· Private foundation
The Adams 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.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| HERMOSA BEACH EDUCATION FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| THE AINSWORTH FOUNDATION | $2,500 |
| BOSIA SCHOLARSHIP FUND | $2,400 |
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 (FY17–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 49% of your dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants spread fairly evenly across need levels.
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 +36% since the first grant, against +9% for the ones you funded once.
12 repeat relationships — 3 still active in FY2024, 9 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
COLUMBIA LAND TRUST4× · 2017–2021 · $187k · revenue +70%- PMPITTOCK MANSION SOCIETY2× · 2017–2021 · $86k · revenue +41%
- HBHERMOSA BEACH EDUCATION FOUNDATION5× · 2020–2024 · $25k · revenue +36%
Funded once
- BRBOISE RESCUE MISSIONone grant, 2023 · $25k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2022 · $5k
- HBHermosa Beach Education Foundationone grant, 2019 · $5k
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 Mission of the Foundation for Portland Public Schools is to be a catalyst for increased educational opportunities, achievement, and equity for all Portland Public Schools students and staff.
Portland Public Library is a welcoming cultural center that brings people together and connects them with trusted resources, ideas, experiences, and information. We build a stronger community by inspiring learning, creativity, and…
Support orcas island public school district.
A diverse and sustainable learning community dedicated to discovery and excellence in teaching, scholarship and practice, pacific university inspires students to think, care, create and pursue justice in our world.
The mission of the fund for portland public schools (fund for pps) is to support portland public schools, the largest district in the state of oregon serving 44,000 students, by building a robust generosity network, stewarding strategic…
The Organization's mission is to provide support to enhance, implement and sustain the programs and projects of the Padilla Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve, including educational programs, scientific research, interpretive programs…
A community where anyone can thrive through education. every person deserves the opportunity and support necessary to achieve their educational goals. (continued on schedule o)we actively seek out and invest in prospective and current…
To provide & promote services to enhance members' abilities to conduct their businesses with integrity & competency with due consideration for the promotion & preservation of a favorable environment for brokerage operations & the right to…
Spruce Street School is a nurturing educational community that instills in a broad range of children the social, emotional, and intellectual skills for lifelong participation in a diverse society. We offer kindergarten through fifth grade…
The Museum inspires wonder, discovery, and stewardship of our natural world. The Museum is a catalyst for conservation and a valued learning resource, facilitating active scientific and historical inquiry for all ages.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Portland State University Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Friends of West Sylvan. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
17 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. 17 of the 27 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 COLUMBIA LAND TRUST ↗
- Who funds PITTOCK MANSION SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds AINSWORTH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds HERMOSA BEACH EDUCATION FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Sunstone Montessori School Inc ↗
- Who funds METAVIVOR RESEARCH AND SUPPORT INC ↗
- Who funds Neskowin Valley School ↗
- Who funds MINDS MATTER OF PORTLAND INC ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF WEST SYLVAN ↗
- Who funds THE BRIDLEMILE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds PORTLAND PARKS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE PEREGRINE FUND INC ↗
- Who funds BAINBRIDGE-OMETEPE SISTER ISLANDS ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds PORTLAND STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Deschutes Land Trust ↗
- Who funds WILLIAM TEMPLE HOUSE ↗
- Who funds THE LIBRARY 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: The Oregon Community Foundation · Rose E Tucker Charitable Trust · Maybelle Clark Macdonald Fund · The Healy Foundation · The Jackson Foundation · Juan Young Trust · Meyer Memorial Trust · The Autzen Foundation · Marie Lamfrom Charitable Foundation Trust · Ibm International Foundation · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · The Blackbaud Giving Fund
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 The Adams 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, a single department, or state — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Deschutes Land Trust — 46% of income from government
- William Temple House — 0% of income from government
- Portland State University Foundation — 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 The Adams Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Adams 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.