Skip to content

California · Private foundation

Steve and Sharron Macdonald Family Foundation

Its FY2020 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

$8.0M
Granted FY2020
24
Grants FY2020
24
Organizations funded FY2020
71%
First-time grantees FY2020
Read the full brief
Median grant, FY2020
$50,000
Largest grant, FY2020
$3,100,000
Organizations funded a year
6 to 24
FY2018 to FY2020
States reached, FY2020
7
Applications
Preselected organizations only
Per its most recent filing; check its own site

How open it is to new grantees

In FY2020, 71% of the organizations Steve and Sharron Macdonald Family Foundation funded were first-time grantees, receiving 55% of its grant dollars.

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2020, 45% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $4.4M went to new ones.

50%100%’19’20
RenewedFirst-time

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

’19’20
HealthFood & NutritionPhilanthropyHuman ServicesPublic BenefitEducationOther
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.
The numbers by year
Fiscal yearOrganizations fundedTo those organizationsFirst-time grantees
FY202024$8.0M71%
FY20199$1.5M44%
FY20186$247kn/a
100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2018 to 2020.

Animals$3.7MHealth$3.2MFood & Nutrition$902kPublic Benefit$805kEducation$450kHuman Services$200kYouth Development$185kPublic Safety & Disaster$150kOther$0

Where its grants go

Grant dollars by states, across the years we hold.

Which US states its grants reach

NY
NJ
CA
CO
TN
DC
GA
TX

Top grantees

Largest recipients by total granted, FY2018 to FY2020, and the share of each one’s budget the grants supplied at peak.

Show all 19 grantees

Plus 8 recipients with no EIN on record ($4.1M), not named here.

Where it is load-bearing

Steve and Sharron Macdonald Family Foundation supplied at least a quarter of the budget for 1 of its grantees at some point. The chart plots its 18 largest grantees; load-bearing ones sit top left.

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetScripps Health: $3,100,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetJudicial Watch Inc: $720,000 over 2y, 0.6% of budgetFeeding San Diego: $402,000 over 1y, 0.6% of budgetJacobs & Cushman San Diego Food Bank: $400,000 over 1y, 0.5% of budgetColorado School of Mines Foundation: $400,000 over 2y, 1.0% of budgetThe Children's Hope Chest Inc: $200,000 over 2y, 53% of budgetAmerican National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches: $100,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetGeneral Needs Ltd: $85,000 over 3y, 17% of budgetStephen Siller Tunnel to Towers Foundation: $50,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetScdrinc: $50,000 over 1y, 16% of budgetOld Globe Theatre: $30,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetPasadena Hospital Association Ltd: $27,000 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetSan Diego County Dental Foundation: $25,000 over 1y, 9.3% of budgetCMT Research Foundation Inc: $15,000 over 1y, 0.9% of budgetCerebral Palsy of Westchester Inc: $10,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetRady Children's Hospital Foundation San Diego: $5,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetSpecial Olympics Inc: $5,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetSt Jude Children's Research Hospital Inc: $5,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budget

Tap a dot to name the grantee.

How this is measured
Share of budget is the funder’s grant in a year over the grantee’s total revenue that year, at its highest across the years we hold; revenue is from all sources. Only grantees confirmed against their own filings, whose grants do not exceed their revenue, are plotted: the largest 18.

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.

Network for GoodDC8.4× affinity4 shared granteesties to 5 of 5Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Network for Good · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile Foundation

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.

Compare Steve and Sharron Macdonald Family Foundation with peer funders

About Steve and Sharron Macdonald Family Foundation

How much does Steve and Sharron Macdonald Family Foundation give?
Steve and Sharron Macdonald Family Foundation reported 24 grants totaling $7,996,174 in its FY2020 IRS filing. It funded between 6 and 24 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2020.
What does Steve and Sharron Macdonald Family Foundation fund?
By grant dollars over FY2018 to FY2020, its largest causes are Animals (38%), Health (33%), Food & Nutrition (9%).
Who are Steve and Sharron Macdonald Family Foundation's largest grantees?
By total granted over FY2018 to FY2020: Scripps Health ($3.1M), Judicial Watch Inc ($720k), Feeding San Diego ($402k).
Does Steve and Sharron Macdonald Family Foundation fund new organizations?
In FY2020, 71% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.
Does Steve and Sharron Macdonald Family Foundation 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 Steve and Sharron Macdonald Family Foundation?
Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Network for Good, The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc, American Online Giving Foundation Inc.
Where is Steve and Sharron Macdonald Family Foundation based?
Steve and Sharron Macdonald Family Foundation is based in CA.

On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 27 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

How this is measured
Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears.

Generated from the IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2020, released 2020. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Source object · view filing

Play a game based on Steve and Sharron Macdonald Family’s filings →

More from the funding graph