· Private foundation
The Melvin and Bren Simon Charitable Foundation Number One
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.
Read this first · the figures below need context
87% of The Melvin and Bren Simon Charitable Foundation Number One’s FY2024 grant dollars went to Ucla Foundation, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2024 names 1 organization directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2017, the last year The Melvin and Bren Simon Charitable Foundation Number One named its own grantees at scale: 7 organizations, $215k. It is dated, not current.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
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 · FY2017
- Under $10k1 grant · $5k
- $10k–50k5 grants · $60k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $150k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Thunder River Theatre Company | $100,000 |
| The Aspen Institute | $50,000 |
| Aspen Valley Land Trust | $20,000 |
| Rocky Mountain PBS | $10,000 |
| Casa of the Ninth | $10,000 |
| Indianapolis Opera Charitable Grant | $10,000 |
| Colorado Public Television | $10,000 |
| Growing Years Preschool | $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 (FY19–19, $50k) land where the poverty rate runs at 21%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 29% of The Melvin and Bren Simon Charitable Foundation Number One’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.
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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +78% since the first grant, against +42% for the ones you funded once.
6 repeat relationships — 2 still active in FY2017, 4 since wound down; 18 grantees were first funded in FY2017 (too recent to call). Read against FY2017, the last year this funder named its own grantees directly; its giving has since run through a sponsor, which reports no donor behind each grant.
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, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
THE ASPEN INSTITUTE INC4× · 2017–2021 · $4.1M · revenue +243%- SSUMMIT546× · 2018–2024 · $700k · revenue +78%
- GFGLEANERS FOOD BANK OF INDIANA INC2× · 2018–2019 · $200k · revenue +146%
Funded once
- VVVALLEY VIEW HOSPITAL FOUNDATIONone grant, 2021 · $400k · revenue -63%
- POPACIFIC OPERA VICTORIAone grant, 2018 · $393k
- LILIFE INTER FAITH TEAM ON UNEMPLOYMENT AND POVERTYone grant, 2020 · $200k · revenue -17%
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.
To provide meaningful access to high quality, civil legal services in the pursuit of justice for as many low income persons and members of vulnerable populations throughout colorado as possible.
Advance workers rights & social justice through building sustained relationships and taking direct action to create concrete change in the lives of working families
To distribute public affairs and other educational information in order to create an electronic bridge between californians and their public officials, and, in the process educate a new generation of voting citizens and civic leaders who…
The santa fe community foundation inspires philanthropic generosity, strengthens nonprofits, and fosters positive change to build a more vibrant, healthy, and resilient region. the foundation's vision is a thriving northern new mexico,…
Urban land conservancy's mission is to acquire, develop, and/or preserve community assets in urban areas for a variety of community needs especially in high poverty, low-income, underserved, at-risk communities.
To support, nourish, and enrich our community by providing informative, entertaining and educational radio and digital programing in a reliable and professional manner.
We connect people, ideas, and nonprofits to make good happen. our vision is that all of jeffco is thriving.
Rocky mountain wild works to protect, connect, and restore wildlife and wild lands in the southern rocky mountain region. we work to secure the biodiversity of the mountains, plains, and desert ecosystems of colorado, wyoming, utah, and…
Community radio for northern colorado's (crnc) mission is to strengthen our community by cultivating the mind and spirit - informing, inspiring, and entertaining. crnc strives to meet its mission by operating two public media services -…
Building community by celebrating the art and diversity of film.
Colorado nonprofit association strengthens colorado's nonprofits through education, connection and advocacy.
Provide exceptional, integrated, patient-centered health care services designed to meet the needs of all patients, particularly those who experience barriers to accessing care, regardless of their ability to pay.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Rocky Mountain Public Media Inc and the most unlike its peers is Life Inter Faith Team On Unemployment and Poverty. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
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 25 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 UCLA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE ASPEN INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds SUMMIT54 ↗
- Who funds VALLEY VIEW HOSPITAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds GLEANERS FOOD BANK OF INDIANA INC ↗
- Who funds LIFE INTER FAITH TEAM ON UNEMPLOYMENT AND POVERTY ↗
- Who funds ROARING FORK FRIENDS OF THE THEATER INC ↗
- Who funds SAN MIGUEL COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ASPEN HOPE CENTER ↗
- Who funds CARBONDALE ARTS ↗
- Who funds LIFT UP ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF CASITA LINDA AC ↗
- Who funds ASPEN VALLEY LAND TRUST ↗
- Who funds ROCKY MOUNTAIN PUBLIC MEDIA INC ↗
- Who funds CASA OF THE NINTH ↗
- Who funds PUBLIC BROADCASTING OF COLORADO INC ↗
- Who funds COLORADO PUBLIC TELEVISION ↗
- Who funds GROWING YEARS SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds THE BUDDY PROGRAM 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: Aspen Community Foundation · Colorado Gives Foundation · El Pomar Foundation · Western Colorado Community Foundation Inc · The Joshua Max Simon Charitable Foundation · Arches Foundation · Pajwell Foundation · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Paypal Charitable Giving Fund · American Endowment Foundation · National Philanthropic Trust · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc
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 Melvin and Bren Simon Charitable Foundation Number One 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.
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How do I get to The Melvin and Bren Simon Charitable Foundation Number One?
Find your warmest path to The Melvin and Bren Simon Charitable Foundation Number One 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.