How much does The Leslie S and Philip L Bernstein Family Fund give?

The Leslie S and Philip L Bernstein Family Fund reported 38 grants totaling $208,750 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 13 and 29 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does The Leslie S and Philip L Bernstein Family Fund fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Health (48%), Arts & Culture (36%), Environment (4%).

Who are The Leslie S and Philip L Bernstein Family Fund's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: Music Academy of the West ($555k), Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital ($450k), Sansum Clinic ($275k).

Does The Leslie S and Philip L Bernstein Family Fund fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 7% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does The Leslie S and Philip L Bernstein Family Fund accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

Which funders back the same organizations as The Leslie S and Philip L Bernstein Family Fund?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Santa Barbara Foundation, Ann Jackson Family Foundation, Elizabeth and John Moller Foundation.

Where is The Leslie S and Philip L Bernstein Family Fund based?

The Leslie S and Philip L Bernstein Family Fund is based in CA.

The Leslie S and Philip L Bernstein Family Fund

The Leslie S and Philip L Bernstein Family Fund at a glance

· Private foundation

The Leslie S and Philip L Bernstein Family Fund

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.

$209k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$50k

Largest

01What it funds

0199% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.

Health$1.1MArts & Culture$786kEnvironment$80kInternational$64kEducation$59kPublic Safety & Disaster$50kPhilanthropy$36kRecreation & Sports$22kOther$0

02FY2025 · 38 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k31 grants · $38k
$10k–50k5 grants · $71k
$50k–250k2 grants · $100k

$1,000

Median grant

States reached

$1.5M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
MUSIC ACADEMY OF THE WEST	$50,000
SANTA BARBARA COTTAGE HOSPITAL	$50,000
SANSUM CLINIC	$30,000
Germantown Academy	$11,000
WOODS HOLE OCEANOGRAPHIC INSTITUTION	$10,000
CANCER FOUNDATION OF SANTA BARBARA	$10,000
OPHTHALMICEDGE INC	$10,000
California Pacific Medical Center Foundation	$5,000
WORLD CLASS ACCESSIBILITY FOUNDATION	$2,500
Ganna Walska Lotusland	$2,500
THE METROPOLITAN OPERA GUILD INC	$2,000
Santa Barbara BOTANIC GARDEN	$1,500
MONTECITO TRAILS FOUNDATION	$1,000
WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY	$1,000
SANTA BARBARA HISTORICAL MUSEUM	$1,000

02The need

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 (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 94% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

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.

Which US states its grants reach

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.

91%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$2.0M · 43 repeat orgs$186k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +46% since the first grant, against +10% for those funded once.

43 repeat relationships: 35 still active in FY2025, 8 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$2.0M

$185k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+46%

+10%

Still filing today

86%

32%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $1k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

Arts & CultureHealthEnvironmentRecreation & SportsEducationInternationalOther

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

MA
MUSIC ACADEMY OF THE WEST
9× · 2017–2025 · $555k · revenue +18%
SB
Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital
9× · 2017–2025 · $450k · revenue +31%
SC
SANSUM CLINIC
9× · 2017–2025 · $275k · revenue +33%

Funded once

SB
SANTA BARBARA ART MUSEUM
one grant, 2017 · $100k
JS
JACOB STERN EMPLOYEE HURRICANE RELIEF FUND
one grant, 2018 · $50k
WC
WEILL CORNELL MEDICAL COLLEGE
one grant, 2018 · $15k

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.

Santa Barbara Museum of Art

To integrate art into the lives of people, fostering imagination, stimulating thought, and creating personally rewarding experiences.

Arts & Culture

Opera Santa Barbara

See schedule 0founded in 1994, opera santa barbara is the signature provider of professional opera on the california central coast. we aspire to be a cultural leader in the santa barbara region, voicing and advancing our community's spirit…

Arts & Culture

Monterey Museum of Art

The monterey museum of art cultivates curiosity in the visual arts and engages community with the diversity of california art - past, present, and future.

Arts & Culture

Santa Barbara Maritime Museum

Creating excellent exhibits and educational experiences that celebrate the santa barbara channel and illuminate our rich connections with the sea.

Arts & Culture

Santa Catalina Island Conservancy

The catalina island conservancy protects and stewards 88% of catalina island. more than 42,000 acres of wildlands, coves and coastal habitats. founded to preserve the island's natural resources, the conservancy advances a mission rooted in…

—

Santa Lucia Conservancy

To protect and steward in perpetuity the unique natural, cultural, and asthetic resources of the preserve and serve as a model of ecologically sustainable development to committees outside the preserve.

Environment

Museum of Sonoma County

The museum of sonoma county engages and inspires our diverse community with art and history exhibitions, collections, and public programs that are inclusive, educational, and relevant.

Arts & Culture

Foundation of California State University Monterey Bay

To further the scientific, literary, educational and charitable purposes of california state university, monterey bay, including fundraising, development, endowment management, financial assistance, public relations and other support.

Education

California College of the Arts

California college of the arts educates students to shape culture and society through the practice and critical study of art, architecture, design, and writing. benefitting from its san francisco bay area location, the college prepares…

Education

Ucla Foundation

The ucla foundation is the giving, receiving, and investing arm of the ucla campus. the foundation enables private donors to help build, sustain and advance one of the world's finest academic and research institutions. private philanthropy…

Education

San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory

The San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory is dedicated to the conservation of birds and their habitats through science and outreach.

Environment

Santa Barbara Public Library Foundation

The santa barbara public library foundation supports the long-term health and sustainability of the santa barbara public library through public-private partnerships.

Public Benefit

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Santa Barbara Foundation; the most unlike its peers is Merrag. 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

49 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. 49 of the 68 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.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

49/49

Grantees still filing

38/49

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Health$963,000Arts & Culture$659,450Other$363,500International$63,600Environment$58,750Education$41,000Philanthropy$34,000

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

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.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Santa Barbara FoundationCA35.2× affinity15 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Santa Barbara Foundation · Ann Jackson Family Foundation · Elizabeth and John Moller Foundation · Www Foundation · Hutton Foundation Dba Hutton Parker Foundation · Brittingham Family Foundation · Alice Tweed Tuohy Foundation · The Kirby-Jones Foundation · Mosher Foundation · Schlinger Family Foundation · The Wood-Claeyssens Foundation · The Susanne and Gary Tobey Family Fnd

How this is measured

Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization The Leslie S and Philip L Bernstein Family Fund funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Leslie S and Philip L Bernstein Family Fund. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

0get no government money at all

9report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

1rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–75%

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.

Play a game based on Leslie S and Philip L Bernstein Family’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