· Private foundation
The Firstenburg Foundation
Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k20 grants · $73k
- $10k–50k41 grants · $757k
- $50k–250k7 grants · $515k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| SPECIALIZED HOUSING INC | $215,000 |
| SHARE INC | $50,000 |
| COUNCIL FOR THE HOMELESS | $50,000 |
| COMMUNITY HOUSE ON BROADWAY | $50,000 |
| OUTSIDERS INN | $50,000 |
| BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF SW WASHINGTON | $50,000 |
| JANUS YOUTH PROGRAMS | $50,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $48,000 |
| WASHINGTON GORGE ACTION PROGRAMS | $45,000 |
| FISH OF VANCOUVER | $43,550 |
| CASCADE AIDS PROJECT | $40,000 |
| SECOND STEP HOUSING | $40,000 |
| FAMILY PROMISE OF CLARK COUNTY | $40,000 |
| COMMUNITY ROOTS COLLABORATIVE | $35,000 |
| LIFELINE CONNECTIONS | $30,000 |
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 (FY17–24, $1.7M) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 36% 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.
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 6% of The Firstenburg Foundation’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, 99% of the giving stays in WA; read by stated purpose it is 91% — 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 +52% since the first grant, against +25% for the ones you funded once.
84 repeat relationships — 33 still active in FY2024, 51 since wound down; 23 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; $539k 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
- CCCLARK COLLEGE DISTRICT 14 FOUNDATION2× · 2017–2021 · $450k · revenue +143%
- CCCLARK COUNTY FOOD BANK6× · 2017–2022 · $316k · revenue +69%
- FVFORT VANCOUVER REGIONAL LIBRARY FOUNDATION6× · 2018–2024 · $255k · revenue +6%
Funded once
- DLDE LA SALLE CATHOLIC NORTH HIGH SCHOOLone grant, 2021 · $125k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2019 · $123k
COLUMBIA RIVER MENTAL HEALTH SERVICESgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $75k · revenue +35%
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.
At l'arche portland people with and without developmental disabilities create home and build community together. we nurture long-term mutual relationships that reveal the gifts of people with developmental disabilities. in doing so we…
To support public policies that will help oregon's economy and create new family supporting jobs in oregon.
We work collectively to educate and advocate for systems that elevate the vital work of care and caregiving in its many forms within our community.
Oregon Justice Network is an alliance built and staffed by criminal legal system impacted people advocating for the well-being of people affected or at-risk of being affected by carceral systems. Our work centers around restorative…
Building changes advances equitable responses to homelessness in washington state, with a focus on children, youth, and families. we work at the intersection of housing, education, and health systems, partnering with communities and public…
Project Access Northwest provides low-income families access to medical, dental and Behavioral Health care so they can live a healthier and more productive life.
CARE. Commitment to improving quality of life. Advocacy for mental health and overall well-being. Response to community needs. Effective treatment with measurable outcomes.
Network services has been serving homeless families in the puget sound area since 1990, with a focus on families with children. network services aims to break the cycle of homelessness by providing assistance to families with children to…
Improving the quality of life for the people in the Olympic Peninsula Community by providing increased access to health and wellness services for the underserved
Cascades academy is an engaged, vibrant community that weaves challenging academics with experiential learning to inspire socially responsible individuals ready for a diverse and changing world.
To connect individuals to the housing and community resources they seek.
House Our Neighbors envisions a future where all people can afford to live and thrive in vibrant, cohesive, and climate resilient communities. To achieve this, we develop, advocate, and mobilize for policy to realize social housing for the…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Lifeworks Nw and the most unlike its peers is Pax Learning Center. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 27 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 23% startups (under 5 years old) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 1% 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.
180 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. 180 of the 270 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 Community Foundation for SW Washington ↗
- Who funds CLARK COLLEGE DISTRICT 14 FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CLARK COUNTY FOOD BANK ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN'S CENTER ↗
- Who funds FORT VANCOUVER REGIONAL LIBRARY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Bridgeview Housing ↗
- Who funds OPEN HOUSE MINISTRIES ↗
- Who funds NEW HOPE FARMS ↗
- Who funds VANCOUVER SCHOOL DISTRICT FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SPECIALIZED HOUSING INC ↗
- Who funds SHARE ↗
- Who funds CDM IN-HOME CARE SERVICES ↗
- Who funds COUNCIL FOR THE HOMELESS ↗
- Who funds FISH OF VANCOUVER ↗
- Who funds BOYS AND GIRLS CLUBS OF SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON ↗
- Who funds MEDICAL TEAMS INTERNATIONAL ↗
- Who funds PINK LEMONADE PROJECT ↗
- Who funds BATTLE GROUND HEALTHCARE ↗
- Who funds Lelooska Foundation ↗
- Who funds EVERGREEN HABITAT FOR HUMANITY ↗
- Who funds TOGETHER WE ARE GREATER THAN ↗
- Who funds DAYBREAK YOUTH SERVICES ↗
- Who funds FORA HEALTH INC ↗
- Who funds NORTHWEST ASSOCIATION FOR BLIND ATHLETES ↗
- Who funds POLICE ACTIVITIES LEAGUE OF SOUTHWEST WASHINGTON ↗
- Who funds LIFELINE CONNECTIONS ↗
- Who funds SECOND STEP HOUSING ↗
- Who funds Lan Su Chinese Garden ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE CHILDREN - SW WASHINGTON ↗
- Who funds OREGON MUSEUM OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY ↗
- Who funds MEALS ON WHEELS PEOPLE INC ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY HOUSE ON BROADWAY ↗
- Who funds FINANCIAL BEGINNINGS WASHINGTON ↗
- Who funds IMPACT NW ↗
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: Marie Lamfrom Charitable Foundation Trust · OCF Joseph E Weston Public Foundation · The Jackson Foundation · Juan Young Trust · Maybelle Clark Macdonald Fund · The Autzen Foundation · Onpoint Community Credit Union · Wheeler Foundation · M J Murdock Charitable Trust · The Oregon Community Foundation · Rose E Tucker Charitable Trust · The Robert D and Marcia H Randall Charitable Trust
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 Firstenburg 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.
- Friends of Trees — 100% of income from government
- Morrison Child and Family Services — 91% of income from government
- Janus Youth Programs Inc — 46% of income from government
- Black Parent Initiative — 45% of income from government
- Bridge Meadows — 36% of income from government
- Portland YouthBuilders — 35% of income from government
- Portland Street Medicine — 32% of income from government
- Oregon Coast Aquarium Inc — 24% of income from government
- Oregon Community Warehouse Inc — 24% of income from government
- FosterClub Inc — 21% of income from government
- Reach Community Development Inc — 18% of income from government
- African American Alliance for Homeownership — 17% of income from government
- Human Solutions Inc Dba Our Just Future — 17% of income from government
- Ac Portland — 14% of income from government
- Habitat for Humanity Portland Metro East — 14% of income from government
- Medical Teams International — 14% of income from government
- Cascade Aids Project — 13% of income from government
- The Portland Playhouse — 11% of income from government
- Bradley Angle — 10% of income from government
- Lifeworks Nw — 8% of income from government
- Portland Urban Debate League — 8% of income from government
- Impact Nw — 8% of income from government
- The Shadow Project — 8% of income from government
- Girl Scouts of Oregon & Sw Washington Inc — 5% of income from government
- Providence Portland Medical Foundation — 5% of income from government
- Together We Are Greater Than — 5% of income from government
- Friends of the Children-Portland — 5% of income from government
- Oregon Museum of Science and Industry — 4% of income from government
- Girls Inc of the Pacific Northwest — 4% of income from government
- Smart Reading — 3% of income from government
- Specialized Housing Inc — 3% of income from government
- Oregon College of Oriental Medicine — 2% of income from government
- Casa for Children Inc — 2% of income from government
- Chess for Success — 2% of income from government
- The Dougy Center Inc — 1% of income from government
- Youth Music Project — 1% of income from government
- Metropolitan Youth Symphony — 1% of income from government
- Oregon Public Broadcasting — 1% of income from government
- Portland Youth Philharmonic Association — 0% of income from government
- Shriners Hospitals for Children — 0% 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 Firstenburg Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Firstenburg 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.