· Private foundation
The Ciel 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.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Bellingham Unitarian Fellowship | $1,580 |
| Immigrant Resources Immediate Suppo | $500 |
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 (FY20–24, $550) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 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.
32 repeat relationships — 1 still active in FY2025, 31 since wound down; 1 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, 76% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $500 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
- IFINSTITUTE FOR WASHINGTONS FUTURE2× · 2020–2021 · $1k · revenue +11%
- ATAlternatives to Hunger Bellingham Food Bank5× · 2020–2025 · $500 · revenue +48%
- RSRE SOURCES5× · 2020–2025 · $400 · revenue +33%
Funded once
- AFAMERICAN FRIENDS SERVICE COMMITTEE2× · 2024–2025 · $1k
AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION FOUNDATION INCgraduated2× · 2024–2025 · $1k · revenue +66%- IGIndividual grant recipient2× · 2024–2025 · $100
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.
Fsc i&p promotes environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial, and economically viable management of the world's forests. this mission aligns with the forest stewardship council (fsc), its network of offices, and other organizations.…
Rainforest trust saves endangered wildlife and protects our planet by creating rainforest reserves through partnerships, community engagement, and donor support.
Washington wild protects and restores wild lands and waters in washington state through advocacy, education and civic engagement.
Creating a greener, healthier, more equitable, and better Washington for all through community outreach, network building, and advocacy for conservation and outdoor recreation funding.
Protecting our shrub-steppe and connecting people to this vanishing landscape.
Western rivers conservancy's mission is to protect outstanding river ecosystems in the western united states. continued on schedule o.we acquire land to conserve critical habitat, provide public access for compatible use and enjoyment, and…
To cultivate leaders and community partnerships to advance environmental justice.
Connect conservationists and supporters, deploy resources to the field, provide conservationists with tools and support they need to succeed.
The NW Energy Coalition is an alliance of over 100 environmental, civic, and human service organizations, utilities, and businesses in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, and British Columbia, plus many individual members. The NW Energy…
Oregon agricultural trust partners with farmers and ranchers to protect agricultural lands for the benefit of oregons economy, communities, and landscapes.
The Coast Fork Willamette Watershed Council is a local nonprofit organization that strives to enhance and restore habitat for fish and wildlife our community and for future generations. Our Board of Directors consists of seven members with…
To drive transformational adaptation to protect communities across the country from higher seas, stronger storms, and more frequent flooding.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Amnesty International of the Usa Inc and the most unlike its peers is Homesnow. 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 41 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 21% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% lost their exemption, against 12% 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.
27 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. 27 of the 47 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 INSTITUTE FOR WASHINGTONS FUTURE ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Alternatives to Hunger Bellingham Food Bank ↗
- Who funds RE SOURCES ↗
- Who funds OPPORTUNITY COUNCIL ↗
- Who funds WHATCOM HUMANE SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds WHATCOM LAND TRUST ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds WASHINGTON TRAILS ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds ANTIOCH COLLEGE CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds Interfaith Coalition of Whatcom County ↗
- Who funds CONSERVATION INTERNATIONAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds HUMANE FARMING ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds NOOKSACK SALMON ENHANCEMENT ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds WILD WHATCOM ↗
- Who funds HEIFER PROJECT INTERNATIONAL ↗
- Who funds KULSHAN COMMUNITY LAND TRUST ↗
- Who funds ANIMALS AS NATURAL THERAPY ↗
- Who funds GREENPEACE FUND INC ↗
- Who funds CEDAR TREE MONTESSORI SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL OF THE USA INC ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds American National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches ↗
- Who funds HOMESNOW ↗
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: Whatcom Community Foundation · The Norcliffe Foundation · Puget Sound Energy Foundation · The Dudley Foundation · Mary H Storer Foundation · Chuckanut Health Foundation · First Fed Foundation · Lucky Seven Foundation · Seattle Foundation · Mount Baker Foundation · Riverstyx Foundation · PeaceHealth
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 Ciel 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to The Ciel Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Ciel 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.