· Private foundation
Sylvester Meister 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 $10k2 grants · $6k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $14k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| X ACADEMY | $14,000 |
| X ACADEMY | $5,000 |
| COMMUNITY FOUNDATION FOR MONTEREY | $1,200 |
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 (FY17–22, $3k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 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.
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 +179% since the first grant, against +34% for the ones you funded once.
17 repeat relationships — 1 still active in FY2024, 16 since wound down.
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, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
- XAX ACADEMY7× · 2017–2024 · $77k · revenue +461%
- SHSIENA HOUSE MATERNITY HOME OF SANTA CRUZ COUNTY2× · 2017–2019 · $2k · revenue +171%
MONTEREY BAY AQUARIUM FOUNDATION2× · 2017–2023 · $2k · revenue +105%
Funded once
- HCHOLY CROSSone grant, 2019 · $1k
- MMSRIone grant, 2019 · $1k
- SLSIMONS LAUFER MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES INSTITUTEone grant, 2022 · $1k · revenue -11%
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.
To serve our community by providing direct access to sustainable sources of fresh produce and other unique foods, and provide education about food issues, both local and beyond.
Independent nonpartisan newsroom serving Santa Cruz County, California we are all watching and engaged in our local government, our needs are addressed, democracy works better and our community is stronger.
Silicon Valley Community Foundation (SVCF) connects people, ideas and resources to ensure equity and opportunity for all.
A long-term, strategic alliance of labor, community, faith-based, and student organizations working together to build greater economic power for workers and community members through employee rights at work and access to good jobs,…
To promote philanthropy to make santa cruz county a better place to live, now and in the future.we bring together people, ideas, and resources to inspire philanthropy and accomplish great things.
To improve the economic health and quality of life in the monterey bay region.
The primary and specific purpose for which the said corporation is formed is to empower individuals, businesses and communities to take actions today that achieve environmental and economic sustainability. The activities of the corporation…
To stimulate action to make San Mateo County more sustainable on economic, environmental, and social equity issues through empowering information and advocacy.
Second harvest food bank's mission is to end hunger and malnutrition by educating and involving the community.
Foodwise grows thriving communities through the power and joy of local food. We envision a world that nourishes all people, local economies, and the living earth.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Community Foundation for Monterey County and the most unlike its peers is Santa Cruz Ballet Theatre. 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 36 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 11% 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.
32 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. 32 of the 58 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 X ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds SIENA HOUSE MATERNITY HOME OF SANTA CRUZ COUNTY ↗
- Who funds MONTEREY BAY AQUARIUM FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FOUNDATION FOR MONTEREY COUNTY ↗
- Who funds SANTA CRUZ BALLET THEATRE ↗
- Who funds SIMONS LAUFER MATHEMATICAL SCIENCES INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds LIVE LIKE COCO FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR RURAL AFFAIRS ↗
- Who funds TEEN KITCHEN PROJECT ↗
- Who funds HOUSING MATTERS ↗
- Who funds FOOD BANK FOR MONTEREY COUNTY ↗
- Who funds HOMELESS GARDEN PROJECT ↗
- Who funds VENTURES ↗
- Who funds Life Lab Science Program ↗
- Who funds SANTA CRUZ MONTESSORI SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds UNITED FARM WORKERS OF AMERICA ↗
- Who funds SENDEROS ↗
- Who funds ROMERO INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds MONTEREY BAY FISHERIES TRUST ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
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: Monterey Peninsula Foundation · Community Foundation Santa Cruz County · The David and Lucile Packard Foundation · Kaiser Foundation Hospitals · Newman's Own Foundation · Dignity Health · Clif Family Foundation · Caroline's Nonprofit Thrift Shop · Volunteer Centers of Santa Cruz County · Community Foundation for San Benito County · Tides Foundation · Silicon Valley Community 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 Sylvester Meister 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 Sylvester Meister Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Sylvester Meister 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.