· Private foundation
The Cielo Foundation
Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
Read this first · the figures below need context
97% of The Cielo Foundation’s FY2024 grant dollars went to Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2024 names 3 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2019–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k29 grants · $108k
- $10k–50k3 grants · $74k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $54k
- $250k+1 grant · $8.5M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| FIDELITY CHARITABLE GIFT FUND | $8,525,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $53,800 |
| CDL SCHOOL - UNITED STATES TRUCK DRIVING | $39,805 |
| ACCENT BEAUTY | $23,250 |
| GALS INC | $10,861 |
| Individual grant recipient | $9,295 |
| SCHOOL OF BOTANICAL & MEDICAL AESTHETICS | $8,590 |
| IBMC COLLEGE | $8,590 |
| ATI HOME IMPROVEMENT | $7,860 |
| I HAVE A DREAM | $7,348 |
| FRONT RANGE COMMUNITY COLLEGE | $7,207 |
| Individual grant recipient | $6,980 |
| EMILY GRIFFITH TECHNICAL COLLEGE | $6,908 |
| LASH & CO LASH COMPANY EDUCATION | $6,760 |
| CORNELL UNIVERSITY | $5,460 |
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 (FY19–20, $17k) land where the poverty rate runs at 8%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 0% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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 +458% since the first grant, against +22% for the ones you funded once.
18 repeat relationships — 10 still active in FY2024, 8 since wound down; 23 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 44% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $132k 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
- ICIBMC COLLEGE6× · 2019–2024 · $216k
- TGTECHTONIC GROUP INC3× · 2019–2021 · $120k
- IGIndividual grant recipient2× · 2023–2024 · $62k
Funded once
- WMWEILL MEDICAL COLLEGE OF CORNELLone grant, 2020 · $250k
- MFMAYORS FUND TO ADVANCE NYCone grant, 2020 · $150k
- UOUNIVERSITY OF COLORADO FOUNDATIONgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $100k · revenue +76%
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 common application is a not-for-profit membership organization of over 1,100 colleges and universities across the globe committed to access, equity, and integrity in the college admission process. every year, over 1.5 million students…
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
Golden gate university prepares individuals to lead and serve by providing high quality, practice-based educational programs in law, taxation, business and related professions - as a nonprofit institution - in an innovative and challenging…
See schedule o colorado state university foundation assists in the promotion, development, and enhancement of facilities and educational programs and enhancements of faculty, students, and alumni of colorado state university (csu). this is…
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.
We provide exemplary interdisciplinary programs for a community of scholar-practitioners within a distributed learning model grounded in student-driven inquiry and leading to enhanced knowledge.
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 organization's primary exempt purpose is to provide access to and conduct activities in furtherance of higher education.
Benedictine University is an inclusive academic community dedicated to teaching and learning, scholarship and service, truth and justice, as inspired by the Catholic intellectual tradition, the social teaching of the Church, and the…
Columbia college improves lives by providing quality education to both traditional and nontraditional students, helping them achieve their true potential.
As a christian university, we provide education and research opportunities preparing global leaders to partner with local communities.
Rooted in the liberal arts & sciences & lutheran expression of the christian faith, & is committed to offering a challenging education that develops qualities of mind, spirit, & body necessary for a rewarding life of leadership & service…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Boulder Community Health Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Beyond the Boroughs Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
11 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. 11 of the 82 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.
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: Rose Community Foundation · The Denver Foundation · Colorado Gives Foundation · Mile High United Way 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 Cielo 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.