How much does The Michael and Rebecca Vest Founda give?

The Michael and Rebecca Vest Founda reported 25 grants totaling $300,000 in its FY2024 IRS filing. It funded between 12 and 23 organizations a year over FY2017 to FY2023.

What does The Michael and Rebecca Vest Founda fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2024, its largest causes are Arts & Culture (19%), Environment (19%), International (14%).

Who are The Michael and Rebecca Vest Founda's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2024: Pandion Music Foundation Inc ($200k), Seva Foundation ($170k), Natural Resources Defense Council Inc ($145k).

Does The Michael and Rebecca Vest Founda fund new organizations?

In FY2023, 39% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does The Michael and Rebecca Vest Founda accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

Which funders back the same organizations as The Michael and Rebecca Vest Founda?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include California Community Foundation, National Philanthropic Trust, American Online Giving Foundation Inc.

Where is The Michael and Rebecca Vest Founda based?

The Michael and Rebecca Vest Founda is based in CA.

The Michael and Rebecca Vest Founda

The Michael and Rebecca Vest Founda at a glance

· Private foundation

The Michael and Rebecca Vest Founda

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.

$300k

Granted FY2024still arriving

Grants FY2024still arriving

States reached

$30k

Largest

01What it funds

0191% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2024.

Arts & Culture$316kEnvironment$315kInternational$234kHealth$187kFood & Nutrition$126kEducation$123kHuman Services$65kHousing & Shelter$63kOther$0

02FY2024 · 25 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2024

Under $10k9 grants · $37k
$10k–50k16 grants · $263k

$10,000

Median grant

States reached

$6.0M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
SEVA FOUNDATION	$30,000
NRDC	$25,000
ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENCE FUND	$25,000
THE PARTNERSHIP FOR SAFE FAMILIES	$23,000
FRIENDS OF RANCHO SAN PEDRO	$20,000
VENICE FAMILY CLINIC	$20,000
PLANNED PARENTHOOD	$15,000
HABITAT FOR HUMANITY	$15,000
NEW ROADS SCHOOL	$15,000
PROJECT ANGEL FOOD	$15,000
MEALS ON WHEELS	$10,000
DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS	$10,000
WESTSIDE FOOD BANK	$10,000
RAINFOREST ACTION NETWORK	$10,000
HEAL THE BAY	$10,000

02The need

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Its human-services grants (FY18–24, $63k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 0% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

How this is measured

Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.

Which US states its grants reach

How this is measured

US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

85%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$1.4M · 32 repeat orgs$258k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +57% since the first grant, against +10% for those funded once.

32 repeat relationships: 24 still active in FY2024, 8 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$1.4M

$256k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+57%

+10%

Still filing today

63%

64%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 99% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

Arts & CultureEnvironmentInternationalHealthEducationHuman ServicesOther

How this is measured

First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL INC
7× · 2017–2024 · $145k · revenue +41%
VENICE FAMILY CLINIC
8× · 2017–2024 · $130k · revenue +110%
NR
NEW ROADS SCHOOL
8× · 2017–2024 · $99k · revenue +29%

Funded once

PM
PANDION MUSIC FOUNDATION INCgraduated
one grant, 2023 · $200k · revenue +56% · 97% of their budget
HP
HIGHLAND PARK HIGH SCHOOL
one grant, 2022 · $13k
OXFAM-AMERICA INC
one grant, 2017 · $10k · revenue +8%

How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

World Wildlife Fund Inc

Wwf's mission is to conserve nature and reduce the most pressing threats to the diversity of life on earth. (continued on schedule o)

Environment

Sustainable Fisheries Partnership Foundation

To engage and catalyze global seafood supply chains in rebuilding depleted fish stocks and reducing the environmental impacts of fishing and fish farming.

Animals

Food Forward Inc

Food forward fights hunger and prevents food waste by rescuing fresh surplus produce, connecting this abundance with people experiencing food insecurity, and inspiring others to do the same.

Food & Nutrition

Friends of the Earth

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…

Environment

Project Drawdown

Project drawdown's mission is to drive meaningful climate action by advancing science-based solutions and strategies. project drawdown's work is focused on three pillars: science - advancing science-based climate solutions and strategies;…

Education

Physicians for Social Responsibility

Psr-la is a physician and health advocate membership organization working to protect public health from nuclear threats and environmental toxins.

International

New Media Ventures

We believe that by changing where capital is invested, we can shift the structures of power to benefit more people.

Public Benefit

Resource Renewal Institute

The resource renewal institute facilitates the creation, development and implementation of practical strategies to solve the entire complex environmental problem by addressing it comprehensively.

Environment

Sustainable Conservation

Sustainable Conservation advances the collaborative stewardship of Californias land, air, and water for the benefit of nature and people. For over three decades, Sustainable Conservation has built coalitions of people with different…

Environment

Direct Action for Women Now World-Wide Inc Formerly Indias Daughters Inc

Philanthropy

Newfilmmakers Los Angeles

Works by emerging filmmkaers from around the world, providing the losangeles community of entertainment professionals and film goers with aconstant surge of monthly screening events. nfmla provides a forumwhere filmmakers can be recognized…

Arts & Culture

San Francisco Green Film Festival

San Francisco Green Film Festival's (SFGFF) mission is to educate and connect communities through forward thinking programs of environmental films, dialogues, and action opportunities.

—

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Environmental Defense Fund Incorporated; the most unlike its peers is Friends of Rancho San Pedro. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

04the grantee network

31 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2026, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 31 of the 47 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

29/31

Grantees still filing

22/31

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$485,154Arts & Culture$317,500Environment$269,500Health$215,000International$214,000Education$110,429Human Services$62,900

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

California Community FoundationCA13.4× affinity5 shared granteesties to 6 of 6Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: California Community Foundation · National Philanthropic Trust · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile Foundation

How this is measured

Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization The Michael and Rebecca Vest Founda funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Michael and Rebecca Vest Founda. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

0get no government money at all

9report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–40%

typical government reliance, FY20–25

How this is measured

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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to The Michael and Rebecca Vest Founda?

Find your warmest path to The Michael and Rebecca Vest Founda 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.

Play a game based on Michael and Rebecca Vest Founda’s filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions

grants reported with no recipient in the public record

The regranting layer

51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer

The DAF merry-go-round

$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds

The endowment market

who holds foundation money, and what just moved

The camps

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

By state

where grant money is based, and what stays home