· Private foundation
Sunpower Foundation
Its FY2023 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 FY2017–2023.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2023
- $10k–50k2 grants · $72k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $100k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| THRIVE SCHOLARS | $100,000 |
| SOLAR ONE | $41,250 |
| GOOD SUN SOLAR | $30,965 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–23) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 97% of your 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 +36% since the first grant, against +25% for the ones you funded once.
5 repeat relationships — 1 still active in FY2023, 4 since wound down; 2 grantees were first funded in FY2023 (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 FY2023, 18% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $141k 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
- BFBRIGHT FUNDS FOUNDATION6× · 2017–2022 · $659k · revenue +8%
- WCWE CARE SOLAR3× · 2017–2022 · $103k · revenue +129%
- RSRising Sun Center for Opportunity fka RISING SUN ENERGY CENTER2× · 2021–2022 · $23k · revenue +36%
Funded once
- SESOLAR ENERGY INTERNATIONALone grant, 2022 · $50k · revenue +0%
- TTTHE TECH INTERACTIVEone grant, 2017 · $15k · revenue -21%
- IEINTERSECTIONAL ENVIRONMENTALISTgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $8k · revenue +70%
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.
Food forward fights hunger and prevents food waste by rescuing fresh surplus produce, connecting this abundance with people experiencing food insecurity, and inspiring others to do the same.
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…
Food Rescue - The Organization rescues excess fresh food from Bay Area businesses, schools and non-profits and immediately delivers the food to safety net partners - such as senior housing centers, after-school programs, and homeless…
Seia is the driving force behind solar energy and storage, building a stronger solar industry to power america through advocacy and education. representing organizations that promote, manufacture, install and support the development of…
Shape and drive bold policy solutions to achieve equitable carbon-neutral economies.
Brightline is a policy advocacy non-profit that works to promote sustainability in otherwise vulnerable communities.
To engage and catalyze global seafood supply chains in rebuilding depleted fish stocks and reducing the environmental impacts of fishing and fish farming.
The union of concerned scientists puts rigorous, independent science into action, developing solutions and advocating for a healthy, safe, and just future.
To nourish the world's hungry through uniting and advancing food banks.
Optimizing the clean energy transition - 100%+ clean energy economy for the 100%.
Solar Electric Light Fund (SELF) provides solar power and wireless communications to the fifth of the world's population living in energy poverty to meet global challenges of food and water scarcity, basic healthcare and poverty. SELF is…
The Climate Access Fund develops and finances community solar products that serve low to moderate income households
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Cec Stuyvesant Cove Inc and the most unlike its peers is East Bay Bicycle Coalition Dba Bike East Bay. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
18 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. 18 of the 22 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 BRIGHT FUNDS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds WE CARE SOLAR ↗
- Who funds THRIVE SCHOLARS ↗
- Who funds Good Sun ↗
- Who funds SOLAR ENERGY INTERNATIONAL ↗
- Who funds CEC STUYVESANT COVE INC ↗
- Who funds Rising Sun Center for Opportunity fka RISING SUN ENERGY CENTER ↗
- Who funds THE TECH INTERACTIVE ↗
- Who funds INTERSECTIONAL ENVIRONMENTALIST ↗
- Who funds BRIGHTEN HAITI ↗
- Who funds FOOD BANK OF CONTRA COSTA AND SOLANO ↗
- Who funds Central Texas Food Bank Inc ↗
- Who funds FOOTPRINT PROJECT ↗
- Who funds Earth Island Institute Inc ↗
- Who funds ALAMEDA COUNTY COMMUNITY FOOD BANK ↗
- Who funds SECOND HARVEST OF SILICON VALLEY ↗
- Who funds East Bay Bicycle Coalition DBA Bike East Bay ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE RIVER 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: Impactassetsinc · Marin Community Foundation · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · 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 Sunpower 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.
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 Sunpower Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Sunpower 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.