How much does The Behnke Foundation give?

The Behnke Foundation reported 11 grants totaling $333,071 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 10 and 15 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does The Behnke Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Arts & Culture (89%), Health (4%), Housing & Shelter (4%).

Who are The Behnke Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: Fortissimo ($1.4M), Wellspring Family Services ($59k), Skidmore College ($22k).

Does The Behnke Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 27% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does The Behnke 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 The Behnke Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Puget Sound Energy Foundation, Seattle Foundation, The Norcliffe Foundation.

Where is The Behnke Foundation based?

The Behnke Foundation is based in WA.

The Behnke Foundation

The Behnke Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

The Behnke Foundation

Its FY2025 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

$333k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$307k

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, FY2017 to 2025.

Arts & Culture$1.4MHealth$65kHousing & Shelter$59kEducation$27kAnimals$15kHuman Services$10kPhilanthropy$4kEnvironment$1kOther$0

02FY2025 · 11 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k10 grants · $26k
$250k+1 grant · $307k

$2,500

Median grant

States reached

$2.0M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
CORNISH COLLEGE OF THE ARTS	$307,202
WELLSPRING FAMILY SERVICES	$5,869
FIFTH AVENUE THEATER	$5,500
OVERLAKE MEDICAL CENTER	$3,000
THE LISA MCGRAW FIGURE SKATING FOUNDATION	$2,500
SKIDMORE COLLEGE	$2,500
PLANNED PARENTHOOD GRANT NW	$2,000
Individual grant recipient	$1,500
LITTLE BIT THERAPECUTIC RIDING CENTER	$1,500
THE COMMUNITY LIBRARY	$1,000
UNIVERSITY OF SAN DIEGO	$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 (FY17–25, $59k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-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.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

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

99%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$1.6M · 23 repeat orgs$18k to everyone else

23 repeat relationships: 10 still active in FY2025, 13 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$1.6M

$16k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+27%

+31%

Still filing today

57%

71%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 99% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

HealthArts & CultureHuman ServicesAnimalsRecreation & SportsEducationOther

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

SC
SKIDMORE COLLEGE
8× · 2017–2025 · $22k · revenue +34%
FH
FRED HUTCHINSON CANCER RESEARCH CENTER
7× · 2017–2023 · $18k · revenue +27%
WP
WOODLAND PARK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY
8× · 2017–2024 · $7k · revenue +89%

Funded once

IG
Individual grant recipient
one grant, 2018 · $7k
C
CHILDHAVENgraduated
one grant, 2018 · $5k · revenue +31%
OM
OVERLAKE MEDICAL CENTER & CLINICSgraduated
one grant, 2021 · $2k · revenue +31%

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.

Seattle Biomedical Research Institute

We conduct fundamental infectious disease research to generate critical new knowledge about pathogens and their interactions with see schedule o for continuationhumans to enable the discovery and development of novel interventions,…

—

Seattle Children's Healthcare System

Seattle children's healthcare system (schs) is engaged in activities relating to the provision of health care services to infants, children, and adolescents, delivering and improving the delivery and the quality of those services through…

Health

Seattle Symphony Orchestra Inc

To present symphonic music of the highest quality in a distinctive way for the cultural enrichment, education, engagement and enjoyment of the people of our community.

Arts & Culture

Oregon Shakespeare Festival Association Inc

The oregon shakespeare festival creates world-class theater, revealing our collective humanity through illuminating interpretations of new and classic plays, and inspiring a love of our art form for current and future generations.

Arts & Culture

University Cooperative School

We take a joyful, community-oriented approach to raising engaged citizens, deep learners, and brave adventurers with the skills, creativity, and heart needed to better the world.

—

The Humane Society for Seattleking County

Seattle humane promotes the human-animal bond by saving and serving pets in need, regardless of age, ability, circumstance or geography.

Animals

Seattle Children's Guild Association

Seattle children's guild association advocates for seattle children's hospital through volunteer, philanthropic and community endeavors to ensure hope, excellent care and advanced cures for children.

—

The Seattle Academy of Arts & Sciences

Seattle academy is a dynamic community that challenges students to question, imagine, and create in order to contribute to a changing world.

Education

Siff

Siff is a seattle-based 501(c)(3) arts nonprofit dedicated to the creation of vibrant experiences and spaces that champion film discovery and arts education.

Youth Development

Western University of Health Sciences

To produce, in a humanistic tradition, health care professionals and biomedical knowledge that will enhance and extend the quality of life in our communities.

—

The University of Puget Sound

University of puget sound, as a community of learning, maintains a strong commitment to teaching excellence, scholarly engagement, and fruitful student-faculty interaction. the mission of the university is to develop in its students'…

Education

Point Park University

Provides innovative education in a dynamic urban setting. dedicated to academic excellence and community engagement,we prepare students of diverse backgrounds with the knowledge, skill,and experience to lead meaningful lives as informed…

—

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Seattle Children's Hospital; the most unlike its peers is Lisa Mcgraw Figure Skating Fdn. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

04the grantee network

25 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. 25 of the 38 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)

23/25

Grantees still filing

17/25

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$1,506,524Human Services$58,709Education$22,250Health$14,300Animals$10,750Arts & Culture$4,775Philanthropy$3,500Recreation & Sports$3,250

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.

Puget Sound Energy FoundationDE21.5× affinity8 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Puget Sound Energy Foundation · Seattle Foundation · The Norcliffe Foundation · Ash Family Foundation · Grousemont Foundation · Garneau Nicon Family Foundation · Moccasin Lake Foundation · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc · United Way of King County · M J Murdock Charitable Trust · Mightycause Charitable Foundation · Baird Foundation Inc

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 The Behnke Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Behnke Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

1get no government money at all

7report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

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 The Behnke Foundation?

Find your warmest path to The Behnke 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 Behnke’s 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