· Private foundation
The Cheng Family Charitable Trust
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.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k1 grant · $3k
- $10k–50k3 grants · $58k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $265k
- $250k+2 grants · $745k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Dematha Catholic High School | $495,087 |
| Gay and Sober | $250,000 |
| Maryland Food Bank | $215,200 |
| OMF International | $50,000 |
| Propublica | $27,791 |
| We Are One Alliance CO MizMaryland INC | $20,000 |
| DC Youth Orchestra Program | $10,068 |
| Society For Science | $3,000 |
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 (FY20–25, $65k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 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.
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.
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 +75% since the first grant, against +5% for the ones you funded once.
10 repeat relationships — 6 still active in FY2025, 4 since wound down; 2 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (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 FY2025, 98% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $23k 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
- TMTHE MARYLAND FOOD BANK INC6× · 2020–2025 · $1.1M · revenue +18%
DC YOUTH ORCHESTRA PROGRAM6× · 2019–2025 · $491k · revenue +75%- GSGAY & SOBER INC2× · 2024–2025 · $270k · revenue +79%
Funded once
- FPFOCUSING PHILANTHROPY INCone grant, 2019 · $107k · revenue +15%
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2019 · $90k
- MOMEALS ON WHEELS MDone grant, 2020 · $65k
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 mit is to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century.
The foreign policy research institute (frpi) is dedicated to producing the highest quality scholarship and nonpartisan policy analysis focused on crucial foreign policy and national security challenges facing the united states. we educate…
The peterson institute for international economics (piie) is an independent nonprofit, nonpartisan research organization dedicated to strengthening prosperity and human welfare in the global economy through expert analysis and practical…
The open markets institute works to help people relearn how to use competition policy to build stronger democracies, more just and equitable societies, more innovative and sustainable economies, and a more secure and peaceful world.
Organization mission the observer research foundation america orf america is an independent, non-partisan, and nonprofit organization in washington dc dedicated to addressing policy challenges facing the united states, india, and their…
Our mission is to invest in and accelerate the development of the most promising future leaders in biomedical research with global impact.
Advance science, engineering, and innovation throughout the world for the benefit of all. the world's largest multidisciplinary scientific society and a leading publisher of cutting-edge research through its science family of journals,…
The primary mission of furman as a liberal arts institution is to provide a distinctive education in fine arts, humanities, social sciences, mathematics and the sciences, as well as selected professional disciplines.
Provide post-secondary education of excellence.
Undergraduate, graduate, and professional education and research across a broad array of academic domains.
Organization's mission: boston university is an international, comprehensive, private research university, committed to educating students to be reflective, resourceful individuals ready to live, adapt, and lead in an interconnected world.…
The primary exempt purpose of the mitre corporation is to conduct scientific research activities in the public interest that ensure the safety and security of the united states, enabling solutions and decisions related to complex…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Focusing Philanthropy Inc and the most unlike its peers is Gay & Sober Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
16 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. 16 of the 26 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 THE MARYLAND FOOD BANK INC ↗
- Who funds DC YOUTH ORCHESTRA PROGRAM ↗
- Who funds GAY & SOBER INC ↗
- Who funds FOCUSING PHILANTHROPY INC ↗
- Who funds The End Fund Inc ↗
- Who funds PRO PUBLICA INC ↗
- Who funds Lifeforce in Later Years Inc ↗
- Who funds MIZMARYLAND INC ↗
- Who funds HIAS INC ↗
- Who funds The Trustees of Princeton University ↗
- Who funds REAL ATLANTA CF INC ↗
- Who funds HAWAII COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Tinogona Foundation ↗
- Who funds SOCIETY FOR SCIENCE & THE PUBLIC ↗
- Who funds UYGHUR HUMAN RIGHTS PROJECT ↗
- Who funds BARNARD COLLEGE ↗
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: American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · 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 Cheng Family Charitable Trust 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.
- Hias Inc — 88% of income from government
- The Trustees of Princeton University — 11% of income from government
- The Maryland Food Bank Inc — 11% 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 Cheng Family Charitable Trust?
Find your warmest path to The Cheng Family Charitable Trust 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.