Skip to content
The Jao Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

The Jao 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.

$301k
Granted FY2024still arriving
11
Grants FY2024still arriving
3
States reached
$200k
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its granteesRead
04Its fieldRead
05Through PlinthRead
01What it funds
0192% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2024.

Education$674kArts & Culture$134kReligion$80kHuman Services$12kRecreation & Sports$4kCommunity Improvement$3kYouth Development$3kCivil Rights$2kOther$0
02FY2024 · 11 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2024

  • Under $10k8 grants · $16k
  • $10k–50k1 grant · $25k
  • $50k–250k2 grants · $260k
$2,500
Median grant
3
States reached
$1.0M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
Harvard University Education$200,000
Temple Foundation$60,000
UCI Foundation$25,000
CA State Univ Long Beach$5,000
Special Olympics Southern Californi$2,500
Westminster Chamber of Commerce$2,500
Asian American Senior Citizens$2,000
Vietnamese American Unif Ser Assn V$2,000
Individual grant recipient$1,000
Individual grant recipient$250
Westminster Police Officers Associa$250
02The need
03

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY17–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 4% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.

area typical 11%TRUST UNIVERSITY: $10k → 7%Asian American Senior Citizens: $2k → 10%Special Olympics Southern Californi: $3k → 14%THE VIETNAM FOUNDATION: $1k → 14%Vietnamese American Unif Ser Assn V: $2k → 6%Vietnamese Creatives Collective: $3k → 10%SPECIAL OLYMPICS: $1k → 14%Orange Coast Memorial Medical Ctr: $500 → 10%Special Olympics Southern Californi: $500 → 14%UC IRVINE FOUNDATION: $26k → 10%WESTERN UNIVERSITY OF HEALTH SCI: $3k → 14%UC IRVINE FOUNDATION: $26k → 10%CA State Univ Long Beach: $5k → 14%UC IRVINE FOUNDATION: $25k → 10%GENESIS FOUNDATION: $10k → 10%UCI Foundation: $25k → 10%Rotary of Westminster: $250 → 10%UCI Foundation: $550 → 10%LAGUNA COLLEGE OF ART & DESIGN: $11k → 10%Vietnamese American Philharmonic: $8k → 10%Westminster Chamber of Commerce: $3k → 10%Vietnamese Christian Broadcast: $1k → 10%Westminster Chamber of Commerce: $600 → 10%Vietnamese Christian Broadcast: $250 → 10%VIETNAMESE AMERICAN CULTURAL ALLIANCE: $120k → 10%Temple Foundation: $60k → 10%VARIOUS BUSINESS: $10k → 10%VARIOUS OTHER DONATIONS: $7k → 10%HUNTINGTON PARTNERS: $4k → 10%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount
How this is measured
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.
How this is measured
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.
03Its grantees
repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

69%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$628k · 5 repeat orgs$286k to everyone else

5 repeat relationships: 5 still active in FY2024, 0 since wound down; 6 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

5
16

Total granted

$628k
$217k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

0%
0%

Still filing today

40%
25%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 77% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $70k went to new ones.

50%100%’17’18’19’20’21’23’24
RenewedFirst-time

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

’17’18’19’20’21’23’24
Arts & CultureEducationReligionRecreation & SportsYouth DevelopmentHealthOther
How this is measured
First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

  • HU
    HARVARD UNIVERSITY EDUCATION
    3× · 2021–2024 · $519k
  • UO
    UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA IRVINE FOUNDATION
    5× · 2017–2024 · $102k · revenue +51%
  • WC
    WESTMINSTER CHAMBER OF COMMERCE
    2× · 2023–2024 · $3k

Funded once

  • VA
    VIETNAMESE AMERICAN CULTURAL ALLIANCE
    one grant, 2017 · $120k
  • CF
    CSU FULLERTON
    one grant, 2017 · $16k
  • LC
    LAGUNA COLLEGE OF ART & DESIGNgraduated
    one grant, 2017 · $11k · revenue +322%
How this is measured

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

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

1
California Institute of Contemporary Art
—
2
Los Angeles Medical Center Foundation
Health
3
Genesis Foundation
—
4
Uc Chinese Alumni Foundation
—
5
Temple Theatre Foundation
—
6
San Francisco Filipino Cultural Center
Arts & Culture
7
Tcm Foundation
Philanthropy
8
Foundation for Chinese Cultural Heritage
Philanthropy
9
Los Angeles International Dance Festival
—
10
The Vietnamese Buddhist Congregation

Buddhist temple used for various religious services

—
11
Cambodian Islamic Foundation
Education
12
Institute of Human Origins
—
How this is measured
The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is University of California Irvine Foundation; the most unlike its peers is Temple Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
04the grantee network

9 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 9 of the 27 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

1
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
0
Early backer (in before they grew)
7/9
Grantees still filing
3/9
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

HARVARD UNIVERSITY EDUCATION: $518,975 · OtherHARVARD UNIVERSITY EDUCATION+18 more: $89,123 · Other+18 moreVIETNAMESE AMERICAN CULTURAL ALLIANCE: $120,000 · Arts & CultureVIETNAMESE AMER…Vietnamese American Philharmonics: $7,500 · Arts & CultureVietnamese Amer…UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA IRVINE FOUNDATION: $102,050 · EducationUNIVERSITY OF …LAGUNA COLLEGE OF ART & DESIGN: $11,000 · EducationLAGUNA COLLEGE…TEMPLE FOUNDATION: $60,000 · ReligionSPECIAL OLYMPICS SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA INC: $3,000 · Recreation & SportsYOUNG LIFE: $2,500 · Youth DevelopmentOrange Coast Memorial Medical Center: $500 · Health
Other$608,098Arts & Culture$127,500Education$113,050Religion$60,000Recreation & Sports$3,000Youth Development$2,500Health$500

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$100k$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetUNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA IRVINE FOUNDATION: $102,050 over 5y, 0.0% of budgetTEMPLE FOUNDATION: $60,000 over 1y, 100% of budgetLAGUNA COLLEGE OF ART & DESIGN: $11,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetVietnamese American Philharmonics: $7,500 over 1y, 8.4% of budgetSPECIAL OLYMPICS SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA INC: $3,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetYOUNG LIFE: $2,500 over 1y, 0.0% of budget
Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

  • Who funds VIETNAMESE AMERICAN CULTURAL ALLIANCE ↗
  • Who funds UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA IRVINE FOUNDATION ↗
  • Who funds TEMPLE FOUNDATION ↗
  • Who funds LAGUNA COLLEGE OF ART & DESIGN ↗
  • Who funds Vietnamese American Philharmonics ↗
  • Who funds WESTMINSTER CHAMBER OF COMMERCE ↗
  • Who funds SPECIAL OLYMPICS SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA INC ↗
  • Who funds YOUNG LIFE ↗
  • Who funds Orange Coast Memorial Medical Center ↗

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization The Jao Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Jao Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2023
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%6%25%56%100%funder's share of their income ↑0%4%8%11%15%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    2report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–15%
    typical government reliance, FY20–25
    How this is measured
    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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.
    05Through Plinth

    Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

    How do I get to The Jao Foundation?

    Find your warmest path to The Jao 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.

    On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 27 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

    How this is measured
    Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its 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.

    Generated from the IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2024, released 2024. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

    Play a game based on Jao’s filings →

    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 endowment market
    who holds foundation money, and what just moved
    The camps
    funders cluster by geography, not ideology
    By state
    where grant money is based, and what stays home