· Private foundation
The LaRussa Family Foundation
Its FY2025 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 FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k19 grants · $64k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $22k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Cat Town | $12,000 |
| Animal Rescue Corps | $10,000 |
| Finding A Best Friend | $7,000 |
| Furever Feline Cate Rescue | $5,561 |
| Spike's K9 Fund | $5,000 |
| Happy Cat Inc | $4,000 |
| Full Circle Cats | $3,120 |
| Animal Fix Clinic | $3,090 |
| Puppy Rescue Mission | $3,061 |
| Save our Cats and Kittens From Feli | $3,000 |
| Lily's Legacy Senior Dog Sanctuary | $3,000 |
| CARE | $3,000 |
| Famous Fido Rescue and Adoption | $3,000 |
| CC4C | $3,000 |
| K9 Paw Print Rescue | $3,000 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 77% 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.
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 +16% since the first grant, against +4% for the ones you funded once.
34 repeat relationships — 17 still active in FY2025, 17 since wound down; 4 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, 82% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $16k 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
- ARAnimal Rescue Corps Inc9× · 2017–2025 · $81k · revenue +85%
- CTCAT TOWN8× · 2018–2025 · $54k · revenue +63%
Spikes K9 Fund8× · 2017–2025 · $40k · revenue +100%
Funded once
- ALANIMAL LEGAL DEFENSE FUND INCgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $5k · revenue +55%
- SSSNIP - Spay Neuter Imperative Projeone grant, 2024 · $4k
- FCFull Circle Cats Feral Changeone grant, 2024 · $4k
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.
To help injured, abandoned and unwanted animals. We provide food, vet care that includes heartworm prevention and spay or neuter services, shelter and anything else needed.
To rescue abandoned and displaced cats and dogs, bring them back to health, provide all medical and prepare them for their new home
foster based dog rescue working with shelters to save dogs
Rescue and rehome homeless cats and dogs
Animal rescue organization dedicated to finding homes for animals at the animal shelter. we also provde vet care foster homes, and assistance with homing for special needs animals.
rescue, rehabilitate, and rehome animals in need
Animal rescue
An animal rescue/adoption Agency. Rescued animals are from kill shelters or owner surrenders facing hardship then rehabbed/medical completed while in foster care then adopted into loving homes.
Rescue, save and possibly re-home animals in need.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Rescue Dogs Rock Inc and the most unlike its peers is Save Our Cats & Kittens From Feline Infectiou. 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 12 years old; the field is 14. You back the younger end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 24% startups (under 5 years old) — 7% of your grantees by number, and just 2% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 14% 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.
34 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. 34 of the 52 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 Animal Rescue Corps Inc ↗
- Who funds CAT TOWN ↗
- Who funds Spikes K9 Fund ↗
- Who funds Bunnys Buddies ↗
- Who funds Carson Cats Rescue ↗
- Who funds FIX OUR FERALS ↗
- Who funds UNDERDOG ANIMAL RESCUE AND REHAB ↗
- Who funds SAVE OUR CATS & KITTENS FROM FELINE INFECTIOU ↗
- Who funds NORTH VALLEY ANIMAL DISASTER GROUP ↗
- Who funds ARIZONA CHIHUAHUA RESCUE INC ↗
- Who funds THE PUPPY RESCUE MISSION INC ↗
- Who funds TRISTATE NOAH PROJECT ↗
- Who funds Nickel City Canine Rescue Inc ↗
- Who funds HOPALONG ANIMAL RESCUE ↗
- Who funds Cat Assistance Referral & Education (CARE) ↗
- Who funds FAMOUS FIDO RESCUE AND ADOPTION ALL ↗
- Who funds PRECIOUS PALS PET RESCUE ↗
- Who funds RESCUE DOGS ROCK INC ↗
- Who funds SAVE A KITTY INC ↗
- Who funds Lilys Legacy Senior Dog Sanctuary ↗
- Who funds Nine Lives Foundation ↗
- Who funds Furever Feline Cat Rescue ↗
- Who funds ANIMAL LEGAL DEFENSE FUND INC ↗
- Who funds HAPPY CAT INC ↗
- Who funds ANIMAL ALLIANCE RESCUE AND SHELTER ↗
- Who funds FERAL CHANGE DBA FULL CIRCLE CATS ↗
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: The Duffield Family Foundation Dba Maddie's Fund · Greater Good Charities · McNabb Foundation · Petco Love · Paypal Charitable Giving Fund · Thornton S Jr and Katrina D Glide Foundation · Best Friends Animal Society · AbbVie Foundation · Shell USA Company Foundation · Dmarlou Foundation · Petsmart Charities Inc · Network for Good
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 LaRussa Family 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 LaRussa Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The LaRussa Family 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.