· Private foundation
The McKenzie Foundation
Its FY2021 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 FY2017–2021.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| GOLDEN GATE NATIONAL PARKS CONSERVANCY | $5,000 |
| NETWORK FOR GOOD | $1,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $750 |
| NCGORG | $750 |
| Individual grant recipient | $150 |
| WALK SAN FRANCISCO | $25 |
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 (FY17–20, $223k) 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.
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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 6% of The McKenzie Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another. Read by recipient address, 90% of the giving stays in CA; read by stated purpose it is 87% — less of the work is directed home than the recipients' locations suggest.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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.
13 repeat relationships — 3 still active in FY2021, 10 since wound down; 2 grantees were first funded in FY2021 (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 FY2021, 88% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $775 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
- CFCOMPASS FAMILY SERVICES4× · 2017–2020 · $221k · revenue +283%
- MAMARIN ACADEMY3× · 2017–2019 · $123k · revenue +67%
- SFSAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM OF MODERN ART2× · 2017–2018 · $20k · revenue +37%
Funded once
- TBTHE BATTERY FOUNDATIONone grant, 2017 · $100k · revenue -41%
PENCILS OF PROMISE INCORPORATEDone grant, 2017 · $40k · revenue -75%- TCThe Center for Investigative Reporting Incone grant, 2017 · $25k · revenue -96%
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.
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…
The organization provides professional investment management services for endowed gifts and financial assets entrusted to the ucsf foundation.
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…
A private school that cultivates and celebrates the intellectual, imaginative, and humanitarian promise of each student in a community that practices mutual respect, embraces diversity, and inspires passion for learning.
Ca fwd drives action to identify solutions that can be taken to scale to meet the challenges the state is facing. the organization is driven by the belief that regional solutions across the state will help ensure economic, environmental,…
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…
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…
San Francisco CASA transforms the lives of children and youth traumatized and displaced in the foster care and related systems by providing one consistent, caring volunteer advocate, trained to address each childs needs in the court and…
At san franicisco university high school, we engage our community of diverse voices in a transformational experience that embraces the spirited pursuit of learning and empowers purpose larger than self.
To educate and inspire girls to become innovators and leaders in stem.
Marin humane transforms lives through exceptional animal care, humane education, and advocacy. every day, marin humane inspires compassion and positive relationships between people and animals.
To promote philanthropy to make santa cruz county a better place to live, now and in the future.we bring together people, ideas, and resources to inspire philanthropy and accomplish great things.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Compass Family Services and the most unlike its peers is Saint Helena Forum for Innovation and Creativity the Saint Helena Forum. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 32 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 21% startups (under 5 years old) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 11% 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.
51 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. 51 of the 69 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 COMPASS FAMILY SERVICES ↗
- Who funds MARIN ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds THE BATTERY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds GOLDEN GATE NATIONAL PARKS CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds PENCILS OF PROMISE INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds The Center for Investigative Reporting Inc ↗
- Who funds SAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM OF MODERN ART ↗
- Who funds CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES ↗
- Who funds Big Brothers Big Sisters of the Bay Area ↗
- Who funds RYSE INC ↗
- Who funds CALIFORNIA FILM INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds YOUTH SPEAKS INC ↗
- Who funds THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds ADOLESCENT COUNSELING SERVICES ↗
- Who funds Clean Air Council ↗
- Who funds Saint Helena Forum for Innovation and Creativity The Saint Helena Forum ↗
- Who funds WESTCOAST CHILDREN'S CLINIC ↗
- Who funds SOCCER WITHOUT BORDERS ↗
- Who funds INSTITUTO FAMILIAR DE LA RAZA ↗
- Who funds BRING CHANGE 2 MIND ↗
- Who funds ALL STARS HELPING KIDS INC ↗
- Who funds GREENLIGHT CLINIC ↗
- Who funds Access Institute for Psychological Services ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF SAN FRANCISCO ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY WORKS WEST INC ↗
- Who funds PROJECT CORNERSTONE INC ↗
- Who funds VISITORS SERVICE CENTER INC VOICES FOR A SECOND CHANCE ↗
- Who funds SAN FRANCISCO PARKS ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF OREGON FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ART WITH IMPACT ↗
- Who funds MEALS ON WHEELS INC ↗
- Who funds PENINSULA HUMANE SOCIETY & SPCA ↗
- Who funds NETWORK FOR GOOD ↗
- Who funds GATEWAY PUBLIC SCHOOLS ↗
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: Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco the Peninsula Marin & Sonoma · The San Francisco Foundation · Silicon Valley Community Foundation · Marin Community Foundation · Kaiser Foundation Hospitals · East Bay Community Foundation · Gordon E and Betty I Moore Foundation · The William & Flora Hewlett Foundation · Bothin Foundation · Lisa Stone Pritzker Family Fund · John Pritzker Family Fund · The Stanley S Langendorf 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 McKenzie 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 McKenzie Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The McKenzie 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.