· Private foundation
Steffens Foundation
Its FY2024 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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k5 grants · $17k
- $10k–50k26 grants · $476k
- $50k–250k15 grants · $1.1M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Cross Catholic Outreach | $200,000 |
| Cross International | $127,000 |
| Cross International | $100,000 |
| Vanessa Behan Crisis Nursery | $75,000 |
| Doctors Without Borders | $75,000 |
| Walla Walla Community College Foundation | $60,000 |
| Union Gospel Mission | $50,000 |
| Alternatives to Violence | $50,000 |
| International Rescue Committee | $50,000 |
| National Immigrant Justice Center | $50,000 |
| Shriners Hospital for Children | $50,000 |
| Catholic Charities of Eastern Washington | $50,000 |
| Fort Hays State University | $50,000 |
| Idaho Food Bank | $50,000 |
| Boys & Girls Clubs of Lewis Clark Valley | $50,000 |
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 (FY17–24, $438k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 77% 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.
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 +39% since the first grant, against -16% for the ones you funded once.
61 repeat relationships — 39 still active in FY2024, 22 since wound down; 4 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 95% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $74k 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
- CICross International Inc5× · 2019–2024 · $420k · revenue +31%
MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC7× · 2017–2024 · $335k · revenue +98%- VBVANESSA BEHAN8× · 2017–2024 · $310k · revenue +81%
Funded once
- VOVolunteers of Americaone grant, 2021 · $250k
- WCWhitman County Historical Societyone grant, 2021 · $50k · revenue -16%
- PCPullman Community Montessorione grant, 2021 · $50k · revenue -99%
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 mission of the Idaho Humane Society (IHS) is to advocate for the welfare and responsible care of animals, protect them from neglect and cruelty, and promote humane education, awareness and compassion for all living creatures.
Health care services for the people of western nebraska and eastern wyoming.
Seattle humane promotes the human-animal bond by saving and serving pets in need, regardless of age, ability, circumstance or geography.
The mission of the University of Western States is to advance the science and art of integrated health care through excellence in education and patient care.
Provide care to refugee families.
To improve the health & well-being of animals through veterinary aid, response, training, research & local capacity building worldwide. We provide services to companion animals, horses, street dogs, livestock and marine animals including…
Be a catalyst! Ignite our community's passion for nature and science.
LCSNW partners with individuals, families and communities for health, justice and hope. LCSNW provides a wide variety of social services in Oregon, Washington and Idaho and serves people of all ages, cultures and faiths.
Pacific Northwest University of Health Sciences educates and trains health care professionals emphasizing service among rural and medically under-served communities throughout the Northwest.
Providing positive life changing solutions to people and animals in need.
We are dedicated to improving our patients' health by providing safe, high-quality care in a compassionate and cost-effective manner.
To offer compassionate care to animals, support safe communities, and provide socially conscious sheltering. (continued on schedule o)
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Operation Homefront Inc and the most unlike its peers is Whitman County Historical Society. 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 40 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 3% 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.
49 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. 49 of the 84 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 Cross International Inc ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds VANESSA BEHAN ↗
- Who funds Palouse Discovery Science Center Inc ↗
- Who funds SAN FELIPE HUMANITARIAN ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds WALLA WALLA COMMUNITY COLLEGE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SHRINERS HOSPITALS FOR CHILDREN ↗
- Who funds International Rescue Committee INC ↗
- Who funds WASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds WHITMAN COUNTY HUMANE SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds Community Action Center ↗
- Who funds IDAHO FOODBANK WAREHOUSE ↗
- Who funds Bridge House ↗
- Who funds THE WILD ANIMAL SANCTUARY ↗
- Who funds BOULDER PREPARATORY HIGH SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds SNAKE RIVER COMMUNITY CLINIC INC ↗
- Who funds Forward Steps Foundation ↗
- Who funds CORPORATION OF GONZAGA UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds Innovia Foundation ↗
- Who funds SISTER CARMEN COMMUNITY CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds COVENANT HOUSE ↗
- Who funds Edify ↗
- Who funds INTERCAMBIO DE COMUNIDADES ↗
- Who funds WORKSHOPS FOR WARRIORS INC ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF THE LEWIS CLARK VALLEY INC ↗
- Who funds SEMPER FI & AMERICA'S FUND ↗
- Who funds Whitman County Historical Society ↗
- Who funds PULLMAN REGIONAL HOSPITAL FOUNDATION ↗
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: Innovia Foundation · The Avista Foundation · Umpqua Bank Charitable Foundation · Lewis-Clark Valley Healthcare Foundation · The Chicago Community Trust · Idaho Community Foundation Inc · M J Murdock Charitable Trust · First Interstate BancSystem Foundation Inc · Colorado Gives Foundation · Xcel Energy Foundation · AbbVie Foundation · Enterprise Holdings Foundation
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 Steffens 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.
- Shriners Hospitals for Children — 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Steffens Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Steffens Foundation 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.