· Private foundation
The Cantus 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 $10k1 grant · $1k
- $10k–50k3 grants · $90k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CASPAR COMMUNITY CENTER | $30,000 |
| SAVE THE REDWOODS LEAGUE | $30,000 |
| MENDOCINO LAND TRUST | $30,000 |
| EILEEN HAWTHORNE FUND | $1,000 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 77% of your 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 +84% since the first grant, against +9% for the ones you funded once.
11 repeat relationships — 4 still active in FY2024, 7 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
- MLMendocino Land Trust8× · 2017–2024 · $278k · revenue +73%
- STSAVE THE REDWOODS LEAGUE6× · 2017–2024 · $220k · revenue +267%
- JFJPR FOUNDATION INC4× · 2019–2023 · $18k · revenue +10%
Funded once
- CRCANCER RESOURCE CENTERS OF MENDO COone grant, 2023 · $6k · revenue +9%
- KIKQED INCone grant, 2021 · $5k · revenue -6%
- WCWildlife Conservation Societygraduatedone grant, 2020 · $5k · revenue +57%
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 conserve lands for recreational, educational, ecological, agricultural, scenic & open space opportunities. We develop & maintain public access ways & trails to the ocean, rivers & other natural or scenic features along coastal Mendocino…
Fort Ross Conservancy (FRC) is the not-for-profit partner of the Russian River Sector, Sonoma/Mendocino District of California State Parks. FRC works to preserve the nature and culture of the Sonoma Coast for the benefit of the public.
California Coastkeeper Alliance unites Waterkeeper programs statewide to fight for swimmable, fishable, and drinkable waters for all Californians.
The purpose of the organization is to monitor, manage, and preserve conservation easements it stewards in northern california. the organization acquires conservation easements in land exhibiting important natural features to protect and…
We conserve the lands and waters of California's heartland.
Sustainable Conservation advances the collaborative stewardship of Californias land, air, and water for the benefit of nature and people. For over three decades, Sustainable Conservation has built coalitions of people with different…
The sequoia parks conservancy funds and enables projects and programs that protect, preserve, and provide access to the natural and cultural resources of sequoia and kings canyon national parks.
The Coastside Land Trust is dedicated to the preservation, protection and enhancement of the open space environment including the natural, scenic, recreational, cultural, historical, and agricultural resources of Half Moon Bay and the San…
To protect and nurture point lobos state natural reserve, to educate and inspire visitors to preserve its unique natural and cultural resources, and to strengthen the network of Carmel area state parks.
To promote understanding of the relations between people and the biosphere and to conserve, protect, and celebrate terrestrial, aquatic, and marine ecosystems of northern California and southern Oregon.
Channel Islands Restoration protects rare and endangered plants and animals by restoring habitat in sensitive and unique natural areas on the California Channel Islands and adjacent mainland. We educate a variety of groups about the value…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Community Foundation of Mendocino County and the most unlike its peers is Wildlife Conservation Society. 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 21 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 Mendocino Land Trust ↗
- Who funds SAVE THE REDWOODS LEAGUE ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF MENDOCINO COUNTY ↗
- Who funds EILEEN HAWTHORNE FUND INC ↗
- Who funds JPR FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Mendocino Coast Humane Society ↗
- Who funds Noyo Center For Marine Science ↗
- Who funds MENDOCINO COUNTY PUBLIC BROADCASTING ↗
- Who funds SOCIAL GOOD FUND INC ↗
- Who funds SYMPHONY OF THE REDWOODS ↗
- Who funds CANCER RESOURCE CENTERS OF MENDO CO ↗
- Who funds KQED INC ↗
- Who funds Wildlife Conservation Society ↗
- Who funds Friends of the Fort Bragg Library ↗
- Who funds Gloriana Opera Company ↗
- Who funds Point Cabrillo Lightkeepers Association ↗
- Who funds WILDCARE ↗
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: Community Foundation of Mendocino County · Tarbell Family Foundation · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile 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 The Cantus 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.