Skip to content
Plinth
Foundation Dossiers
Plinth

· Private foundation

The Franklin and Catherine Johnson Foundation

Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.

$689k
Granted FY2022
24
Grants FY2022
3
States reached
$50k
Largest
01What you fundRead
02The needRead
03Your edgeRead
04Your fieldRead
01What you fund
0173% classified

What you funded, over time

Every grant clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2019–2022.

Education$1.1MYouth Development$630kHealth$325kEnvironment$250kArts & Culture$160kPhilanthropy$110kInternational$80kHuman Services$60kEmployment$50kOther$1.1M
02FY2022 · 24 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

By grant size · FY2022

  • Under $10k1 grant · $5k
  • $10k–50k22 grants · $634k
  • $50k–250k1 grant · $50k
$30,000
Median grant
3
States reached
$14k
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
FRESH LIFELINES FOR YOUTH$50,000
SAN FRANCISCO 49ERS ACADEMY$40,000
SHINE TOGETHER$40,000
RAVENSWOOD EDUCATION FOUNDATION$40,000
EAST PALO ALTO CHARTER SCHOOL$40,000
COLLEGE TRACK$40,000
ALL FIVE$30,000
Individual grant recipient$30,000
ACKNOWLEDGE ALLIANCE$30,000
FOUNDATION FOR A COLLEGE EDUCATION$30,000
BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF THE PENINSULA$30,000
LITLAB$30,000
EAST PALO ALTO ACADEMY FOUNDATION$30,000
FAMILY CONNECTIONS$30,000
PENINSULA BRIDGE$25,000
02The need
03

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.

show:

Your human-services grants (FY19–20, $60k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 8%AIM HIGH: $30k → 10%AIM HIGH: $30k → 10%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

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.

04

Where the work is directed

The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.

About 9% of The Franklin and Catherine Johnson 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, 95% of the giving stays in CA; read by stated purpose it is 91% — less of the work is directed home than the recipients' locations suggest.

The Franklin and Catherine Johnson Foundationlessmore of its giving
Placed by recipient address · 4.1% directed abroad (not shown)

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.

03Your edge
repeat funding

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.

94%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.
$3.7M · 43 repeat orgs$225k to everyone else

And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +30% since the first grant, against -24% for the ones you funded once.

43 repeat relationships — 21 still active in FY2022, 22 since wound down; 2 grantees were first funded in FY2022 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

43
6

Total granted

$3.7M
$165k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+30%
-24%

Still filing today

79%
33%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2022, 91% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $60k went to new ones.

50%100%’19’20’21’22
RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

’19’20’21’22
EducationYouth DevelopmentHealthEnvironmentArts & CulturePhilanthropyOther

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

  • FL
    FRESH LIFELINES FOR YOUTH INC
    4× · 2019–2022 · $200k · revenue +110%
  • RE
    RAVENSWOOD EDUCATION FOUNDATION
    4× · 2019–2022 · $160k · revenue +222%
  • SF
    SAN FRANCISCO FORTY-NINERS ACADEMY
    4× · 2019–2022 · $150k · revenue +14%

Funded once

  • S
    SPARK
    one grant, 2020 · $55k · revenue -61%
  • MI
    Music in the Schools Foundation
    one grant, 2019 · $30k · revenue -24% · 34% of their budget
  • JW
    JOHN W GARDNER CENTER AT STANFORD
    one grant, 2019 · $25k

Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Your field

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.

1
Silicon Valley Education Foundation

Who we are - silicon valley education foundation (svef) focuses on raising student performance in the critical areas of math and science across all 33 santa clara county school districts, and also adjoining san mateo and alameda counties.…

Community Improvement
2
The Peak School

The peak school seeks to ignite a passion for learning, to develop students of diverse talents and backgrounds who think critically and act with integrity, and to graduate compassionate, confident, capable students who will embrace their…

Education
3
Institute for Applied Tinkering

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.

Youth Development
4
San Francisco Girls' School

To educate and inspire girls to become innovators and leaders in stem.

—
5
Stem Advantage

Talent is equally distributed, but opportunity is not. STEM Advantage mentors, prepares, and inspires first-generation, low-income, and underserved college students for careers in science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM). We level…

Youth Development
6
Elite Public Schools

To ensure students reach their fullest potential through access to learning spaces that honor and celebrate students' rich cultural heritage and challenge them with rigorous and relevant learning experiences designed to make them active…

Education
7
Enterprise for Youth

Enterprise for youth empowers under-resourced san francisco youths to reach their potential through transformative paid internship experiences supported by a community of employers, caring adults, and peers.

Youth Development
8
Tomorrow's Leadership Collaborative Charter School

The mission of tlc is to educate diverse students through a rigorous, standards-based, collegepreparatory program to become conscientious, caring, and responsible 21st century citizens. tlc is grounded in an inclusive vision of teaching…

—
9
Silicon Schools Fund Inc

The mission of the silicon schools fund is to improve education through supporting the launch of excellent new schools, improving academic instruction in existing schools, and by funding some of the boldest innovations in education…

Education
10
Springboard Collaborative

Springboard collaborative combines targeted student instruction with parent training in an incentivized system that closes the literacy gap, by transferring the summer from a barrier into a springboard for financially disadvantaged…

Human Services
11
Equal Opportunity Schools

Equal opportunity schools' mission is to strengthen educator and system leader capacity to break down barriers to increase access, belonging, and success in rigorous college and career-prep secondary school courses for students of color…

Education
12
Breakthrough Silicon Valley

Breakthrough silicon valley prepares highly-motivated students to become first-generation college graduates and inspires emerging leaders to be the next generation of educators and advocates for equity.

Education

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Playworks Education Energized and the most unlike its peers is Shine Together. 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 25 years old; the field is 15. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.

THE FIELDby orgYOUR GRANTEESby number23%3%<5yr15%8%5–10yr19%28%10–20yr17%45%20–35yr14%8%35–55yr12%10%55yr+
THE FIELDby orgYOUR MONEYby value23%2%<5yr15%5%5–10yr19%26%10–20yr17%55%20–35yr14%4%35–55yr12%8%55yr+

The field is 23% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 2% of your money.

Closures · last 5 years

The orgs you fund almost never close — 7% lost their exemption, against 11% of the field you don’t fund.

orgs you fund
7%
3/44
the rest of the field
11%
3,555/31,000

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.

05the grantee network

44 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. 44 of the 53 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.

2
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
12
Early backer (in before they grew)
40/44
Grantees still filing
34/44
Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

RAVENSWOOD EDUCATION FOUNDATION — $160,000 · EducationRAVENSWOOD EDUCATION FOUNDATIONCOLLEGE TRACK — $145,000 · EducationCOLLEGE TRACKAll Five — $130,000 · EducationAll FiveEAST PALO ALTO ACADEMY FOUNDATION — $115,000 · EducationEAST PALO ALTO ACADEMY FOUNDATIO…FOUNDATION FOR A COLLEGE EDUCATION — $90,000 · EducationFOUNDATION FOR A COLLEGE EDUCATI…EASTSIDE COLLEGE PREPARATORY SCHOOL INC — $76,000 · EducationEASTSIDE COLLEGE PREPARATORY SCH…READING PARTNERS — $70,000 · EducationREADING PARTNERSSilicon Valley Urban Debate League — $70,000 · EducationSilicon Valley Urban Debate Leag…Thiebaut Method — $60,000 · EducationCollegespring Inc — $60,000 · EducationYEAR UP INC — $50,000 · EducationGIRLS TO WOMEN — $50,000 · Education+3 more — $60,000 · EducationSAN FRANCISCO FORTY-NINERS ACADEMY — $150,000 · OtherSAN FRANCISCO FORTY-NINERS ACADEMYEAST PALO ALTO CHARTER SCHOOL — $150,000 · OtherEAST PALO ALTO CHARTER SCHOOLLITERACY LAB — $130,000 · OtherLITERACY LABIndividual grant recipient — $120,000 · OtherIndividual grant recipientTHE PENINSULA BRIDGE PROGRAM — $90,000 · OtherTHE PENINSULA BRIDGE PROGRAMEAST PALO ALTO GREYHOUNDS — $85,000 · OtherEAST PALO ALTO GREYHOUNDSFOODCORPS — $60,000 · OtherSPARK — $55,000 · OtherTHE OPPORTUNITY FUND — $50,000 · OtherBEECHWOOD SCHOOL — $50,000 · OtherTilting Futures Incorporated — $80,000 · OtherTilting Futures IncorporatedAIM HIGH — $60,000 · OtherJUMA VENTURES INC — $50,000 · Other+8 more — $190,000 · Other+8 moreFRESH LIFELINES FOR YOUTH INC — $200,000 · Youth DevelopmentFRESH LIFELINES FO…SHINE TOGETHER INC — $130,000 · Youth DevelopmentSHINE TOGETHER INCBOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF THE PENINSULA — $120,000 · Youth DevelopmentBOYS & GIRLS CLUBS…BRAVEN INC — $60,000 · Youth DevelopmentBRAVEN INCPLAYWORKS EDUCATION ENERGIZED — $60,000 · Youth DevelopmentPLAYWORKS EDUCATIO…STREETCODE ACADEMY — $60,000 · Youth DevelopmentSTREETCODE ACADEMYACKNOWLEDGE ALLIANCE — $145,000 · HealthACKNOWLED…PENINSULA FAMILY CONNECTIONS — $120,000 · HealthPENINSULA…CHILDREN'S HEALTH COUNCIL INC — $60,000 · HealthCHILDREN'…Canopy — $100,000 · EnvironmentVIDA VERDE NATURE EDUCATION — $100,000 · EnvironmentGRASSROOTS ECOLOGY — $50,000 · EnvironmentHILLER AVIATION INSTITUTE — $80,000 · Arts & CultureTHE TECH INTERACTIVE — $50,000 · Arts & CultureMusic in the Schools Foundation — $30,000 · Arts & CultureINNOVATE PUBLIC SCHOOLS — $85,000 · PhilanthropyEAST PALO ALTO KIDS FOUNDATION — $25,000 · Philanthropy
Education$1,136,000Other$1,320,000Youth Development$630,000Health$325,000Environment$250,000Arts & Culture$160,000Philanthropy$110,000

Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ your share of their budgetFRESH LIFELINES FOR YOUTH INC — $200,000 over 4y, 0.7% of budgetRAVENSWOOD EDUCATION FOUNDATION — $160,000 over 4y, 1.1% of budgetSAN FRANCISCO FORTY-NINERS ACADEMY — $150,000 over 4y, 3.0% of budgetCOLLEGE TRACK — $145,000 over 4y, 0.1% of budgetACKNOWLEDGE ALLIANCE — $145,000 over 4y, 2.7% of budgetSHINE TOGETHER INC — $130,000 over 3y, 1.8% of budgetLITERACY LAB — $130,000 over 4y, 8.4% of budgetAll Five — $130,000 over 4y, 3.6% of budgetBOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF THE PENINSULA — $120,000 over 4y, 0.2% of budgetPENINSULA FAMILY CONNECTIONS — $120,000 over 4y, 2.7% of budgetEAST PALO ALTO ACADEMY FOUNDATION — $115,000 over 4y, 1.6% of budgetCanopy — $100,000 over 4y, 2.6% of budgetVIDA VERDE NATURE EDUCATION — $100,000 over 4y, 1.9% of budgetTHE PENINSULA BRIDGE PROGRAM — $90,000 over 4y, 0.7% of budgetFOUNDATION FOR A COLLEGE EDUCATION — $90,000 over 3y, 2.2% of budgetINNOVATE PUBLIC SCHOOLS — $85,000 over 3y, 0.4% of budgetHILLER AVIATION INSTITUTE — $80,000 over 4y, 1.3% of budgetTilting Futures Incorporated — $80,000 over 2y, 0.7% of budgetEASTSIDE COLLEGE PREPARATORY SCHOOL INC — $76,000 over 4y, 0.1% of budgetREADING PARTNERS — $70,000 over 2y, 0.2% of budgetSilicon Valley Urban Debate League — $70,000 over 2y, 4.7% of budgetBRAVEN INC — $60,000 over 2y, 0.5% of budgetAIM HIGH — $60,000 over 2y, 6.5% of budgetThiebaut Method — $60,000 over 2y, 10% of budgetPLAYWORKS EDUCATION ENERGIZED — $60,000 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetCHILDREN'S HEALTH COUNCIL INC — $60,000 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetCollegespring Inc — $60,000 over 2y, 1.1% of budgetSTREETCODE ACADEMY — $60,000 over 2y, 0.9% of budgetYEAR UP INC — $50,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetTHE TECH INTERACTIVE — $50,000 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetGIRLS TO WOMEN — $50,000 over 2y, 13% of budgetJUMA VENTURES INC — $50,000 over 2y, 0.4% of budgetGRASSROOTS ECOLOGY — $50,000 over 2y, 1.5% of budgetSHINE TOGETHER — $40,000 over 1y, 58% of budgetMusic in the Schools Foundation — $30,000 over 1y, 34% of budgetREED INSTITUTE — $30,000 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetEAST PALO ALTO KIDS FOUNDATION — $25,000 over 2y, 4.9% of budgetEAST PALO ALTO TENNIS & TUTORING — $20,000 over 1y, 1.9% of budgetSAN FRANCISCO STUDY CENTER INC — $20,000 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetCALIFORNIA COAST MUSIC CAMP — $20,000 over 2y, 15% of budgetTHE FUND FOR AMERICAN STUDIES — $10,000 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetSOCIAL GOOD FUND INC — $10,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budget
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.

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.

The Palo Alto Communi…Atkinson FoundationPhilanthropic Venture…Silicon Valley Commun…The David and Lucile …Gordon E and Betty I …Embarcadero Media Fou…Sand Hill FoundationJewish Community Fede…The San Francisco Fou…Bothin FoundationMonterra Community Fu…
The Palo Alto Community FundCA47.2× affinity20 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: The Palo Alto Community Fund · Atkinson Foundation · Philanthropic Ventures Foundation · Silicon Valley Community Foundation · The David and Lucile Packard Foundation · Gordon E and Betty I Moore Foundation · Embarcadero Media Foundation · Sand Hill Foundation · Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco the Peninsula Marin & Sonoma · The San Francisco Foundation · Bothin Foundation · Monterra Community Fund

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 Franklin and Catherine Johnson 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 or a single department — and drag the year to watch it move.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%4%15%34%60%your share of their income ↑0%15%30%45%60%share of the org’s income from government →median 1%
  • Reed Institute — 1% of income from government
  • Year Up Inc — 0% of income from government
no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
0get no government money at all
18report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
0rely on government for over half their income
⤢ axis zoomed · 0–60%
typical government reliance, FY20–25

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.

On method. Every financial figure here is read directly from IRS e-file XML — your own 990/990-PF and the multi-year returns of the 53 grantees we resolved across every year we hold, several hundred filings in all (a different count from the grant rows on the cover, which are one fiscal year)— each linked to its source. Grantee achievements and outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III); we read these as association with sustained funding — the foundation is one of several forces — suppress low-confidence name matches rather than guess, and say so where a figure rests on a single grant or filing. Not everything on this page is a filed figure, and the difference matters. Filed is what you reported on your return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears. How we build these →

Generated from your IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2022, released 2022. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Possibly out of date. A more recent filing (FY2025) is on record and reports no grant expense, so the figures above are from FY2022, the most recent year this funder made grants.

Source object · view filing

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions
grants reported with no recipient in the public record
The regranting layer
51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer
The DAF merry-go-round
$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds
The camps
funders cluster by geography, not ideology
By state
where grant money is based, and what stays home
State money flows
the interactive map of money crossing state lines