· Private foundation
Sorenson Family 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.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k35 grants · $69k
- $10k–50k3 grants · $32k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| European Cultural Center | $11,500 |
| Boulder Community Foundation | $10,000 |
| NATURE CONSERVANCY COLORADO | $10,000 |
| BOULDER ADVENTIST CHURCH | $5,000 |
| WELLESLEY COLLEGE | $5,000 |
| WILD BEAR NATURE CENTER | $5,000 |
| NATIONAL OUTDOOR LEADERSHIP SCHOOL | $5,000 |
| WEST POINT ASSOCIATION OF GRADUATES | $5,000 |
| HUDSON HIGHLANDS LAND TRUST | $3,000 |
| ALICE DESMOND HAMILTON FISH LIBR | $3,000 |
| NOVI COMMUNITY | $2,500 |
| BABSON COLLEGE | $2,500 |
| BOSTON MUSEUM OF SCIENCE | $2,500 |
| EARTH JUSTICE | $2,500 |
| NATIONAL MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS SOCIETY | $2,500 |
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 (FY17–25, $20k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 97% 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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 7% of Sorenson Family Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another.
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 foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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 +51% since the first grant, against +20% for the ones you funded once.
50 repeat relationships — 29 still active in FY2025, 21 since wound down; 8 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (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 FY2025, 61% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $36k 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
- WCWellesley College9× · 2017–2025 · $47k · revenue +63%
- NONATIONAL OUTDOOR LEADERSHIP SCHOOL9× · 2017–2025 · $33k · revenue +8%
BABSON COLLEGE7× · 2017–2025 · $28k · revenue +43%
Funded once
- NNNAMI Nationalgraduatedone grant, 2024 · $15k · revenue +181%
- ASAIM SCIENTIFIC RESEARCH FOUNDATIONone grant, 2018 · $10k
- WCWatermans Community Centerone grant, 2024 · $10k · revenue -10%
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.
The organization's mission is to conserve and promote new england's native plants to ensure healthy, biologically diverse landscapes.
Eastern national promotes the public's understanding and support of america's national parks and other public trust partners by providing quality educational experiences, products and services.
To establish and promote programs to protect the global climate, forests, wildlife and the natural environment, through research, advocacy, and investigation.
See schedule onylcv is a non-partisan policy making and political action organization that works to make environmental protection a top priority with elected officials, decision-makers and the voters by evaluating incumbent performance and…
American gas association's (the association) mission is to develop and advocate for informed, innovative, and durable policy that fulfills our nation's energy needs, environmental aspirations and economic potential. we are committed to…
The union of concerned scientists puts rigorous, independent science into action, developing solutions and advocating for a healthy, safe, and just future.
National public radio, inc. ("npr") works collaboratively with member public radio station licensees ("member stations") to create a more informed public, one that is challenged and invigorated by a deeper understanding and appreciation of…
Rainforest trust saves endangered wildlife and protects our planet by creating rainforest reserves through partnerships, community engagement, and donor support.
Nacwa is the national voice of public clean water utilities, shaping water policy, convening a vibrant peer network, and empowering water leaders.
The minnesota land trust protects and restores minnesota's most vital natural lands in order to provide wildlife habitat, clean water, outdoor experiences and scenic beauty for generations to come.
The npr foundation ("foundation") is organized and operated exclusively for the benefit of its sole supported organization, national public radio, inc. ("npr inc."). the foundation supports npr inc. through various activities such as…
The purpose of the water research foundation (wrf) is a definitive research organization to advance the science of all things water to better meet the evolving needs of its subscribers and the water sector. to engage exclusively in…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Trust for Public Land and the most unlike its peers is Alice Curtis Desmond and Hamilton Fish Library dba Desmond-Fish Public Library. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 42 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
48 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. 48 of the 75 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 Wellesley College ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL OUTDOOR LEADERSHIP SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds BABSON COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds CLIMATE RIDE INC ↗
- Who funds EMERGENCY FAMILY ASSISTANCE ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds PUBLIC BROADCASTING OF COLORADO INC ↗
- Who funds Hudson Highlands Land Trust Inc ↗
- Who funds NAMI National ↗
- Who funds EARTHJUSTICE ↗
- Who funds WILD BEAR NATURE CENTER ↗
- Who funds ISABELLA STEWART GARDNER MUSEUM INC ↗
- Who funds NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL INC ↗
- Who funds Watermans Community Center ↗
- Who funds GIVE2ASIA ↗
- Who funds THORNE ECOLOGICAL INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds ROCKY MOUNTAIN PLANNED PARENTHOOD INC ↗
- Who funds THE DAIRY CENTER FOR THE ARTS ↗
- Who funds AMHERST COLLEGE TRUSTEES ↗
- Who funds 1 FOR THE PLANET INC ↗
- Who funds PHILIPSTOWN BEHAVIORAL HEALTH HUB INC ↗
- Who funds VOICES FOR CHILDREN INC ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds Alice Curtis Desmond and Hamilton Fish Library dba Desmond-Fish Public Library ↗
- Who funds ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND INCORPORATED ↗
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: Community Foundation Boulder County · Maine Community Foundation Inc · The Denver Foundation · Colorado Gives Foundation · Onion Foundation · Emsa Fund Inc · Lostand Foundation · Impactassetsinc · Xcel Energy Foundation · Ibm International Foundation · Jewish Communal 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 Sorenson 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.
- Babson College — 3% of income from government
- Wellesley College — 1% of income from government
- Amherst College Trustees — 0% 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.