· Private foundation
The Denovo Initiative
Its FY2024 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 FY2022–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k1 grant · $22
- $10k–50k11 grants · $253k
- $50k–250k9 grants · $658k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| INCITE PRODUCTIONS INC | $125,000 |
| CINEMA TROPICAL INC | $100,000 |
| WOMEN MAKE MOVIES INC | $77,106 |
| THE FILM COLLABORATIVE INC | $77,105 |
| CENTER FOR INDEPENDENT DOCUMENTARY INC | $73,685 |
| INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY ASSOCIATION | $52,632 |
| MEDIA COLLECTIVE INC | $52,632 |
| THE VII FOUNDATION INC | $50,000 |
| POINTS NORTH INSTITUTE | $50,000 |
| ADVANCE GENDER EQUITY IN THE ARTS | $35,000 |
| SUNDANCE INSTITUTE | $35,000 |
| FULL SPECTRUM FEATURES | $26,316 |
| VIDEO VERACITY INC | $26,316 |
| NEW YORK WOMEN IN FILM AND TELEVISION | $26,316 |
| ENTERTAINMENT 2 AFFECT CHANGE | $26,316 |
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 (FY22–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 79% 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.
10 repeat relationships — 9 still active in FY2024, 1 since wound down; 12 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, 60% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $361k 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
- WMWOMEN MAKE MOVIES INC3× · 2022–2024 · $253k · revenue +14%
- TFTHE FILM COLLABORATIVE INC3× · 2022–2024 · $180k · revenue +18%
THE CENTER FOR INDEPENDENT DOCUMENTARY INC3× · 2022–2024 · $134k · revenue +88%
Funded once
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2022 · $100k
- POPAY OR DIE FILM LLCone grant, 2022 · $75k
- MLMMXX LLC - BAD AXEone grant, 2022 · $51k
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.
Advocate for gender equality in the film industry.
Northwest Film Forum incites public dialogue and creative action through collective cinematic experiences. A nonprofit film and arts center located in Seattle, Northwest Film Forum presents hundreds of films, festivals, community events,…
A national non-profit media arts organization, american documentary strives to make essential documentaries accessible as a catalyst for public discourse. we collaborate with passionate filmmakers to amplify their voices, nuture the…
The Art of Brooklyn Film Festival is an annual event that brings Brooklyns celebrated film and media makers together with their peers across the country and around the world. AoBFF is a filmmaker-focused event, platform and showcase for…
Field of Vision is a filmmaker and artist driven organization that commissions, creates and supports original nonfiction films about developing and ongoing stories around the globe. Field of Vision supports work that uses innovative and…
Promote gender equity in the film & television industry
The california film institute celebrates film and videos as art and education. its goal is to present and support emerging and established independent filmakers whose works address issues relevant to contemporary society. this is…
Dc dox is a major international film festival in the nation's capital dedicated to promoting documentary film as a leading art form, championing new voices and innovations in non-fiction storytelling, and using film as a catalyst to engage…
The berkshire international film festival (biff) is for filmmakers and film lovers alike to be entertained, educated and inspired. biff seeks to celebrate independent film and to recognize and pay tribute to accomplished artists on both…
We bring people together to unleash the transformational power of independent documentary film. we serve individual filmmakers and the growing network of partners who support them globally. we help build new models, aiming to innovate,…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is New York Foundation for the Arts Inc and the most unlike its peers is Media Collective Inc. 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 23 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
26 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. 26 of the 32 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 WOMEN MAKE MOVIES INC ↗
- Who funds INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE FILM COLLABORATIVE INC ↗
- Who funds THE CENTER FOR INDEPENDENT DOCUMENTARY INC ↗
- Who funds Points North Institute ↗
- Who funds CINEMA TROPICAL INC ↗
- Who funds C ME GROW INC ↗
- Who funds Sundance Institute ↗
- Who funds LINK GLOBAL ↗
- Who funds ADVANCE GENDER EQUITY IN THE ARTS ↗
- Who funds MEDIA COLLECTIVE INC ↗
- Who funds THE VII FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds VIDEO VERACITY INC ↗
- Who funds Full Spectrum Features NFP ↗
- Who funds NEW YORK WOMEN IN FILM & TELEVISION INC ↗
- Who funds ENTERTAINMENT 2 AFFECT CHANGE ↗
- Who funds UTAH FILM CENTER ↗
- Who funds FRACTURED ATLAS INC ↗
- Who funds VISUAL COMMUNICATIONS MEDIA ↗
- Who funds ALTERNATIVE NEWSWEEKLY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds NEW YORK FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS INC ↗
- Who funds BROWN GIRLS DOC MAFIA INC ↗
- Who funds INDEPENDENT PRODUCTION FUND INC ↗
- Who funds The Bay Area Video Coalition Incorporated ↗
- Who funds Coho Productions Inc ↗
- Who funds Bag and Baggage Productions ↗
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: Catapult Film Fund · Silicon Valley Community Foundation · Chicken & Egg Films Inc · Perspective Media Initiatives Inc · The Ford Foundation · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · Cinereach Ltd · Inmaat Foundation · Academy Foundation · The Oregon Community Foundation · California Community Foundation · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc
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 Denovo Initiative 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.
- The Center for Independent Documentary Inc — 6% of income from government
- Coho Productions Inc — 5% of income from government
- Advance Gender Equity in the Arts — 2% 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to The Denovo Initiative?
Find your warmest path to The Denovo Initiative 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.