· Private foundation
The L and R Donner Foundation
Its FY2023 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 FY2017–2023.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| THE UCLA FOUNDATION | $700 |
| UNICEF USA | $700 |
| DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS | $100 |
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 (FY17–22, $42k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 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.
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 +50% since the first grant, against +37% for the ones you funded once.
53 repeat relationships — 2 still active in FY2023, 51 since wound down.
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 FY2023, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
- UFUNITED FRIENDS OF THE CHILDREN4× · 2018–2022 · $30k · revenue +15%
CEDARS-SINAI MEDICAL CENTER4× · 2017–2021 · $17k · revenue +63%- TITREEPEOPLE INC4× · 2017–2022 · $15k · revenue +179%
Funded once
- MMPTFone grant, 2020 · $20k
- UFUW FOUNDATIONone grant, 2020 · $10k
- NLNRDC LA LEADERSHIP COUNCILone grant, 2017 · $10k
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.
Spcala is dedicated to the prevention of cruelty to animals through education, law enforcement, intervention and advocacy.
The union of concerned scientists puts rigorous, independent science into action, developing solutions and advocating for a healthy, safe, and just future.
The central mission of the university of southern california is the development of human beings and society as a whole through the cultivation and enrichment of the human mind and spirit. the principal means by which our mission is…
To harness the power of the human immune system and advanced computing technologies to create and translate scientific discoveries into next generation vaccines and therapies for prevention, control and cure of chronic diseases, enabling…
World animal protection is a global organization working to end factory farming and wildlife exploitation. we expose cruel systems, promote animal-friendly alternatives, and influence policy change. for over 75 years, we've been rewriting…
The mission of lapf is to create partnerships to provide resources and programs that help the police perform at their highest level and to enhance lapd-community relations.(see schedule o)
The mission of the university of california, irvine foundation (uc irvine foundation) is to raise and manage private funds to support uc irvine's broader mission of excellence in teaching, research and public service. to this end, the uc…
To prevent cruelty to animals, we promote enacting and enforcing good public policies. enacting good laws depends upon electing good lawmakers, and we remind voters which candidates care about and support animal issues.
To distribute public affairs and other educational information in order to create an electronic bridge between californians and their public officials, and, in the process educate a new generation of voting citizens and civic leaders who…
At la jolla institute for immunology, our scientists focus on understanding how the immune system works in order to promote human health and prevent disease. our discoveries apply to many diseases, ranging from diabetes to heart disease,…
The organization is a non-partisan, membership based speakers' forum that connects business leaders, community members, and engaged individuals with shared interest in local, national, and global affairs. it provides an open and accessible…
Promotion and advancement of children's health through patient care, research, and education.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Canine Companions for Independence Inc and the most unlike its peers is The Farrah Fawcett Foundation. 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 39 years old; the field is 12. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 25% startups (under 5 years old) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 16% 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.
50 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. 50 of the 128 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 UNITED FRIENDS OF THE CHILDREN ↗
- Who funds CEDARS-SINAI MEDICAL CENTER ↗
- Who funds TREEPEOPLE INC ↗
- Who funds UCLA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ALZHEIMERS GREATER LOS ANGELES ↗
- Who funds LUPUS LA CO EMERGE ↗
- Who funds THE JONSSON CANCER CENTER FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CANINE COMPANIONS FOR INDEPENDENCE INC ↗
- Who funds AWAKENING RECOVERY INC ↗
- Who funds THE RAPE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds UNITED STATES FUND FOR UNICEF ↗
- Who funds International Guiding Eyes Inc DBA Guide Dogs of America ↗
- Who funds THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS ↗
- Who funds Wildlife Health Center Foundation ↗
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: California Community Foundation · Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles · The Annenberg Foundation · The Carole Bayer Sager and Bob Daly Foundation · The Katie McGrath & Jj Abrams Family Foundation · Cedars-Sinai Medical Center · Silicon Valley Community Foundation · Network for Good · Paypal Charitable Giving Fund · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · 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 L and R Donner 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.
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 L and R Donner Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The L and R Donner 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.