· Private foundation
The Columbia 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.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k6 grants · $18k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $30k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| BITTERROOT CHRISTIAN MINISTRIES INC | $18,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON | $12,000 |
| FRED HUTCHINSON CANCER RESEARCH | $3,000 |
| RONALD MCDONALD HOUSE | $3,000 |
| MALTBY FOOD BANK | $3,000 |
| PLANNED PARENTHOOD | $3,000 |
| SEATTLE CHILDRENS HOSPITAL FOUNDATION | $3,000 |
| LAKESIDE SCHOOL | $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, $18k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, 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.
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.
12 repeat relationships — 8 still active in FY2025, 4 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 FY2025, 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
- SCSeattle Children's Foundation6× · 2020–2025 · $18k · revenue +140%
- LSLAKESIDE SCHOOL6× · 2020–2025 · $18k · revenue +126%
- FHFRED HUTCHINSON CANCER RESEARCH CENTER6× · 2020–2025 · $16k · revenue +11%
Funded once
- SPSeattle Police Foundationgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $4k · revenue +33%
TECHNOLOGY ACCESS FOUNDATIONone grant, 2024 · $3k · revenue -36%- LBLITTLE BITS THERAPEUTIC RIDING ASSOCone grant, 2020 · $3k
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.
Seattle humane promotes the human-animal bond by saving and serving pets in need, regardless of age, ability, circumstance or geography.
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.
Seattle international foundation (sif) champions equity and rule of law in central america through good governance and a robust civil society. sif works with other donors to the region to increase philanthropy and to promote collaboration,…
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.…
Seattle animal foundation (saf) is on a mission to make sure every animal finds the love, care, and forever home they deserve. since 2010, we have been a not-for-profit organization raising critical funds to support life-saving programs,…
Acting as a catalyst, connector, and knowledge facilitator to build racially equitable, accessible, inclusive pierce county where all people can shape and activate the systems that affect our communities, now and for generations to come.
Protecting our shrub-steppe and connecting people to this vanishing landscape.
The Seattle Architecture Foundation connects people to the architecture, design, and history of Seattle. We believe the more you engage with design, the more you feel connected to your changing city. As a volunteer driven organization, we…
The Foundation envisions a thriving community created through meaningful philanthropy, inclusive communication, and the willingness to explore possibilities together.
Our mission is to provide food and key resources to help our neighbors and community thrive. we lead the effort to feed, educated and advocate ending hunger in the snoqualmie valley and beyond.
Highline Medical Center Foundation brings our community together to support exceptional health care, close to home, for all who need it. Thanks to the generosity of our caring neighbors and friends, we help ensure that St Anne Hospital has…
Seattle foundation's mission is to ignite powerful and rewarding philanthropy to make greater seattle a stronger, more vibrant community for all.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Seattle Children's Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Bitterroot Christian Ministries % Sue Jones. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
13 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. 13 of the 18 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 Bitterroot Christian Ministries % Sue Jones ↗
- Who funds MALTBY FOOD BANK ↗
- Who funds Seattle Children's Foundation ↗
- Who funds LAKESIDE SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds FRED HUTCHINSON CANCER RESEARCH CENTER ↗
- Who funds DESERT COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds KINDERING CENTER ↗
- Who funds PROJECT ORBIS INTERNATIONAL INC ↗
- Who funds Seattle Police Foundation ↗
- Who funds TECHNOLOGY ACCESS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds PASADO'S SAFE HAVEN ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN FRIENDS OF OUR ARMED FORCES WALT VANBENTHYSEN ↗
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: Seattle Foundation · Puget Sound Energy Foundation · Garneau Nicon Family Foundation · The Norcliffe Foundation · United Way of King County · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Enterprise Holdings Foundation · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · American Endowment Foundation · Charities Aid Foundation America · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program
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 Columbia 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 Columbia Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Columbia 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.