How much does Sustainable Solutions Foundation give?

Sustainable Solutions Foundation reported 30 grants totaling $164,500 in its FY2024 IRS filing. It funded between 33 and 39 organizations a year over FY2020 to FY2023.

What does Sustainable Solutions Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2020 to FY2024, its largest causes are Environment (37%), Civil Rights (24%), Health (15%).

Who are Sustainable Solutions Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2020 to FY2024: Rainforest Foundation Inc ($100k), National Association of Free and Charitable Clinics Inc ($50k), Public Communicators Inc ($50k).

Does Sustainable Solutions Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2023, 3% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Sustainable Solutions 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 Sustainable Solutions Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Seattle Foundation, Network for Good, Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc.

Where is Sustainable Solutions Foundation based?

Sustainable Solutions Foundation is based in WA.

Sustainable Solutions Foundation

Sustainable Solutions Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

Sustainable Solutions 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.

$165k

Granted FY2024still arriving

Grants FY2024still arriving

States reached

$20k

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, FY2020 to 2024.

Environment$333kCivil Rights$220kHealth$135kInternational$116kFood & Nutrition$44kPublic Safety & Disaster$28kHuman Services$22kYouth Development$13k

02FY2024 · 30 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2024

Under $10k22 grants · $65k
$10k–50k8 grants · $100k

$4,500

Median grant

States reached

$568k

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
RAINFOREST FOUNDATION-US	$20,000
ACLU WASHINGTON FOUNDATION	$20,000
AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL USA	$10,000
ELECTRONIC PRIVACY INFORMATION CENTER	$10,000
AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY	$10,000
NATIONAL ASSN OF FREE & CHARITABLE CLINICS	$10,000
FREE SPEECH TV	$10,000
NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL	$10,000
WORLD WILDLIFE FUND INTERNATIONAL	$5,000
OXFAM	$5,000
THE NATURE CONSERVANCY	$5,000
GREENPEACE FUND	$5,000
ENVIRONMENTAL INVESTIGATION AGENCY	$5,000
DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS USA	$5,000
ST JUDES CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL	$4,500

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 (FY20–24, $10k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 0% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants skew toward lower-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.

Where the work is directed

The same grants placed two ways: where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose sends the money.

About 9% of Sustainable Solutions Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked for a different county than the recipient’s own address.

Sustainable Solutions Foundationlessmore of its giving

Placed by recipient address · 5.3% directed abroad (not shown)

How this is measured

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 funder’s own 990 grant descriptions.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

98%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$865k · 40 repeat orgs$20k to everyone else

40 repeat relationships: 28 still active in FY2024, 12 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$865k

$10k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+14%

+121%

Still filing today

75%

100%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 94% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $10k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

InternationalEnvironmentHealthFood & NutritionHuman ServicesCommunity ImprovementOther

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

RF
RAINFOREST FOUNDATION INC
5× · 2020–2024 · $100k · revenue +5%
NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL INC
5× · 2020–2024 · $50k · revenue +26%
EP
ELECTRONIC PRIVACY INFORMATION CENTER
4× · 2021–2024 · $40k · revenue +4%

Funded once

ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND INCORPORATEDgraduated
one grant, 2020 · $10k · revenue +121%

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.

World Wildlife Fund Inc

Wwf's mission is to conserve nature and reduce the most pressing threats to the diversity of life on earth. (continued on schedule o)

Environment

Conservation International Foundation

Ci works to spotlight and secure the critical benefits that nature provides to humanity.

Environment

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

Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Foundation

To engage and catalyze global seafood supply chains in rebuilding depleted fish stocks and reducing the environmental impacts of fishing and fish farming.

Animals

Ocean Conservancy

Ocean conservancy unites science, people, and policy to protect our ocean, today and for generations to come.

Environment

Actionaid Usa

Actionaid is an international network building a just, equitable, and sustainable world in solidarity with communities on the frontlines of poverty and injustice. actionaid usa is the u.s. branch of actionaid international, which works in…

Social Science

The Global FoodBanking Network

To nourish the world's hungry through uniting and advancing food banks.

International

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

Rainforest Alliance Inc

RA works at the intersection of business, agriculture & forests to improve lives & protect nature by transforming how land is used, production of goods & consumer choices.

—

Rainforest Trust

Rainforest trust saves endangered wildlife and protects our planet by creating rainforest reserves through partnerships, community engagement, and donor support.

International

The Union of Concerned Scientists Inc

The union of concerned scientists puts rigorous, independent science into action, developing solutions and advocating for a healthy, safe, and just future.

International

Waterorg

Water.org's goal is to bring safe water and sanitation to the world through access to small, affordable loans.

International

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Environmental Defense Fund Incorporated; the most unlike its peers is Sequim Food Bank. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

05the grantee network

32 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

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 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 32 of the 43 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)

32/32

Grantees still filing

23/32

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$368,000Environment$257,500International$120,000Health$54,000Community Improvement$50,000Civil Rights$40,000Food & Nutrition$20,000

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.

Seattle FoundationWA12.7× affinity4 shared granteesties to 6 of 6Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Seattle Foundation · Network for Good · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · American Online Giving Foundation 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.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Sustainable Solutions Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Sustainable Solutions Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

0get no government money at all

8report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–50%

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.

05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to Sustainable Solutions Foundation?

Find your warmest path to Sustainable Solutions 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.

Play a game based on Sustainable Solutions’ 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