· Community foundation
The Community Foundation San Luis Obispo
To make a difference through philanthropic leadership.
What you funded, over time
Every grant clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 94 grants below total $5,792,964 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $6,543,297 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $750,333 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k15 grants · $109k
- $10k–50k37 grants · $804k
- $50k–250k40 grants · $4.4M
- $250k+2 grants · $528k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| SLO CLASSICAL ACADEMY | $273,677 |
| SAN LUIS OBISPO MUSEUM OF ART | $254,356 |
| PLANNED PARENTHOOD CALIFORNIA CENTRAL COAST | $235,000 |
| TRANSITIONS-MENTAL HEALTH ASSOCIATION | $213,535 |
| COMMUNITY ACTION PARTNERSHIP OF SAN LUIS OBISPO COUNTY INC | $202,330 |
| SAN LUIS OBISPO REPERTORY THEATRE | $191,500 |
| FOOD BANK COALITION OF SAN LUIS OBISPO COUNTY | $187,162 |
| FAMILY CARE NETWORK INC | $180,000 |
| CENTER FOR FAMILY STRENGTHENING | $172,200 |
| MOZART FESTIVAL ASSOCIATION DBA FESTIVAL MOZAIC | $170,000 |
| LUMINA ALLIANCE | $160,650 |
| CAL POLY STATE UNIVERSITY | $144,500 |
| PEOPLES' SELF-HELP HOUSING | $143,080 |
| COMMUNITY COUNSELING CENTER OF SAN LUIS OBISPO COUNTY | $142,776 |
| CAL POLY FOUNDATION | $137,500 |
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 (FY18–25, $455k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, 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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 16% of The Community Foundation San Luis Obispo’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another. Read by recipient address, 95% of the giving stays in CA; read by stated purpose it is 83% — less of the work is directed home than the recipients' locations suggest.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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 +40% since the first grant, against +19% for the ones you funded once.
159 repeat relationships — 74 still active in FY2025, 85 since wound down; 19 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, 89% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $635k 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
- MSMISSION SCHOOL MEMORIAL FOUNDATION6× · 2017–2024 · $2.2M · revenue +39%
- FBFOOD BANK COALITION OF SAN LUIS OBISPO COUNTY9× · 2017–2025 · $959k · revenue +68%
- THTRANSITIONSMENTAL HEALTH ASSOCIATION9× · 2017–2025 · $898k · revenue +68%
Funded once
- NCNEIGHBOR CHURCHone grant, 2022 · $500k
- TXTHETA XI FOUNDATIONone grant, 2017 · $150k · revenue +12%
- COCITY OF SAN LUIS OBISPOone grant, 2018 · $100k
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.
Save Oceanside Sand is a group of local activists dedicated to restoring and preserving the beaches of Oceanside, California. Working with local, regional, state, and federal authorities, our mission is to protect this vital resource by…
CWC is pursuing its mission of protecting and preserving coastal watersheds through a strategic focus on the lower San Lorenzo River, transforming the river into a treasured community asset and destination that Santa Cruz is proud of.
Immigrant legal services of the central coast (ilscc) provides immigration-related legal services and information to the immigrant community of the central coast region of california, primarily santa cruz, san benito, and monterey…
Independent nonpartisan newsroom serving Santa Cruz County, California we are all watching and engaged in our local government, our needs are addressed, democracy works better and our community is stronger.
CCODP aims to eliminate overdoses and other negative substance-related outcomes in the Tri-County communities and beyond by increasing awareness, reducing stigma, educating the public, improving access to community support services and…
To provide public benefit to the community of avila beach, san luis obispo county, california.
The mission of the santa barbara south coast chamber of commerce is to create a strong local economy, promote the community, provide business resources and networking opportunities and represent business to the government.
To conserve natural resources, agricultural land and open spaces for present and future generations.
Slo climate coalition's mission is to champion high-impact, regional climate solutions by bringing together community expertise, creativity, & resources.
The organization protects and enhances the local environment through education, advocacy and legal action.
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…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is El Camino Homeless Organization and the most unlike its peers is Corazon Latino. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 30 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) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 5% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.4% 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.
231 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. 231 of the 300 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
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
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 MISSION SCHOOL MEMORIAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SAN LUIS OBISPO MUSEUM OF ART ↗
- Who funds FOOD BANK COALITION OF SAN LUIS OBISPO COUNTY ↗
- Who funds TRANSITIONSMENTAL HEALTH ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds 5CITIES HOMELESS COALITION INC ↗
- Who funds LUMINA ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds SAN LUIS OBISPO CLASSICAL ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY COUNSELING CENTER OF SAN LUIS OBISPO COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds THE LAND CONSERVANCY OF SAN LUIS OBISPO COUNTY ↗
- Who funds SAN LUIS OBISPO REPERTORY THEATRE ↗
- Who funds PEOPLE'S SELF HELP HOUSING CORP ↗
- Who funds SAN LUIS OBISPO COUNTY CHILD ABUSE PREVENTION COUNCIL DBA CFSSLO ↗
- Who funds Community Action Partnership of San Luis Obispo County Inc ↗
- Who funds CAYUCOS LAND CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds PLANNED PARENTHOOD CALIFORNIA CENTRAL COAST ↗
- Who funds SLO NOOR FOUNDATION A NON-PROFIT CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds CALIFORNIA POLYTECHNIC STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Pacific Wildlife Care ↗
- Who funds FAMILY CARE NETWORK INC ↗
- Who funds CAL POLY CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds EL CAMINO HOMELESS ORGANIZATION ↗
- Who funds SAN LUIS OBISPO SYMPHONY INC ↗
- Who funds COURT APPOINTED SPECIAL ADVOCATES OF SAN LUIS OBISPO COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF THE CENTRAL COAST ↗
- Who funds Senior Nutrition Program of San Luis Obispo County ↗
- Who funds THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds 37TH DISTRICT BUYERS COALITION THE ↗
- Who funds WOODS HUMANE SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds MOZART FESTIVAL ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds CUESTA COLLEGE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SAN LUIS OBISPO CHILD DEVELOPMENT CENTER CHILD DEVELOPMENT RESOURCE CENTER ↗
- Who funds JACKS HELPING HAND INC ↗
- Who funds Central Coast Ag Network Inc AKA City Farm SLO ↗
- Who funds MORRO COAST AUDUBON SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF SAN LUIS OBISPO BOTANICAL GARDEN ↗
- Who funds TOLOSA CHILDREN'S DENTAL CENTER OF SAN LUIS OBISPO COUNTY ↗
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: Santa Barbara Foundation · Must · Harold J Miossi Charitable Trust · The Niner Foundation Inc · Hutton Foundation Dba Hutton Parker Foundation · Resnick Foundation · Dignity Health · The McCune Foundation · The Shanbrom Family Foundation · Hughes Charitable Foundation · Bull Henry W Foundation · The Henry Mayo Newhall 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 Community Foundation San Luis Obispo 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.
- Save the Children Federation Inc — 30% 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.