Loading…
· Private foundation
SPENCER JOHNSON FAMILY FOUNDATION
This foundation does not accept unsolicited requests — it funds preselected organizations.
$45k
Granted FY2024
3
Grants
2
Communities
$20k
Largest
01What you fund
0173% classified
What you funded, over time
Every grant clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2017–2024.
International$57kPhilanthropy$40kHuman Services$34kCivil Rights$20kOther$56k
02beneath the categories
Past the labels — and the year it shifted
Beneath the NTEE codes, this is what the grant descriptions actually say.
…and in their own words, year by year
2018
—
2019
—
2020
—
2021
women
2022
brigid
2023
—
2024
protect
Words distinctive to each year’s grant purposes (TF-IDF) · event-driven terms in cyan.
03FY2024 · 3 grants
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
$15,000
Median grant
2
States reached
$450k
Total assets
Largest grants
- GOOD360$20,000
- NORTH SHORE COMMUNITY COMMUNITY LAND TRUST$15,000
- AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF HAWAII FOUNDATION$10,000
02The need
04
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.
show:
Your human-services grants (FY22–22, $34k) land where the poverty rate runs at 17% — the area typically sits at 11%. 100% of those dollars reach neighborhoods with above-average need. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount
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; 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, United Way ALICE — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.
03Your edge
repeat funding
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.
34%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.
$70k · 3 repeat orgs$137k to everyone else
3 repeat relationships — 0 still active in FY2024, 3 since wound down; 3 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).
How the two cohorts compare
Re-uppedFunded once
Organizations
3
7
Total granted
$70k
$92k
Median revenue growth · since first grant
+20%
+459%
Still filing today
100%
43%
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2024, 0% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $45k went to new ones.
RenewedFirst-time
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
InternationalCivil RightsPhilanthropyHuman ServicesOther
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
THE SAN DIEGO FOUNDATION2× · 2017–2018 · $40k · revenue +73%- TWTHE WATER PROJECT2× · 2020–2021 · $27k · revenue +7%
- TBTHE BYRNES FAMILY FOUNDATION2× · 2018–2019 · $4k · revenue +20%
Funded once
- TBTHE BRIGID ALLIANCEgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $34k · revenue +6846%
- MSMEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC AKA DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERSone grant, 2023 · $11k
- ANAMERICAN NEAR EAST REFUGEE AID AKA ANERAone grant, 2023 · $11k
Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
04Your field
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.
1
Womens Funding Network
Our mission as a global alliance is to provide strategies, research, and resources that support the critical agency and influence of women's foundations and gender justice funders in the movement for equality, justice, and power for all.
Education
2
Women's Foundation of California
Women's foundation of california amplifies the voices and experiences of community leaders, redistributes knowledge, power, and resources, and mobilizes communities and funders to advance justice for all.
—
3
World Privacy Forum
The world privacy forum is dedicated to reimaging privacy in a digital era through ground-breaking, in-depth privacy research and consumer education of the highest quality. our vision is to empower people with the knowledge, rights, and…
Public Benefit
4
International Women's Forum Inc
We unite our global community to advance women's leadership today and tomorrow.
Education
5
Water for People
International
6
Witness Inc
Witness helps people use video and technology to protect and defend human rights. the organization operates globally. witness' global team designs solutions, provides guidance, and co-develops strategies that enable human rights defenders…
International
7
Global Fund for Children
To advance the rights and opportunities of children and youth worldwide.
Arts & Culture
8
Global Greengrants Fund
Mobilize resources for communities worldwide to protect our shared planet.
Environment
9
Afp Foundation for Philanthropy
Our mission is to advance philanthropic investment and impact in the nonprofit sector.we accomplish this by:- serving as a catalyst for the nonprofit sector to address the sector's greatest issues - acting as a convener between the…
—
10
The Water Research Foundation
Advancing the science of water to improve the quality of life.
Environment
11
American Jewish World Service Inc
We work to realize human rights and end poverty in africa, asia, latin america and the caribbean.
International
12
The Leadership Foundation
The foundation advances the careers of high-potential women through leadership development programs.
—
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The San Diego Foundation and the most unlike its peers is The Byrnes Family Foundation. 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
8 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2017–2024.
Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue.
0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
1
Early backer (in before they grew)
8/8
Grantees still filing
7/8
Grew since you first funded
Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee
International$57,000Other$56,178Philanthropy$40,000Human Services$34,139Civil Rights$20,000
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.
Government reliance of your grantees
Every dot is one organisation SPENCER JOHNSON 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.
2024
’20’21’22’23’24
no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
1get no government money at all
0rely on government for over half their income
⤢ axis zoomed · 0–5%
typical government reliance, FY20–24
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. 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.
05Through Plinth
Through Plinth
Your grantmaking, live and operational
This dossier was generated cold from public filings. In Plinth it’s a working system — every applicant assessed and every grant monitored. Here’s a taste, run on one of your grantees: AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF HAWAII FOUNDATION.
Agentic due diligence · confidence × risk
Financial management
low risk
~15 months of operating runway; revenue contracted over 6 filed years.
Track record & reputation
low risk
6 years of Form 990 filings, still active.
Legal standing
low risk
US 501(c)(3); EIN 990192064 on file with current IRS Form 990 filings.
Governance
Live in Plinth
Board composition & governance documents — verified live in Plinth from the applicant.
Compliance & sanctions
Live in Plinth
OFAC / UN sanctions screening — run live in Plinth at assessment.
Program capacity
Live in Plinth
Staffing, M&E and activity alignment — assessed live in Plinth from submitted proposals.
Live · Plinth’s real DD engine
Run the actual assessment on AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF HAWAII FOUNDATION, cold from public data.
Generated live from public IRS filings + open web sources by Plinth’s agentic engine. Shown as an illustration of the product, not a formal assessment.
Post-award monitoring · continuous checks
- On trackFinancial stability— Roughly 15 months of cash on hand.
- On trackSustained operations— Filing through 2024; revenue contracted over the period.
- On trackReliance on your funding— Your grants peaked at 1% of their budget — diversified.
- Awaiting reportEvidence of delivery— Plinth collects the grantee's own monitoring reports post-award.
What you see here is static and public. In Plinth it’s operational — the full six-pillar framework on every applicant (with their own documents + live registry and sanctions checks), monitoring dashboards on every award, custom board reports, and eligibility routing for intake.
Agentic due diligenceMonitoring dashboardsCustom board reportsEligibility routing
Preview generated from this grantee’s public IRS filings and independent reporting. Pillars marked “live in Plinth” require the applicant’s submitted documents. Shown as illustration, not a formal assessment.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPro
How do I get to Spencer Johnson Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Spencer Johnson Family Foundation through people who sit on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the introduction across shared trustees and officers.
Every link is a documented governance overlap in public IRS 990 filings — not a personal network — and each hop carries its own confidence tier. Low-confidence or distant paths are held back rather than guessed.
More from the funding graph
The regranting layer
51% of grant dollars pass through an intermediary
The DAF merry-go-round
$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds
Strange bedfellows
the named clusters of US funding
The camps
funders cluster by geography, not ideology
By state
where grant money is based, and what stays home
State money flows
the interactive map of money crossing state lines