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The Max and Yetta Karasik Family Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

The Max and Yetta Karasik 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.

$300k
Granted FY2025still arriving
5
Grants FY2025still arriving
4
States reached
$110k
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its granteesRead
04Its fieldRead
05Through PlinthRead
01What it funds
0189% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2020 to 2025.

Health$371kFood & Nutrition$350kEnvironment$285kYouth Development$140kInternational$110kAnimals$60kPublic Safety & Disaster$5kOther$0
02FY2025 · 5 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

  • $10k–50k1 grant · $10k
  • $50k–250k4 grants · $290k
$60,000
Median grant
4
States reached
$4.6M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
HILO MEDICAL CENTER FOUNDATION$110,000
NATURE CONSERVANCY OF HAWAII$60,000
COMMUNITY FOOD SHARE$60,000
DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS$60,000
SAN DIEGO ZOO WILDLIFE ALLIANCE$10,000
02The need
03

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 (FY20–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 100% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 9%SAN DIEGO WILDLIFE ALLIANCE: $10k → 11%AMERICAN RED CROSS: $5k → 9%NATURE CONSERVANCY OF HAWAII: $60k → 9%HILO MEDICAL CENTER FOUNDATION: $110k → 15%DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS: $60k → 17%COMMUNITY FOOD SHARE: $60k → 12%SAN DIEGO ZOO WILDLIFE ALLIANCE: $10k → 11%NATURE CONSERVANCY: $45k → 9%HILO MEDICAL CENTER: $63k → 15%DOCTORS WITOUT BORDERS: $50k → 17%COMMUNITY FOOD SHARE: $50k → 12%NATURE CONSERVANCY: $45k → 9%HILO MEDICAL CENTER: $60k → 15%DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS: $50k → 17%COMMUNITY FOOD SHARE: $50k → 12%NATURE CONSERVANCY: $45k → 9%HILO MEDICAL CENTER: $53k → 15%DOCTORS WITOUT BORDERS: $50k → 17%COMMUNITY FOOD SHARE: $50k → 12%NATURE CONSERVANCY: $45k → 9%HILO MEDICAL CENTER: $50k → 15%DOCTORS WITOUT BORDERS: $45k → 17%COMMUNITY FOOD SHARE: $45k → 12%NATURE CONSERVANCY: $45k → 9%BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB: $50k → 15%DOCTORS WITOUT BORDERS: $45k → 17%COMMUNITY FOOD SHARE: $45k → 12%FOOD BASKET INC: $50k → 15%BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB: $45k → 15%BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB: $45k → 15%HAWAI'I CARE CHOICES: $25k → 15%HILO MEDICAL CENTER: $10k → 15%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 grantees
repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

84%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$1.0M · 6 repeat orgs$200k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +18% since the first grant, against +6% for those funded once.

6 repeat relationships: 3 still active in FY2025, 3 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

6
4

Total granted

$1.0M
$90k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+18%
+6%

Still filing today

50%
25%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 54% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $110k went to new ones.

50%100%’20’21’22’23’24’25
RenewedFirst-time

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

’20’21’22’23’24’25
Food & NutritionAnimalsInternationalPhilanthropyOther
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

  • CF
    COMMUNITY FOOD SHARE INC
    6× · 2020–2025 · $300k · revenue +18%
  • HM
    HILO MEDICAL CENTER
    5× · 2020–2024 · $236k
  • IG
    Individual grant recipient
    4× · 2020–2023 · $190k

Funded once

  • TF
    THE FOOD BASKET INC
    one grant, 2022 · $50k · revenue +6%
  • HC
    HAWAI'I CARE CHOICES
    one grant, 2022 · $25k
  • SD
    SAN DIEGO WILDLIFE ALLIANCE
    one grant, 2024 · $10k
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
04the grantee network

6 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. 6 of the 12 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)
0
Early backer (in before they grew)
6/6
Grantees still filing
4/6
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

THE NATURE CONSERVANCY: $285,000 · OtherTHE NATURE CONSERVANCYHILO MEDICAL CENTER: $235,904 · OtherHILO MEDICAL CENTERIndividual grant recipient: $190,000 · OtherIndividual grant recipientBOYS AND GIRLS CLUB: $140,000 · OtherBOYS AND GIRLS CLUB+3 more: $40,000 · OtherCOMMUNITY FOOD SHARE INC: $300,000 · Food & NutritionCOMMUNITY FOOD SHARE INCTHE FOOD BASKET INC: $50,000 · Food & NutritionTHE FOOD BASKET INCMEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC: $110,000 · InternationalHILO MEDICAL CENTER FOUNDATION: $110,000 · PhilanthropyZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF SAN DIEGO: $50,000 · Animals
Other$890,904Food & Nutrition$350,000International$110,000Philanthropy$110,000Animals$50,000

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

25%50%75%100%$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetCOMMUNITY FOOD SHARE INC: $300,000 over 6y, 0.2% of budgetTHE NATURE CONSERVANCY: $285,000 over 6y, 0.0% of budgetMEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC: $110,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetHILO MEDICAL CENTER FOUNDATION: $110,000 over 1y, 8.4% of budgetTHE FOOD BASKET INC: $50,000 over 1y, 0.4% of budgetZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF SAN DIEGO: $50,000 over 5y, 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.

  • Who funds COMMUNITY FOOD SHARE INC ↗
  • Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
  • Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
  • Who funds HILO MEDICAL CENTER FOUNDATION ↗
  • Who funds THE FOOD BASKET INC ↗
  • Who funds ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY OF SAN DIEGO ↗

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization The Max and Yetta Karasik Family Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Max and Yetta Karasik Family Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%1%3%6%10%funder's share of their income ↑0%19%38%56%75%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    1report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely 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.
    05Through Plinth

    Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

    How do I get to The Max and Yetta Karasik Family Foundation?

    Find your warmest path to The Max and Yetta Karasik 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.

    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 12 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 2025, released 2025. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

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    More from the funding graph

    The unnamed billions
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    The regranting layer
    51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer
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    $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