· Private foundation
The Marvin and Nancy Dennis Family Foundation
Its FY2024 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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k3 grants · $16k
- $10k–50k3 grants · $30k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY | $10,000 |
| BRAIN RESEARCH FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| PI KAPPA ALPHA EDUCATION FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| WILCO | $5,700 |
| WASCOTT VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPT | $5,000 |
| ODYSSEY SCHOOL | $5,000 |
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.
Your human-services grants (FY17–17, $750) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 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 +29% since the first grant, against +19% for the ones you funded once.
7 repeat relationships — 4 still active in FY2024, 3 since wound down; 2 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 78% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $10k 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
- BRBRAIN RESEARCH FOUNDATION5× · 2020–2024 · $30k · revenue +60%
- SFSAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY4× · 2021–2024 · $25k · revenue +2%
- TOTHE ODYSSEY SCHOOL2× · 2019–2020 · $10k · revenue +29%
Funded once
- PFPIKA FOUNDATIONone grant, 2020 · $15k
- CFCITIZEN FILM INCgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $5k · revenue +95%
- SSSUMMER SEARCHgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $4k · revenue +53%
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.
The organization provides professional investment management services for endowed gifts and financial assets entrusted to the ucsf foundation.
The mission of the uc davis foundation is to secure, steward and manage private gifts for uc davis.
The mission of the silicon schools fund is to improve education through supporting the launch of excellent new schools, improving academic instruction in existing schools, and by funding some of the boldest innovations in education…
Sfn's mission is to: 1. advance the understanding of the brain and the nervous system by bringing together scientists of all segments of neuroscience, by facilitating the integration of research directed at all levels of biological…
The mission of mit is to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century.
At san francisco friends school, students learn in a community grounded in the quaker values of reflection, integrity, peaceful problem-solving and stewardship. our teachers challenge students with a dynamic curriculum that inspires…
Guided by the principles of academic rigor and diversity, the international school of san francisco offers programs of study in french and english to prepare its graduates for a world in which the ability to think critically and to…
SFFILM is a nonprofit organization whose mission ensures independent voices in film are welcomed, heard, and given the resources to thrive. SFFILM connects and inspires audiences, students and teachers, and filmmakers through our film…
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…
Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.
Advance science, engineering, and innovation throughout the world for the benefit of all. the world's largest multidisciplinary scientific society and a leading publisher of cutting-edge research through its science family of journals,…
Curiodyssey, a science playground and zoo, inspires a love for science and curiosity about the world to create a brighter future. we do this by letting kids loose to observe what is, ask "what if and let the natural world answer their…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Exploratorium and the most unlike its peers is Whitefish Lake Conservation Organization Inc. 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 36 years old; the field is 14. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 24% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% 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.
19 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. 19 of the 33 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 BRAIN RESEARCH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY ↗
- Who funds THE ODYSSEY SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds CITIZEN FILM INC ↗
- Who funds THE ODYSSEY SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds SUMMER SEARCH ↗
- Who funds Mount St Joseph-St Elizabeth ↗
- Who funds THE FOUNDATION TO ADVANCE VASCULAR CURES ↗
- Who funds SAN FRANCISCO JAZZ ORGANIZATION ↗
- Who funds THE MILO FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds LUCILE PACKARD FOUNDATION FOR CHILDREN'S HEALTH ↗
- Who funds Whitefish Lake Conservation Organization Inc ↗
- Who funds University of Illinois Foundation ↗
- Who funds KQED INC ↗
- Who funds YOSEMITE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CASA of San Mateo County ↗
- Who funds HARVARD MAGAZINE INC ↗
- Who funds THE EXPLORATORIUM ↗
- Who funds CALIFORNIA POLICE ACTIVITIES LEAGUE ↗
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: Gordon E and Betty I Moore Foundation · American Endowment Foundation · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · 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 Marvin and Nancy Dennis 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.