· Private foundation
The Gess Foundation
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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k19 grants · $44k
- $10k–50k6 grants · $78k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $61k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| FROM THE TOP | $60,500 |
| 30 MILE RIVER WATERSHED ASSOCIATION | $25,000 |
| LA JOLLA MUSIC SOCIETY | $13,000 |
| NORTH COAST REPERTORY THEATER | $10,000 |
| VANGUARD CULTURE | $10,000 |
| JEWISH GRANDPARENTS NETWORK | $10,000 |
| WEST NEWTON CINEMA FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| TEMPLE BETH ELOHIM | $8,600 |
| ILLUSTRATION INSTITUTE | $7,500 |
| ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE | $5,000 |
| MAINE DEFAMATION LEAGUE | $3,500 |
| THE OLD GLOBE | $3,000 |
| HOUSE ON THE MOON | $2,500 |
| HEBREW SENIOR LIFE | $2,500 |
| WBUR | $2,000 |
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, $13k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 100% of those 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.
41 repeat relationships — 19 still active in FY2024, 22 since wound down; 7 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, 81% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $35k 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
- 3M30 Mile River Watershed Association8× · 2017–2024 · $118k · revenue +190%
- IIILLUSTRATION INSTITUTE8× · 2017–2024 · $54k · revenue +60%
- ALANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE6× · 2019–2024 · $24k · revenue +47%
Funded once
- USUC SAN DIEGO'S DEPARTMENT OF MUSIC - CAMERA LUCIDA CONCERTone grant, 2021 · $10k
- NSNYAKA SCHOOLone grant, 2017 · $5k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2023 · $3k
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 bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
The mission of the jewish museum is to collect, preserve, exhibit and interpret art and jewish culture. see schedule o for more information.
San Diego Jewish Academy empowers each student to learn for life, guided by Jewish values and rooted in strength of community.
To bring quality public television programs and resources to communities throughout new jersey and its tri-state neighbors. its content, both on-air and online, aims to reflect the diverse
Mission: the mission of san diego opera is to deliver exceptional performances and exciting, accessible programs to diverse audiences, focusing on community partnerships, and the transformative and expressive power of the human voice. as…
The University of New Haven is a student-centered comprehensive university with an emphasis on excellence in liberal arts and professional education. Our mission is to prepare our students to lead purposeful and fulfilling lives in a…
Nashville public radio's mission is to be the most trusted & independent nashville voice, connecting our communities through non-partisan journalism, compelling storytelling, civil conversation and music discovery.
To serve the public by producing world-class opera that preserves, promotes and advances the art form while embodying the diversity, spirit and artistic sensibility unique to los angeles. we envision an engaged and enlightened community in…
We invite people of all ages to experience the natural beauty of our campus and the transformative power of the arts. usdan was founded on jewish values that inspire us to make the world more just and more beautiful. when we welcome the…
Vermont public informs, educates, and entertains through public service journalism and enlightening content rooted in vermont. our storytelling enriches lives and fosters community connection and understanding.
Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.
Through thought leadership, community programs, leadership development, and organizational partnerships, jsp is building a movement to activate the creative power of the jewish community.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is New England Conservatory of Music and the most unlike its peers is Neighbors Driving Neighbors. 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 34 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 11% 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.
36 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. 36 of the 70 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 FROM THE TOP INC ↗
- Who funds 30 Mile River Watershed Association ↗
- Who funds JEWISH ARTS COLLABORATIVE INC ↗
- Who funds ILLUSTRATION INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston Inc ↗
- Who funds LA JOLLA MUSIC SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE ↗
- Who funds BOSTON JEWISH FILM INC ↗
- Who funds Maine Public Broadcasting Corporation ↗
- Who funds THEATER & ARTS FOUNDATION OF SAN DIEGO COUNTY DBA LA JOLLA PLAYHOUSE ↗
- Who funds JEWISH GRANDPARENTS NETWORK INC ↗
- Who funds Vanguard Culture ↗
- Who funds WEST NEWTON CINEMA FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds TRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds Hebrew Senior Life Inc ↗
- Who funds YMCA OF SAN DIEGO COUNTY ↗
- Who funds NEIGHBORS DRIVING NEIGHBORS ↗
- Who funds SAN DIEGO YOUTH SYMPHONY & CONSERVATORY ↗
- Who funds BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL CENTER FOR JEWISH FILMINC ↗
- Who funds Bowdoin College ↗
- Who funds PORTLAND CHAMBER MUSIC FESTIVAL ↗
- Who funds POLITICAL ASYLUMIMMIGRATION REPRESENTATION PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL OF THE USA INC ↗
- Who funds PROVIDENCE PROMISE ↗
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: Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston Inc · Boston Foundation Inc · The Klarman Family Foundation · Eastern Bank Foundation · Joseph and Rae Gann Charitable Foundation · Onion Foundation · Jewish Community Foundation of San Diego · Maine Community Foundation Inc · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Charities Aid Foundation America
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 Gess 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.
- Trustees of Boston University — 12% of income from government
- Project Citizenship Inc — 10% of income from government
- From the Top Inc — 6% of income from government
- National Center for Jewish Filminc — 4% of income from government
- Neads Inc — 1% of income from government
- New England Conservatory of Music — 1% of income from government
- Boston Symphony Orchestra Inc — 0% of income from government
- Hebrew Senior Life Inc — 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 Gess Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Gess 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.