· Private foundation
The Parallax 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.
Read this first · the figures below need context
52% of The Parallax Foundation’s FY2025 grant dollars went to Stanislaus Community Foundation, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2025 names 9 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What you funded, over time
Every grant clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2021–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k2 grants · $10k
- $10k–50k3 grants · $47k
- $50k–250k8 grants · $650k
- $250k+1 grant · $750k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| STANISLAUS COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | $750,000 |
| POLICYLINK | $150,000 |
| LIFT INC | $100,000 |
| LIBERATION VENTURES INC | $100,000 |
| GLOBAL FUND FOR A NEW ECONOMY INC | $100,000 |
| FRIENDS OF THE MODESTO LIBRARY | $50,000 |
| DE MARILLAC ACADEMY | $50,000 |
| GLOBAL FUND FOR A NEW ECONOMY INC | $50,000 |
| LIBERATION IN A GENERATION INC | $50,000 |
| LIFT INC | $25,000 |
| THE PHILANTHROPY WORKSHOP INC | $12,000 |
| PHILANTHROPIC VENTURES FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| MCHENRY MUSEUM & HISTORICAL SOCIETY | $5,000 |
| CHILDRENS CRISIS CENTER OF STANISLAUS COUNTY | $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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY21–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 99% of your 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.
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 +87% since the first grant, against -8% for the ones you funded once.
6 repeat relationships — 5 still active in FY2025, 1 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, 38% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $430k 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
- PPOLICYLINK3× · 2021–2025 · $350k · revenue -42%
- DMDE MARILLAC ACADEMY4× · 2021–2025 · $200k
- FOFRIENDS OF THE MODESTO LIBRARY2× · 2024–2025 · $100k
Funded once
- MCMODESTO CHILDREN'S MUSEUMone grant, 2022 · $500k · revenue -43%
- CPCALIFORNIA PACIFIC MEDICAL CENTER FOUNDATIONone grant, 2021 · $100k · revenue +24%
- SMSAVE MART CARESone grant, 2021 · $100k · revenue -27%
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.
Common future is a network of pioneering leaders across the u.s. and canada who work deeply within their communities to create alternative approaches to business, philanthropy, and investing. we envision an economy that has transitioned…
The organization provides professional investment management services for endowed gifts and financial assets entrusted to the ucsf foundation.
Ca fwd drives action to identify solutions that can be taken to scale to meet the challenges the state is facing. the organization is driven by the belief that regional solutions across the state will help ensure economic, environmental,…
The league of california community foundations promotes and strengthens community foundations in california. through collaboration and shared learning among member foundations and building partnerships with private and public entities, we…
To promote philanthropy to make santa cruz county a better place to live, now and in the future.we bring together people, ideas, and resources to inspire philanthropy and accomplish great things.
A long-term, strategic alliance of labor, community, faith-based, and student organizations working together to build greater economic power for workers and community members through employee rights at work and access to good jobs,…
Confluence philanthropy's mission is to transform the practice of investing by aligning capital with our community's values of sustainability, equity, and justice.
SF Partnership is an organization comprised of SF's leading employers dedicated to supporting an equitable, resilient, and vibrant economy shared by all people working and living in San Francisco. Through education, advocacy, and research,…
Our mission is to help people in need improve their financial lives by expanding access to pro bono financial planning.
The Climate Center is a climate and energy policy nonprofit working to rapidly reduce climate pollution at scale, starting in California.
To support equitable access to economic opportunities for immigrants, refugees, low-income, marginalized, and underserved communities in king county and the united states.
Upturn advances equity and justice in the design, governance, and use of technology.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Policylink and the most unlike its peers is Childrens Crisis Center of Stanislaus County. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
21 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. 21 of the 23 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 Stanislaus Community Foundation ↗
- Who funds MODESTO CHILDREN'S MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds POLICYLINK ↗
- Who funds EAST BAY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds GLOBAL FUND FOR A NEW ECONOMY INC ↗
- Who funds LIFT INC ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE MODESTO LIBRARY ↗
- Who funds CALIFORNIA PACIFIC MEDICAL CENTER FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SAVE MART CARES ↗
- Who funds LIBERATION VENTURES INC ↗
- Who funds OAKLAND PROMISE ↗
- Who funds Urban Habitat Program ↗
- Who funds THE PHILANTHROPY WORKSHOP INC DBA FORWARD GLOBAL ↗
- Who funds WORLD LIBERTY CONGRESS INC ↗
- Who funds LIBERATION IN A GENERATION ↗
- Who funds Richmond Community Foundation ↗
- Who funds GALLO CENTER FOR THE ARTS INC ↗
- Who funds GOLDEN STATE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds PHILANTHROPIC VENTURES FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CHILDRENS CRISIS CENTER OF STANISLAUS COUNTY ↗
- Who funds MCHENRY MUSEUM & HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
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: The San Francisco Foundation · Stanislaus Community Foundation · Mary Stuart Rogers Foundation · Reed Foundation · Policylink · East Bay Community Foundation · Kaiser Foundation Hospitals · Silicon Valley Community Foundation · American Endowment Foundation · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation 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 Parallax 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.
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.