· Private foundation
The Melsness 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.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k5 grants · $8k
- $10k–50k13 grants · $294k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $151k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ONE SPIRIT | $101,241 |
| WATSONS CHILDRENS SHELTER | $50,000 |
| VINE MAPLE PLACE | $40,000 |
| GIG HARBOR KIWANIS INTERNATIONAL | $40,000 |
| PROJECT 150 | $40,000 |
| SOUTH SOUND CARE FOUNDATION | $34,000 |
| FOOD AND BACKPACKS 4 KIDS | $25,000 |
| CARING FOR KIDS | $25,000 |
| SERVING OUR KIDS FOUNDATION | $20,000 |
| COMPASSION WASHINGTON | $12,500 |
| YOUTH FOR CHRIST | $12,500 |
| STEP BY STEP | $12,500 |
| THE COFFEE OASIS | $12,500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $10,000 |
| SIBLING STRONG | $10,000 |
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 (FY17–25, $545k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 26% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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.
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 +51% since the first grant, against +45% for the ones you funded once.
35 repeat relationships — 15 still active in FY2025, 20 since wound down; 5 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (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 FY2025, 83% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $76k 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
- OSONE SPIRIT9× · 2017–2025 · $374k · revenue +266%
- SPStevensville Pantry Partners Food Bank8× · 2017–2024 · $184k · revenue +220%
- SSSOUTH SOUND CARE FOUNDATION6× · 2017–2025 · $147k · revenue +122%
Funded once
- FBFOOD BACKPACKS 4 KIDSgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $10k · revenue +461%
WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN INCone grant, 2022 · $5k · revenue -40%- HCHOPES CLOSETone grant, 2022 · $5k
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.
Kids against hunger bay areas' mission is to feed starving children, and to empower kids, teens and adults to be part of the solution. we do this by using volunteers to package and ship highly nutritious, life-saving meals to areas facing…
The Food Bank of Northern Nevada, Inc.s (Food Banks) mission is Feeding the hungry today and solving hunger for tomorrow through community partnership. The Food Banks vision is Healthy Food. Every Person, Every Day.
On a mission to connect every person facing hunger with nutritious meals by maximizing food rescue. through direct service and community partnerships, feeding san diego provides more than 26 million meals each year to children, families,…
FBA believes no one deserves to be hungry. We are dedicated to eliminating hunger in Alaska by obtaining and providing food to partner agencies and through anti-hunger leadership.
Food for hope's mission is to empower and strengthen the future of their communities by providing nutritious food to children in need.
Provide food, shelter, and medical assistance for children around the world.
All children and families deserve to live free from hunger and poverty. we're going to make that happen. we're helping communities feed children with our no kid hungry campaign and addressing the root causes of hunger and poverty. it's a…
Americas Kids Belong works to dramatically improve the experiences and outcomes of kids in foster care so they can thrive in safe,loving families, supported by Foster Friendly communities where they belong.
The Organization's mission is to feed hungry people by soliciting and judiciously distribution food and grocery products and to educate the public about the nature of and solutions to the problems of hunger.
To provide food to all in need through community partnerships and hunger relief programs. Our vision is a hunger-free Larimer County.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Save the Children Federation Inc and the most unlike its peers is Med Access International. 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 28 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 6% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
37 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. 37 of the 52 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 ONE SPIRIT ↗
- Who funds Stevensville Pantry Partners Food Bank ↗
- Who funds SOUTH SOUND CARE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds PROJECT 150 ↗
- Who funds Feeding America ↗
- Who funds Compassion Washington ↗
- Who funds THE COFFEE OASIS ↗
- Who funds STEP BY STEP FAMILY SUPPORT CENTER ↗
- Who funds CHILD AID ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INC ↗
- Who funds Adopt-A-Native Elder ↗
- Who funds VINE MAPLE PLACE ↗
- Who funds HopeSparks ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN OF THE NATIONS ↗
- Who funds Save The Children Federation Inc ↗
- Who funds SERVING OUR KIDS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Seattle Area Youth for Christ ↗
- Who funds CARING FOR KIDS ↗
- Who funds MARINE TOYS FOR TOTS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds A STEP AHEAD IN PIERCE COUNTY ↗
- Who funds FOOD BACKPACKS 4 KIDS ↗
- Who funds SIBLING STRONG ↗
- Who funds SPECIAL OLYMPICS MONTANA INC ↗
- Who funds WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN INC ↗
- Who funds SHRINERS HOSPITALS FOR CHILDREN ↗
- Who funds TWIN BRIDGES KID COUNTRY DAY CARE INC ↗
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: Woodworth Family Foundation · Greater Tacoma Community Foundation · Multicare Health System · The Norcliffe Foundation · Puget Sound Energy Foundation · First Interstate BancSystem Foundation Inc · Nehemiah Ventures · Gary E Milgard Family Foundation-Cari · Kilworth Florence Char Tr Fndn · Ben B Cheney Foundation Inc · Fuchsg & M Fdn Tai · Gary E Milgard Family Foundation- Sunshine
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 Melsness 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.
- Save the Children Federation Inc — 30% of income from government
- Shriners Hospitals for Children — 0% of income from government
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 Melsness Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Melsness 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.