How much does Starfish Fund give?

Starfish Fund reported 40 grants totaling $548,364 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 20 and 34 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does Starfish Fund fund?

By grant dollars over FY2018 to FY2025, its largest causes are Civil Rights (29%), Health (20%), Education (14%).

Who are Starfish Fund's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2018 to FY2025: The Center for American Liberty ($765k), Drexel University ($182k), Special Olympics Pennsylvania Inc ($165k).

Does Starfish Fund fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 22% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Starfish Fund accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

Which funders back the same organizations as Starfish Fund?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Triangle Community Foundation Inc, Carroll Petrie Foundation, Ge Aerospace Foundation.

Starfish Fund

Starfish Fund at a glance

· Private foundation

Starfish Fund

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.

$548k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$200k

Largest

01What it funds

01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2018 to 2025.

Civil Rights$800kHealth$549kEducation$398kReligion$360kRecreation & Sports$236kHousing & Shelter$98kEnvironment$71kFood & Nutrition$70kOther$0

02FY2025 · 40 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k28 grants · $103k
$10k–50k10 grants · $189k
$50k–250k2 grants · $257k

$5,000

Median grant

States reached

$7.8M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
CENTER FOR AMERICAN LIBERTY	$200,000
DREXEL UNIVERSITY	$56,800
KNOWING LOVE MINISTIES INC	$25,000
SPECIAL OLYMPICS PA	$25,000
UNITED METHODIST CHURCH OF SUMMIT	$25,000
PENN STATE WOMENS SOCCER BOOSTER CL	$22,000
BRETT BOYER FOUNDATION	$20,000
ADVANCING NATIVE MISSIONS	$20,000
GRACE CHURCH OF CHAPEL HILL	$20,000
THE DARREN DAULTON FDN	$11,564
FIRST TEE OF RARITAN VALLEY	$10,000
SUMMIT POLICE ATHLETIC LEAGUE	$10,000
REALITY MINISTRIES INC	$5,000
IMAGINE MINISTRY	$5,000
OVERLOOK FOUNDATION	$5,000

02The need

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 (FY25–25, $1k) land where the poverty rate runs at 17%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

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.

Which US states its grants reach

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.

90%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$2.5M · 50 repeat orgs$266k to everyone else

50 repeat relationships: 27 still active in FY2025, 23 since wound down; 13 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$2.5M

$173k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+10%

+12%

Still filing today

64%

50%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 83% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $94k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

HealthFood & NutritionEducationInternationalPhilanthropyCrime & LegalOther

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

TC
THE CENTER FOR AMERICAN LIBERTY
5× · 2021–2025 · $765k · revenue +80%
DU
DREXEL UNIVERSITY
6× · 2020–2025 · $182k · revenue +10%
SO
SPECIAL OLYMPICS PENNSYLVANIA INC
7× · 2018–2025 · $165k · revenue +47%

Funded once

MI
MARINE IND ASSOC COLLIER CNTY FOUND
one grant, 2021 · $40k
PA
PARKINSONS ASSOC OF SW FLORIDA
one grant, 2022 · $25k
IG
Individual grant recipient
one grant, 2023 · $20k

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.

Open Markets Institute

The open markets institute works to help people relearn how to use competition policy to build stronger democracies, more just and equitable societies, more innovative and sustainable economies, and a more secure and peaceful world.

Education

The Trustees of Princeton University

Research, education and general - princeton university is a private not-for-profit, non-sectarian institution of higher learning with approximately 5,700 undergraduate and 3,300 graduate students. 2,500 students graduated in the 2024-2025…

Education

Furman University

The primary mission of furman as a liberal arts institution is to provide a distinctive education in fine arts, humanities, social sciences, mathematics and the sciences, as well as selected professional disciplines.

Education

Federation of State Medical Boards of the United States Inc

The fsmb serves as the voice for state medical boards, supporting them through education, assessment, research and advocacy while providing services and initiatives that promote patient safety, quality health care and regulatory best…

Health

Central Pennsylvania Food Bank

Our mission is to solve hunger in central pennsylvania by ensuring that everyone struggling with hunger has access to enough wholesome food every day. we will achieve this bold goal with the help of our generous donors, volunteers and…

Food & Nutrition

Friends of the Earth

Friends of the earth strives for a more healthy and just world by defendng the environment and human health while advancing social and economic justice by conducting research and education, transforming the economy so it protects the…

Environment

Just Capital Foundation Inc

Just capital's mission is to build a more just economy that works for all americans by helping companies improve how they serve all their stakeholders - workers, customers, communities, the environment, and shareholders - as defined by the…

Social Science

Center for Science in the Public Interest

The center for science in the public interest is america's food and health watchdog. cspi envisions a healthy population with reduced impact and burden of preventable diseases and an equitable food system that makes healthy, sustainable…

Food & Nutrition

Stony Brook Internists University Faculty Practice Corporation

Provide clinical instruction to and supervision of medical school students, interns and residents and, incident thereto, rendering professional services.

Health

Project Drawdown

Project drawdown's mission is to drive meaningful climate action by advancing science-based solutions and strategies. project drawdown's work is focused on three pillars: science - advancing science-based climate solutions and strategies;…

Education

Banner -University Medical Group

Assist banner health complete its mission to make health care easier so life can be better by providing integrated & coordinated care & population health management.

Health

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The mission of mit is to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century.

Education

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Food for the Poor Inc; the most unlike its peers is Carolina Poodle Rescue. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

04the grantee network

55 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.

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 2026, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 55 of the 84 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.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

54/55

Grantees still filing

35/55

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$1,219,064Crime & Legal$778,500Health$335,795Education$287,800Youth Development$84,000Food & Nutrition$56,000International$44,000

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

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.

Triangle Community Foundation IncNC18.1× affinity7 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Triangle Community Foundation Inc · Carroll Petrie Foundation · Ge Aerospace Foundation · Shared Visions Foundation Inc · Charleigh Charitable Trust · Duke University · Verizon Foundation · Foundation for the Carolinas · Investors Foundation Inc · The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation · Chubb Charitable Foundation · Truist Foundation Inc

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

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

10get no government money at all

6report 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.

Play a game based on Starfish’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