· Private foundation
Teach a Man to Fish 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 · $13k
- $10k–50k7 grants · $80k
- $250k+2 grants · $8.4M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Walking Softer | $8,065,650 |
| WALKING SOFTER | $300,000 |
| ST MARY'S SCHOOL | $20,100 |
| WIND RIVER TRIBAL BUFFALO INITIATIVE | $10,000 |
| CLIMATE JUSTICE ALLIANCE | $10,000 |
| AFRICAN WILDLIFE FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| Hole Food Rescue Corp | $10,000 |
| Great Old Broads for Wilderness | $10,000 |
| MIRACLES FOR KIDS INC | $10,000 |
| AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY | $7,500 |
| HOSPITAL OF ST JOHNS | $5,000 |
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 (FY17–24, $1.1M) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 86% 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 6% of Teach a Man to Fish 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.
58 repeat relationships — 4 still active in FY2024, 54 since wound down; 6 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 99% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $63k 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
- WSWALKING SOFTER4× · 2021–2024 · $22M · revenue +282% · 100% of their budget
- PCPROSTATE CANCER FOUNDATION3× · 2017–2019 · $1.9M · revenue +57%
- DIDEPLOYUS INC3× · 2020–2023 · $550k · revenue +672%
Funded once
- MSMT SAINT JOSEPH COLLEGEone grant, 2018 · $536k
- ECECOLOGY CENTERgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $500k · revenue +103%
- AQAugies Quest to Cure ALS Incone grant, 2021 · $275k · revenue -12%
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.
The union of concerned scientists puts rigorous, independent science into action, developing solutions and advocating for a healthy, safe, and just future.
The purpose of the water research foundation (wrf) is a definitive research organization to advance the science of all things water to better meet the evolving needs of its subscribers and the water sector. to engage exclusively in…
Wri is committed to creating change that improves people's lives and ensures the natural world can thrive. (see schedule o)wri's bold vision requires a formula for success we call "count it. change it. scale it.":- count it: our work is…
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…
To launch breakthrough climate mitigation efforts by identifying, supporting, and unleashing innovative leaders with transformative strategies.
Environment next supports individuals, nonprofits and businesses around the world on solutions to complex climate issues. we provide leadership, outreach and communication support, grants, and investments to empower leaders and their ideas…
Inspired by the gift of donation from our communities, allosource responsibly provides innovative cellular and tissue allografts to advance patient healing.
Rainforest trust saves endangered wildlife and protects our planet by creating rainforest reserves through partnerships, community engagement, and donor support.
To develop and promote a carbon dividends framework - based on carbon fees whose revenues are rebated to citizens through dividends - as the most cost-effective, equitable, and politically viable climate solution.
Water.org's goal is to bring safe water and sanitation to the world through access to small, affordable loans.
To drive transformational adaptation to protect communities across the country from higher seas, stronger storms, and more frequent flooding.
To research and develop healthy climate solutions comprising global food security, ecosystem regeneration and carbon balance in seas and soils.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (See) Inc and the most unlike its peers is Walking Softer. 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 23 years old; the field is 14. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 25% startups (under 5 years old) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 67% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 1% 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.
173 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. 173 of the 231 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
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
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 WALKING SOFTER ↗
- Who funds PROSTATE CANCER FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE GEORGE W BUSH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds DEPLOYUS INC ↗
- Who funds ECOLOGY CENTER ↗
- Who funds Orphaned Starfish Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds LIFE CAMPS INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds ALS THERAPY DEVELOPMENT FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds University of Santa Monica ↗
- Who funds Stand Together Foundation ↗
- Who funds Augies Quest to Cure ALS Inc ↗
- Who funds PHILANTHROPIC IMPACT FUND ↗
- Who funds THE CRAIG SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds SCHOLARS' HOPE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds STARS AND STRIPES CHILDREN'S FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds NEW VENTURE FUND ↗
- Who funds CITIZENS FOR RESPONSIBLE ENERGY SOLUTIONS INC ↗
- Who funds One22 Inc ↗
- Who funds PROTECT OUR WINTERS ↗
- Who funds JACKSON HOLE LAND TRUST ↗
- Who funds DOLPHINS CYCLING CHALLENGE INC ↗
- Who funds Upcycled Food Foundation ↗
- Who funds LEAD WITH LOVE INC ↗
- Who funds SHAREWELL ↗
- Who funds SEPSIS ALLIANCE INC ↗
- Who funds LETTING EVERYONE ACHIEVE DREAMS ↗
- Who funds SUSTAINABLE MARKETS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE COUNCIL ON STRATEGIC RISKS ↗
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: Orange County Community Foundation · Community Foundation of Jackson Hole · Silicon Valley Community Foundation · Patagoniaorg · Argyros Family Foundation · Samueli Foundation · Speyer Family Foundation · The David Rockefeller Fund Inc · Edwards Lifesciences Foundation · Impactassetsinc · The Devto Support Foundation · Sempra 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 Teach a Man to Fish 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.
- Elizabeth W Murphey School Inc — 85% of income from government
- Mobility International Usa — 33% of income from government
- Als Therapy Development Foundation Inc — 8% of income from government
- Shatterproof a Nonprofit Corporation — 2% of income from government
- Winchester Hospital — 1% of income from government
- Pan-Massachusetts Challenge Inc — 0% 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Teach a Man to Fish Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Teach a Man to Fish 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.