· Private foundation
The Mesdag 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 FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k18 grants · $60k
- $10k–50k21 grants · $300k
- $50k–250k7 grants · $451k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ASPEN MUSIC FESTIVAL AND SCHOOL | $100,000 |
| PRINCETON UNIVERSITY | $75,000 |
| HARVARD-WESTLAKE SCHOOL | $60,000 |
| ST MONICA'S CATHOLIC CHURCH | $60,000 |
| OBAMA FOUNDATION | $55,600 |
| GOLDMAN SACHS PHILANTHROPY FUND | $50,000 |
| LA CLIPPERS FIRE AID | $50,000 |
| THEATER ASPEN | $35,000 |
| PACIFIC COUNCIL ON INTERNATIONAL POLICY | $34,600 |
| COLORADO ACADEMY | $30,000 |
| ASPEN CENTER FOR ENVIROMENTAL STUDIES | $25,000 |
| KELLOGG SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT | $15,000 |
| HEAL THE BAY | $10,000 |
| OCEAN CLEANUP | $10,000 |
| LOS ANGELES PHILHARMONIC | $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 (FY24–24, $26k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 4% 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.
54 repeat relationships — 40 still active in FY2025, 14 since wound down; 4 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, 91% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $70k 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
- MAMUSIC ASSOCIATES OF ASPEN INC6× · 2020–2025 · $787k · revenue +410%
The Trustees of Princeton University6× · 2020–2025 · $650k · revenue +51%- HSHARVARD-WESTLAKE SCHOOL6× · 2020–2025 · $225k · revenue +31%
Funded once
- HRHARVARD-WESTLAKE RIVER PROJECTone grant, 2022 · $50k
- SMST MONICAS CATHOLIC COMMUNITYone grant, 2024 · $50k
- AHANNUNCIATION HOUSE INCone grant, 2020 · $30k
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 purpose of the water research foundation (wrf) is a definitive research organization to advance the science of all things water to better meet the evolving needs of its subscribers and the water sector. to engage exclusively in…
The union of concerned scientists puts rigorous, independent science into action, developing solutions and advocating for a healthy, safe, and just future.
American gas association's (the association) mission is to develop and advocate for informed, innovative, and durable policy that fulfills our nation's energy needs, environmental aspirations and economic potential. we are committed to…
Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.
To drive transformational adaptation to protect communities across the country from higher seas, stronger storms, and more frequent flooding.
Friends of the earth strives for a more healthy and just world by defendng the environment and human health while advancing social and economic justice by conducting research and education, transforming the economy so it protects the…
Wri is committed to creating change that improves people's lives and ensures the natural world can thrive. (see schedule o)wri's bold vision requires a formula for success we call "count it. change it. scale it.":- count it: our work is…
Cdp north america, inc. 's ("cdp-na") vision for the future is a thriving economy that works for people and planet in the long term. we focus investors and companies on taking urgent action to build a truly sustainable economy by measuring…
See schedule ouniversity corporation for atmospheric research (ucar), on behalf of, and in cooperation with its member university members, is engaged in the management of long-term atmospheric and related research and educational…
The mission of mit is to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century.
American foreign service association (afsa) is both the principal advocate for the long-term institutional wellbeing of the professional career foreign service and responsible for safeguarding the interest of afsa members. (continued on…
To strenghten people's ability to guarantee their individual and collective right to a healthy environment, via the development, implementation, and effective enforcement of national and international law.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Denver Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Prospect Foundation Inc. 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 44 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) — 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 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.
56 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. 56 of the 101 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 MUSIC ASSOCIATES OF ASPEN INC ↗
- Who funds The Trustees of Princeton University ↗
- Who funds HARVARD-WESTLAKE SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds PACIFIC COUNCIL ON INTERNATIONAL POLICY ↗
- Who funds THEATRE ASPEN ↗
- Who funds GS DONOR ADVISED PHILANTHROPY FUND FOR WEALTH MANAGEMENT INC ↗
- Who funds ASPEN CENTER FOR ENVIRONMENTAL STUDIES ↗
- Who funds THE BARACK OBAMA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ASPEN COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds COLORADO ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds INTERNATIONAL MEDICAL CORPS ↗
- Who funds Northwestern University ↗
- Who funds ASPEN VALLEY LAND TRUST ↗
- Who funds THE ASPEN INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds LOS ANGELES PHILHARMONIC ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds LOS ANGELES MISSION INC ↗
- Who funds International Rescue Committee INC ↗
- Who funds ASPEN ART MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds COUNCIL ON FOREIGN RELATIONS INC ↗
- Who funds HEAL THE BAY ↗
- Who funds LOS ANGELES FIRE DEPARTMENT FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds INDEPENDENCE PASS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds VISIBLE FIGURES ↗
- Who funds Rocky Mountain Institute ↗
- Who funds TEAM RUBICON INC ↗
- Who funds RAINFOREST FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds RENEGADE RELIEF FOUNDATION 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: Colorado Gives Foundation · The Paula and William Bernstein Family Foundation · Aspen Community Foundation · The Ayco Charitable Foundation · National Philanthropic Trust · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · American Endowment Foundation · Charities Aid Foundation America · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Paypal Charitable Giving Fund
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 Mesdag 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.
- The Trustees of Princeton University — 11% 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.