Skip to content

· Private foundation

The Low Foundation

$8k
Granted FY2020
6
Grants FY2020
2
States reached
$4k
Largest
01What it funds
01FY2020 · 6 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

$1,235
Median grant
2
States reached
$2k
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
ORDER OF MALTA$3,600
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA$1,800
CALIFORNIA PATRONS OF THE ARTS IN THE VATICAN MUSEUMS$1,235
UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHER CALIFORNIA$970
SUDAN RELIEF FUND$250
IMMACULATE CONCEPTION SCHOOL$200
02The need
02

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 (FY20–20) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 55% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 11%ORDER OF MALTA: $4k → 10%UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: $2k → 14%SUDAN RELIEF FUND: $250 → 14%UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHER CALIFORNIA: $970 → 14%CALIFORNIA PATRONS OF THE ARTS IN THE VATICAN MUSEUMS: $1k → 14%IMMACULATE CONCEPTION SCHOOL: $200 → 14%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 field
03the grantee network

4 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. 4 of the 5 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.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
2
Early backer (in before they grew)
4/4
Grantees still filing
3/4
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Order of Malta Clinic of Northern California: $3,600 · HealthOrder of Malta Clinic of Northern CaliforniaUNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: $2,770 · EducationUNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIATHE CALIFORNIA PATRONS OF THE ARTS IN THE VATICAN MUSEUMS: $1,235 · Arts & CultureTHE CALIFORNIA PA…SUDAN RELIEF FUND INC: $250 · InternationalIMMACULATE CONCEPTION SCHOOL: $200 · Other
Health$3,600Education$2,770Arts & Culture$1,235International$250Other$200

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

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetOrder of Malta Clinic of Northern California: $3,600 over 1y, 0.5% of budgetUNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA: $2,770 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetTHE CALIFORNIA PATRONS OF THE ARTS IN THE VATICAN MUSEUMS: $1,235 over 1y, 0.4% of budgetSUDAN RELIEF FUND INC: $250 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.

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 set of overlaps that mostly run through this funder rather than between each other.

Donor Advised Charitable Giving IncCA7.4× affinity4 shared granteesties to 0 of 0Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc

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 Low Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Low Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%0%1%3%5%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
    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.
    04Through Plinth

    Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

    How do I get to The Low Foundation?

    Find your warmest path to The Low 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 5 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 2020, released 2020. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

    Play a game based on Low’s filings →

    More from the funding graph