· Public charity
The Eames Institute
THE EAMES INSTITUTE is a 501(c)(3) public charity with a mission of cultivating curiosity to solve problems at any scale.
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.
The 8 grants below total $283,900 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $293,900 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $10,000 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 · FY2024
- Under $10k1 grant · $6k
- $10k–50k5 grants · $93k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $185k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| GIRLS GARAGE | $130,400 |
| SONOMA MOUNTAIN INSTITUTE | $55,000 |
| UNITED STATES ARTISTS | $32,500 |
| MY GIANT SQUID FRIEND LLC | $30,000 |
| REUSE ALLIANCE INC | $10,000 |
| INTERSECTION FOR THE ART | $10,000 |
| SANTA FE ART INSTITUTE | $10,000 |
| YALE UNIVERSITY PRESS | $6,000 |
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 (FY23–23, $6k) land where the poverty rate runs at 8%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +41% since the first grant, against +18% for the ones you funded once.
6 repeat relationships — 5 still active in FY2024, 1 since wound down; 2 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, 86% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $40k 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
- GGGIRLS GARAGE2× · 2023–2024 · $155k · revenue +12%
- SMSonoma Mountain Institute3× · 2022–2024 · $155k · revenue +146%
United States Artists Inc3× · 2022–2024 · $130k · revenue +41%
Funded once
- OAOccidental Arts and Ecology Centerone grant, 2023 · $20k · revenue +11%
- SBStone Barns Restoration Corp DBA Stone Barns Center for Food & Agrione grant, 2023 · $15k · revenue +18%
CREATIVE REACTION LABone grant, 2023 · $10k · revenue -39%
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.
ArtBuilt is a solutions-focused nonprofit that builds new systems of support for artists based on access to affordable real estate, asset building and deeply reciprocal relationships with local communities.
BRIDGEGOOD increases opportunity and digital literacy for under-resourced students with a focus on Black Indigenous and Women People of Color. We prepare first-generation college students for careers in UX UI and Visual Design while…
The Oakland Institute, an independent policy think tank, works to support global struggles for Indigenous rights, human rights, and land rights and to promote public participation and fair debate on critical social, economic, and…
Root Divisions mission is to empower artists, foster community service, inspire youth, and enrich the Bay Area through engagement in the visual arts.
To inspire social change through the transformative power of design through public programming, education initiatives,and publications.
COLLECTIVE REMAKE: Art, Business, Education, Jobs, News, People, and Recycling for Sustainability is a unique social co-operative-in Los Angeles County-designed to support the creation of worker-owned businesses and other kinds of…
Institute for Applied Tinkering IAT develops, practices and shares educational methods that challenge and support all children to engage deeply in their learning via real interests and real tools.
Marin open studios is a non-profit visual arts organization dedicated to engaging and supporting marin county artists and their audiences through events, programs and services. marin open studios champions a diverse and inclusive community…
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…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Creative Reaction Lab and the most unlike its peers is Sonoma Mountain Institute. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
21 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. 21 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 GIRLS GARAGE ↗
- Who funds Sonoma Mountain Institute ↗
- Who funds United States Artists Inc ↗
- Who funds THE REBUILD FOUNDATION NFP ↗
- Who funds REUSE ALLIANCE INC ↗
- Who funds SANTA FE ART INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds Occidental Arts and Ecology Center ↗
- Who funds Yale University ↗
- Who funds Stone Barns Restoration Corp DBA Stone Barns Center for Food & Agri ↗
- Who funds CREATIVE REACTION LAB ↗
- Who funds Richmond Art Center ↗
- Who funds Intersection for the Arts ↗
- Who funds Design Futures Forum Inc ↗
- Who funds SPAULDING HIGH SCHOOL FOUNDATION LTD ↗
- Who funds IDEOORG ↗
- Who funds Inneract Project Inc ↗
- Who funds BOTANICAL BUS ↗
- Who funds Urban Tilth ↗
- Who funds PETALUMA BLACKS FOR COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT ↗
- Who funds THE AUDRE LORDE PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds PETALUMA PEOPLE SERVICES CENTER ↗
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: The Yelp Foundation · Marin Community Foundation · The San Francisco Foundation · Silicon Valley Community Foundation · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · National Philanthropic Trust · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Network for Good · Donor Advised Charitable Giving 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 Eames Institute 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.
- Yale University — 12% 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 Eames Institute?
Find your warmest path to The Eames Institute 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.