· Private foundation
The Mesa West Foundation
Its FY2018 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 FY2017–2018.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2018
- Under $10k42 grants · $150k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $34k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| STUDENTS RUN LA | $17,065 |
| THE PARISH OF SAINT MATHHEW | $17,065 |
| ST JUDES CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL | $8,000 |
| THE JEWISH FEDERATION OF GREATER LA | $6,500 |
| THE RACE | $5,000 |
| MBA OPENS DOORS FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| HOMES FOR OUR TROOPS | $4,000 |
| CITY OF HOPE | $4,000 |
| GUITARS OVER GUNS ORGANIZATION | $4,000 |
| ALEX'S LEMONADE STAND FOUNDATION | $4,000 |
| ST NICHOLAS GEORGIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH | $4,000 |
| THE FIRST TEE | $4,000 |
| INNOCENCE PROJECT | $4,000 |
| OLD YELLER RANCH RESCUE | $4,000 |
| SOCIETY OF ST VINCENT DE PAUL | $4,000 |
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 (FY18–18, $14k) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, 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.
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.
10 repeat relationships — 10 still active in FY2018, 0 since wound down; 32 grantees were first funded in FY2018 (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 FY2018, 29% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $122k 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
- SRSTUDENTS RUN AMERICA2× · 2017–2018 · $21k · revenue +116%
- TRTHE RACE INC2× · 2017–2018 · $10k · revenue +278%
- CLCHAI LIFELINE INC2× · 2017–2018 · $7k · revenue +58%
Funded once
HOMEBOY INDUSTRIESgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $11k · revenue +175%- RWRECTOR WARDENS & VESTRYMEN OF ST MATTHEWS PARISHone grant, 2017 · $5k
- CCHRYSALISone grant, 2017 · $4k
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 samuel waxman cancer research foundation (the "foundation") funds innovative research to bring faster cures to patients. in addition to supporting ongoing collaborative research in specific cancers, our scientists are investigating the…
City of Hope's mission is to make hope a reality for all touched by cancer and diabetes. PLEASE SEE SCHEDULE O FOR A CONTINUATION OF OUR MISSION
The jonsson cancer center foundation is the single most important vehicle for raising private funds for cancer research at ucla and plays a key role in advancing cancer treatments and care. please see schedule o for additional information.
To promote health by engaging in the practice of medicine for patients of hospitals affiliated with the university of southern california keck school of medicine and elsewhere. to provide medical care to the sick and injured who may come…
The mission of the institute is to translate basic genetic and molecular mechanisms of schizophrenia and related developmental brain disorders into clinical advances that change the lives of affected individuals. it is catalyzing a new…
Curesearch's mission is to fund & support targeted & innovative cancer research with measurable results, & to be the authoritative source of information & resources for all those affected by children's cancer. see schedule o for…
Our mission is to accelerate scientific progress, understand the root causes of disease, and narrow the gap between discoveries and impact on patients.
To eliminate disparities in health care access and outcomes by providing superior quality health and human services through an integrated world-class delivery system for latino, multi-ethnic underserved communities in southern california.
Break through cancer is a foundation dedicated to supporting translational research in the most difficult to treat cancers. our partner organizations are among the top cancer research centers and together, represent some of the most…
Asco association promotes the common business interests of its members by: (1) advocating for policies that improve the quality of cancer care; (2) maintaining the highest standards of oncology medical care through programs supporting…
To improve the lives of people through innovative scientific and engineering research.
The Institute is a scientific research center dedicated to conducting basic and applied research to advance the understanding of human disease and the improvement of human health. The Institute fosters an innovative research environment…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Make-a-Wish Foundation of Illinois Inc and the most unlike its peers is St Nicholas Georgian Orthodox Church. 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 33 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) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 2% 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.
48 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. 48 of the 76 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 STUDENTS RUN AMERICA ↗
- Who funds HOMEBOY INDUSTRIES ↗
- Who funds THE RACE INC ↗
- Who funds UNRAVEL ↗
- Who funds ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INC ↗
- Who funds CHAI LIFELINE INC ↗
- Who funds JEWISH FEDERATION COUNCIL OF GREATER LA ↗
- Who funds SANTA MONICA CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds UCLA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MBA OPENS DOORS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds GUITARS OVER GUNS ORGANIZATION INC ↗
- Who funds American Heart Association Inc ↗
- Who funds GLOBAL KINDNESS ↗
- Who funds HOMES FOR OUR TROOPS INC ↗
- Who funds ST NICHOLAS GEORGIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH ↗
- Who funds THE BREAST CANCER RESEARCH FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds ALEXS LEMONADE STAND FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE INNOCENCE PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds CONTACT WE CARE INC ↗
- Who funds MAKE-A-WISH FOUNDATION OF ILLINOIS INC ↗
- Who funds MEND - Meet Each Need With Dignity ↗
- Who funds SANTA BARBARA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds TIAS HOPE ↗
- Who funds PASADENA HUMANE ↗
- Who funds MALARIA CONSORTIUM US 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: Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles · Arthur J Gallagher Foundation · The Goldman Sachs Charitable Gift Fund · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · National Philanthropic Trust · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc · Ge Aerospace Foundation · Jewish Communal Fund · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Network for Good · Raymond James Charitable Endowment Fund · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust 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 Mesa West 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.
- Best Buddies International Inc — 4% of income from government
- Hope Christian Services — 3% of income from government
- Guitars Over Guns Organization Inc — 1% 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 Mesa West Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Mesa West 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.