· Private foundation
Stella and James Melillo 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 $10k9 grants · $22k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $77k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| DVS | $36,500 |
| STESA of Santa Barbara | $20,000 |
| Santa Barbara Museum of Art | $10,000 |
| Various Donee | $10,000 |
| New Beginnings | $5,000 |
| MOXI Museum | $4,500 |
| Museum of Natural History | $2,500 |
| Museum of Modern Art | $2,500 |
| Sanctuary Center | $2,000 |
| UCSB | $2,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $1,000 |
| Santa Barbara Opera | $1,000 |
| Seattle Opera | $1,000 |
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 (FY21–21, $11k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 100% 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 8% of Stella and James Melillo 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.
14 repeat relationships — 5 still active in FY2025, 9 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, 40% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $59k 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
DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SOLUTIONS FOR SANTA BARBARA COUNTY3× · 2022–2024 · $67k · revenue -4%- SOSTESA of Santa Barbara3× · 2023–2025 · $42k
SARAH LAWRENCE COLLEGE2× · 2017–2021 · $35k · revenue +14%
Funded once
- SSTESAone grant, 2022 · $25k
- BIBRAILLE INSTITUTEone grant, 2020 · $15k
- YYMCAone grant, 2024 · $15k
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.
Stages makes plays and tells stories that invite everyone to live more deeply and love more boldly.
Mission: the mission of san diego opera is to deliver exceptional performances and exciting, accessible programs to diverse audiences, focusing on community partnerships, and the transformative and expressive power of the human voice. as…
Domestic violence project, inc. promotes awareness and provides emergency and support services to all those impacted by domestic violence.
Located in scenic Napa Valley, di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art engages its community in the connective power of art and nature through its permanent collection of Northern California art, contemporary exhibitions, and thought-provoking…
Disability rights washington's mission is to advance the dignity, equality, and self determination of people with disabilities. we work to pursue justice on matters related to human and legal rights.
SOZO is an international contemporary arts agency and incubator at the intersection of impact, innovation, and culture, empowering transformative artistic innovation and social change.
Professional production of opera for the public, and education about opera and the performing arts for audiences of all ages.
Marin open studios is a non-profit visual arts organization dedicated to engaging and supporting marin county artists and their audiences through events, programs and services. marin open studios champions a diverse and inclusive community…
Opera Parallle presents compelling performances of contemporary operas with high musical and dramatic standards, embracing modern aesthetics, creative use of technology, and social relevance as essential to the future of the art form.…
To serve the public by producing world-class opera that preserves, promotes and advances the art form while embodying the diversity, spirit and artistic sensibility unique to los angeles. we envision an engaged and enlightened community in…
See schedule 0founded in 1994, opera santa barbara is the signature provider of professional opera on the california central coast. we aspire to be a cultural leader in the santa barbara region, voicing and advancing our community's spirit…
Broadway sacramento is committed to the presentation of quality theatrical productions to enrich the cultural life of the city of sacramento, the state of california, the united states, and the international community. the goals of the…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is New Beginnings and the most unlike its peers is Childrens Creative Project. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
13 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. 13 of the 45 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 DOMESTIC VIOLENCE SOLUTIONS FOR SANTA BARBARA COUNTY ↗
- Who funds SARAH LAWRENCE COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds Standing Together to End Sexual Assault ↗
- Who funds Magic Wheelchair ↗
- Who funds I-PARK FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds AFGHANISTAN DENTAL RELIEF PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds CHILDRENS CREATIVE PROJECT ↗
- Who funds NEW BEGINNINGS ↗
- Who funds SANTA BARBARA ZOOLOGICAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Downtown Dog Rescue ↗
- Who funds SEATTLE OPERA ↗
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: Hutton Foundation Dba Hutton Parker Foundation · Santa Barbara Foundation · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile 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 Stella and James Melillo 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.
- I-Park Foundation Inc — 10% 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.