: $577,500 · OtherCALIFORNIA SHAKESPE…Individual grant recipient: $340,000 · OtherBIG WAVE GROUP: $325,000 · Other+34 more: $722,500 · Other+34 moreCANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY San Francisco Bay Area: $5,155,075 · HealthCANCER SUPPOR…+4 more: $75,500 · HealthOAKLAND MUSEUM OF CALIFORNIA: $2,550,000 · Arts & CultureOAKLAND M…Diablo Regional Arts Association: $381,000 · Arts & CultureDiablo Re…NEW LITERARY PROJECT: $245,000 · Arts & CultureNEW LITER…Museum of Craft and Design: $155,000 · Arts & Culture+12 more: $455,500 · Arts & Culture+12 moreGIRLS INCORPORATED OF ALAMEDA COUNTY: $3,226,000 · Human Services+5 more: $163,000 · Human ServicesGIRLSMART LITERACY PROGRAM: $2,550,000 · Youth DevelopmentThe Ruth Bancroft Garden Inc: $291,500 · EnvironmentAUDUBON CANYON RANCH INC: $75,000 · EnvironmentECOLOGY CENTER: $75,000 · Environment
Education$22,185,967Other$7,664,644Health$5,230,575Arts & Culture$3,786,500Human Services$3,389,000Youth Development$2,550,000Environment$441,500

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

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetUNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY FOUNDATION: $14,031,372 over 3y, 2.0% of budgetCANCER SUPPORT COMMUNITY San Francisco Bay Area: $5,155,075 over 2y, 24% of budgetUNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN FRANCISCO FOUNDATION: $5,115,473 over 3y, 0.9% of budgetGIRLS INCORPORATED OF ALAMEDA COUNTY: $3,226,000 over 5y, 9.3% of budgetOAKLAND MUSEUM OF CALIFORNIA: $2,550,000 over 5y, 3.3% of budgetGIRLSMART LITERACY PROGRAM: $2,550,000 over 4y, 100% of budgetCALIFORNIA COLLEGE OF THE ARTS: $1,706,689 over 5y, 1.5% of budgetCALIFORNIA SHAKESPEARE THEATER: $577,500 over 5y, 10% of budgetDiablo Regional Arts Association: $381,000 over 5y, 23% of budgetLife Learning Academy: $375,000 over 3y, 6.9% of budgetBIG WAVE GROUP: $325,000 over 4y, 31% of budgetThe Ruth Bancroft Garden Inc: $291,500 over 5y, 4.7% of budgetNEW LITERARY PROJECT: $245,000 over 4y, 36% of budgetOakland Leaf Foundation: $230,000 over 2y, 5.2% of budgetUC SANTA CRUZ FOUNDATION: $178,433 over 1y, 0.8% of budgetMuseum of Craft and Design: $155,000 over 5y, 1.7% of budgetNorthern Light School: $124,500 over 5y, 1.3% of budgetKala Art Institute: $121,000 over 5y, 1.8% of budgetLafayette Library and Learning Center Foundation: $108,000 over 4y, 3.3% of budgetNORTHWEST MARITIME CENTER: $100,000 over 2y, 1.7% of budgetTHE UNDERGROUND MUSEUM INC: $90,000 over 1y, 6.5% of budgetTHE CRUCIBLE: $83,500 over 4y, 1.9% of budgetAUDUBON CANYON RANCH INC: $75,000 over 3y, 0.6% of budgetECOLOGY CENTER: $75,000 over 1y, 0.8% of budgetLas Trampas School Inc: $72,000 over 3y, 0.5% of budgetWALNUT CREEK LIBRARY FOUNDATION: $71,000 over 4y, 11% of budgetProject Hope Alliance: $65,000 over 1y, 2.8% of budgetDANCE DOWNTOWN LA INC LA DANCE PROJECT: $50,000 over 1y, 1.2% of budgetFIRST PLACE FOR YOUTH: $50,000 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetTHE RON FINLEY PROJECT: $45,000 over 1y, 16% of budgetJOHN MUIR HEALTH FOUNDATION: $40,000 over 4y, 0.1% of budgetFUTURES WITHOUT VIOLENCE: $40,000 over 4y, 0.1% of budgetKENNEDY-KING MEMORIAL COLLEGE SCHOLARSHIP FUND LTD: $30,000 over 3y, 2.9% of budgetTRANSCENDENCE THEATRE COMPANY: $25,000 over 1y, 1.3% of budgetCALIFORNIA PUBLIC INTEREST RESEARCH GROUP EDU FUND: $25,000 over 1y, 7.4% of budgetTHE ZELLERBACH FAMILY FOUNDATION: $25,000 over 1y, 2.9% of budgetPARA LOS NINOS: $25,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetCOMPASSION & CHOICES: $25,000 over 4y, 0.1% of budgetTeach for America Inc: $21,500 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetASSOCIATION OF CALIFORNIA SYMPHONY ORCHESTRAS: $20,000 over 4y, 3.0% of budgetThe Edible Schoolyard Project dba The Alice Waters Institute: $19,500 over 3y, 0.7% of budgetUC PRESS FOUNDATION: $17,000 over 3y, 1.4% of budgetCreative Growth Art Center: $17,000 over 3y, 0.3% of budgetNATIONAL MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS SOCIETY: $16,000 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetSonoma Valley Museum of Art: $15,000 over 2y, 0.8% of budgetFAMILIES WITHOUT BORDERS: $13,500 over 3y, 13% of budgetYERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS: $12,500 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetNew Performance Traditions: $10,000 over 2y, 0.5% 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.

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.

East Bay Community Fo…The San Francisco Fou…The William & Flora H…Marin Community Found…Kenneth Rainin Founda…Jewish Community Fede…Justice Justice Found…William a Kerr Founda…The James Irvine Foun…Dean and Margaret Les…The Joseph and Vera L…Clif Family Foundation
East Bay Community FoundationCA37.9× affinity19 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: East Bay Community Foundation · The San Francisco Foundation · The William & Flora Hewlett Foundation · Marin Community Foundation · Kenneth Rainin Foundation · Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco the Peninsula Marin & Sonoma · Justice Justice Foundation · William a Kerr Foundation · The James Irvine Foundation · Dean and Margaret Lesher Foundation · The Joseph and Vera Long Foundation · Clif Family Foundation

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

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%6%25%56%100%funder's share of their income ↑0%19%38%56%75%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    25report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–75%
    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 Simpson Psb Fund?

    Find your warmest path to Simpson Psb 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.

    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 90 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 2024, released 2024. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

    Play a game based on Simpson Psb’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