· Private foundation
The Kevin Smokler Foundation
Its FY2021 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Read this first · the figures below need context
99% of The Kevin Smokler Foundation’s FY2021 grant dollars went to Jewish Community Federation Of San Francisco The Peninsula Marin & Sonoma, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2021 names 2 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2020, the last year The Kevin Smokler Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 5 organizations, $19k. It is dated, not current.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2021.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| BEND THE ARC | $5,000 |
| YOUTH SPEAKS | $5,000 |
| YOUNG AUTHORS PUBLISHING | $3,000 |
| ZYZZYVA | $2,700 |
| BERKELEY REPERTORY THEATRE | $1,000 |
| GRUB STREET | $1,000 |
| FRIENDS OF SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIB | $1,000 |
| SAN FRANCISCO WRITER'S CONFERENCE | $650 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–21) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 100% of your 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.
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.
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.
Dzanc Books was hailed as the future of publishing in Publishers Weekly in December 2007. Beginning with modest goals of publishing 4-6 titles each year, the house now publishes between 10-15 books annually. Notable and award-winning…
The Art of Brooklyn Film Festival is an annual event that brings Brooklyns celebrated film and media makers together with their peers across the country and around the world. AoBFF is a filmmaker-focused event, platform and showcase for…
Poetry flash builds community through literature
Graywolf press publishes risk-taking, visionary writers who transform culture through literature. when writers are free to do their most ambitious work, their books serve as portals to new possibilities and enable deeper understanding…
Lively productions presents new work for the stage by emerging artists, and seeks to create innovative theatrical opportunities in a world increasingly defined by real time interactions and new technologies
Wp theater is the nation's oldest and largest theater company dedicated to developing, producing, and promoting the work of women+ at every stage of their careers. for over four decades we have served as leaders of a global movement…
Seattle arts and lectures cultivates transformative experiences through story and language with readers and writers of all generations.
AGOTT serves diverse traditionally under-represented artists and writers.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco the Peninsula Marin & Sonoma and the most unlike its peers is Berkeley Repertory Theatre. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
11 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. 11 of the 15 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 JEWISH COMMUNITY FEDERATION OF SAN FRANCISCO THE PENINSULA MARIN & SONOMA ↗
- Who funds YOUTH SPEAKS INC ↗
- Who funds GRUB STREET INC ↗
- Who funds ZYZZYVA INC ↗
- Who funds YOUNG AUTHORS PUBLISHING COMAPNY ↗
- Who funds FOOD GATHERERS ↗
- Who funds ANN ARBOR DISTRICT LIBRARY ↗
- Who funds ASYLUM ARTS INC ↗
- Who funds BERKELEY REPERTORY THEATRE ↗
- Who funds SAN FRANCISCO WRITERS CONFERENCE ↗
- Who funds TALLGRASS FILM ASSOCIATION ↗
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: American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Amazonsmile 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 Kevin Smokler 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.
- Grub Street Inc — 2% 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 Kevin Smokler Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Kevin Smokler 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.