· Private foundation
The Daniel and Karen Berman 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.
Read this first · the figures below need context
76% of The Daniel and Karen Berman Foundation’s FY2025 grant dollars went to Schwab Charitable Fund, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2025 names 11 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2020, the last year The Daniel and Karen Berman Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 8 organizations, $52k. It is dated, not current.
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 FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2020
- Under $10k19 grants · $32k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $20k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| FOOD BANK OF CENTRAL & EASTERN NORTH CAROLINA INC | $10,000 |
| URBAN MINISTRIES OF DURHAM INC | $10,000 |
| DUKE UNIVERSITY | $5,000 |
| EAST DURHAM CHILDRENS INITIATIVE | $2,500 |
| DURHAM-CHAPEL HILL JEWISH FEDERATION | $2,500 |
| JUDEA REFORM CONGREGATION | $2,500 |
| DURHAM-CHAPEL HILL JEWISH FEDERATION | $2,500 |
| DURHAM-CHAPEL HILL JEWISH FEDERATION | $2,500 |
| DURHAM-CHAPEL HILL JEWISH FEDERATION | $2,500 |
| DURHAM-CHAPEL HILL JEWISH FEDERATION | $2,500 |
| JUDEA REFORM CONGREGATION | $2,385 |
| DURHAM-CHAPEL HILL JEWISH FEDERATION | $1,000 |
| DUKE UNIVERSITY | $1,000 |
| DURHAM-CHAPEL HILL JEWISH FEDERATION | $1,000 |
| DURHAM-CHAPEL HILL JEWISH FEDERATION | $1,000 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 92% of your 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.
11 repeat relationships — 8 still active in FY2020, 3 since wound down; 5 grantees were first funded in FY2020 (too recent to call). Read against FY2020, the last year this funder named its own grantees directly; its giving has since run through a sponsor, which reports no donor behind each grant.
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, 94% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $4k 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
FOOD BANK OF CENTRAL & EASTERN NC INC8× · 2018–2025 · $65k · revenue +98%
Urban Ministries of Durham Inc8× · 2018–2025 · $55k · revenue +39%
Carolina Theatre of Durham Inc5× · 2021–2025 · $45k · revenue +351%
Funded once
- ITISRAEL TENNIS CENTERS FOUNDATION INCgraduatedone grant, 2018 · $2k · revenue +80%
- UOUNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL HILLone grant, 2017 · $1k
- DADURHAM ACADEMY INCgraduatedone grant, 2018 · $500 · revenue +52%
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 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.
At unc health foundation, we inspire philanthropic support for unc health and unc school of medicine that transforms healthcare and provides hope to the people of north carolina and communities around the world.
The organization's mission is to be the first and best source of independent news analysis about the duke community and to develop outstanding student leaders through journalism.
Provide relevant educational and entertaining opportunities within the region that exceed customer expectations, while preserving our community's vibrant cultural history.
Northeast college of health sciences (the college) is committed to academic excellence, leadership, and professional best practices in the health sciences.
Community school of davidson believes that every student can and will succeed in ways that reflect his or her own aptitudes and interests. our mission is to use the principles of "the basis school" to provide an optimum environment for…
Our mission is to empower and equip first-generation college students in durham public schools, their families, and educators to become the leaders that will transform our city.
The north carolina bar association is organized for the purposes of promoting and improving the administration of justice in north carolina; fostering and encouraging law reform when in the public interest; advancing the science of…
The organization is a proactive, nonpartisan business advocacy organization. the organization works in the legislative, regulatory and political arenas to proactively drive positive change to ensure that north carolina is a leading place…
Provide clinical instruction to and supervision of medical school students, interns and residents and, incident thereto, rendering professional services.
To receive and hold the endowment of the north carolina symphony society, inc. (the "society"), solicit additions to the endowment, safeguard assets, and expend funds for the exclusive use and benefit of the society.
The mission of the uc davis foundation is to secure, steward and manage private gifts for uc davis.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Community Foundation of Western North Carolina Inc and the most unlike its peers is The Greater Trenton Jewish Cemetery Proj. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
18 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. 18 of the 23 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 DONOR ADVISED CHARITABLE GIVING INC ↗
- Who funds DURHAM-CHAPEL HILL JEWISH FEDERATION ↗
- Who funds FOOD BANK OF CENTRAL & EASTERN NC INC ↗
- Who funds Urban Ministries of Durham Inc ↗
- Who funds Carolina Theatre of Durham Inc ↗
- Who funds DUKE UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds DURHAM CHILDREN'S INITIATIVE ↗
- Who funds THE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF WESTERN NORTH CAROLINA INC ↗
- Who funds TRUSTEES OF THE LAWRENCEVILLE SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds CHORDOMA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds RANSOM EVERGLADES SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds THE NORTH CAROLINA PUBLIC TELEVISION FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL NETWORK OF ABORTION FUNDS INC ↗
- Who funds PRO PUBLICA INC ↗
- Who funds CAROLINA ABORTION FUND ↗
- Who funds THE GREATER TRENTON JEWISH CEMETERY PROJ ↗
- Who funds ISRAEL TENNIS CENTERS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds DURHAM ACADEMY INC ↗
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: Triangle Community Foundation Inc · The Shepard Broad Foundation Inc · Duke University Health System Inc · Fox Family Foundation Inc · The Forest At Duke Inc · The Leon Levine Foundation · The Winston-Salem Foundation · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Fidelity Foundation · Arthur J Gallagher Foundation · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Duke Energy 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 Daniel and Karen Berman 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, a single department, or state — 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 Daniel and Karen Berman Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Daniel and Karen Berman 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.