· Private foundation
The Guide Foundation
Its FY2025 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 FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k63 grants · $65k
- $10k–50k3 grants · $32k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| YALE CENTER - ENVIRONMENTAL LAW POL | $11,000 |
| CHINA FOLK HOUSE | $10,649 |
| LCV EDUCATION FUND | $10,000 |
| NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL | $5,000 |
| YALE UNIVERSITY | $4,000 |
| NATIONAL GALLERY OF ART | $3,000 |
| WOODWELL CLIMATE RESEARCH CENTER | $2,073 |
| EARTH JUSTICE | $2,065 |
| Individual grant recipient | $2,000 |
| WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN | $2,000 |
| BROWN UNIVERSITY | $2,000 |
| TECHNOSERVE | $2,000 |
| DC GREENS | $1,500 |
| STAND EARTH | $1,500 |
| GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY | $1,500 |
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 (FY21–25, $3k) land where the poverty rate runs at 17%, 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +17% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
90 repeat relationships — 42 still active in FY2025, 48 since wound down; 21 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (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 FY2025, 80% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $19k 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
PRESIDENT AND TRUSTEES OF BATES COLLEGE2× · 2019–2020 · $15k · revenue +31%- VOVIRGINIA ORGANIZING INC2× · 2018–2020 · $15k · revenue +51%
NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL INC7× · 2017–2025 · $13k · revenue +41%
Funded once
- WAWATERKEEPER ALLIANCE INCone grant, 2020 · $45k · revenue -51%
- IFINSTITUTE FOR GLOBAL GOVERNANCEone grant, 2019 · $16k
- WAWATERFRONT ALLIANCE INCone grant, 2021 · $10k · revenue -17%
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 union of concerned scientists puts rigorous, independent science into action, developing solutions and advocating for a healthy, safe, and just future.
To establish and promote programs to protect the global climate, forests, wildlife and the natural environment, through research, advocacy, and investigation.
The purpose of the water research foundation (wrf) is a definitive research organization to advance the science of all things water to better meet the evolving needs of its subscribers and the water sector. to engage exclusively in…
Wri is committed to creating change that improves people's lives and ensures the natural world can thrive. (see schedule o)wri's bold vision requires a formula for success we call "count it. change it. scale it.":- count it: our work is…
To drive transformational adaptation to protect communities across the country from higher seas, stronger storms, and more frequent flooding.
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.
The open markets institute works to help people relearn how to use competition policy to build stronger democracies, more just and equitable societies, more innovative and sustainable economies, and a more secure and peaceful world.
The npr foundation ("foundation") is organized and operated exclusively for the benefit of its sole supported organization, national public radio, inc. ("npr inc."). the foundation supports npr inc. through various activities such as…
American gas association's (the association) mission is to develop and advocate for informed, innovative, and durable policy that fulfills our nation's energy needs, environmental aspirations and economic potential. we are committed to…
The mission of the george washington university (gw) is to educate individuals in liberal arts, languages, sciences, learned professions, and other courses and subjects of study, and to conduct scholarly research and publish the findings…
At the internet society foundation, we focus on funding initiatives that strengthen the internet in function and reach so that it can effectively serve all people. our work advances the vision of the internet society (isoc): the internet…
Friends of the earth strives for a more healthy and just world by defendng the environment and human health while advancing social and economic justice by conducting research and education, transforming the economy so it protects the…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Pro Publica Inc and the most unlike its peers is The Windermere Island Foundation Inc. 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 33 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) — 1% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.9% 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.
104 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. 104 of the 197 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 WATERKEEPER ALLIANCE INC ↗
- Who funds BROWN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds PRESIDENT AND TRUSTEES OF BATES COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds VIRGINIA ORGANIZING INC ↗
- Who funds NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL INC ↗
- Who funds ISLAND PRESS ↗
- Who funds FUND FOR GLOBAL HUMAN RIGHTS INC ↗
- Who funds WATERFRONT ALLIANCE INC ↗
- Who funds THE POTOMAC CONSERVANCY INC ↗
- Who funds Woodwell Climate Research Center Inc ↗
- Who funds National Gallery of Art ↗
- Who funds THE TAFT SCHOOL CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds Yale University ↗
- Who funds THE NEW CANAAN COUNTRY SCHOOL INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds MOTHERS OUT FRONT INC ↗
- Who funds EQUAL JUSTICE INITIATIVE ↗
- Who funds CAPE ELEUTHERA FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN INC ↗
- Who funds THE ONE LOVE FOUNDATION IN HONOR OF YEARDLEY LOVE INC ↗
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: Greater Washington Community Foundation · The San Francisco Foundation · Clark-Winchcole Foundation · The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation · John Edward Fowler Memorial Foundation · Impactassetsinc · The Schmidt Family Foundation · Silicon Valley Community Foundation · Nora Roberts Foundation · The Rockefeller Foundation · The David and Lucile Packard Foundation · Tj Guarriello Jr Family 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 Guide 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.
- Save the Children Federation Inc — 30% of income from government
- Yale University — 12% of income from government
- Woodwell Climate Research Center Inc — 11% 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 Guide Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Guide 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.