· Private foundation
The Phyllis & Donald Epstein Foundation
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.
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 · FY2024
- Under $10k5 grants · $23k
- $10k–50k7 grants · $95k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| AUSTRIAN-AMERICAN COUNCIL WEST | $25,000 |
| DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS | $15,000 |
| OPERATION SMILE | $15,000 |
| ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL | $10,000 |
| MERCY SHIPS | $10,000 |
| TUNNELS TO TOWERS | $10,000 |
| SHRINERS HOSPITAL FOR CHILDREN | $10,000 |
| FARM SANCTUARY | $5,000 |
| LUSTGARTEN FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| WAGS AND WALKS ADOPTION CENTER | $5,000 |
| UNITED IN HARMONY | $5,000 |
| LANGE FOUNDATION | $2,500 |
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 (FY17–24, $33k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 54% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants spread fairly evenly across need levels.
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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 78% of The Phyllis & Donald Epstein Foundation’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. Read by recipient address, 35% of the giving stays in CA; read by stated purpose it is 14% — less of the work is directed home than the recipients' locations suggest.
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 +40% since the first grant, against +26% for the ones you funded once.
152 repeat relationships — 9 still active in FY2024, 143 since wound down; 3 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 70% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $35k 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
- OSOPERATION SMILE INC5× · 2020–2024 · $21k · revenue +14%
ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INC5× · 2020–2024 · $17k · revenue +78%- LALOS ANGELES SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS7× · 2017–2023 · $16k · revenue +40%
Funded once
- WAWALLIS ANNENBERG CENTER FOR THE ARTSone grant, 2017 · $20k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2023 · $5k
- ACANGELA CITY PITT BULLSone grant, 2023 · $5k
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.
Founded in 1877, american humane association, dba american humane society (american humane) is committed to ensuring the safety, welfare and well-being of animals. our leadership programs are first to serve in promoting and nurturing the…
Ci works to spotlight and secure the critical benefits that nature provides to humanity.
To prevent cruelty to animals, we promote enacting and enforcing good public policies. enacting good laws depends upon electing good lawmakers, and we remind voters which candidates care about and support animal issues.
World animal protection is a global organization working to end factory farming and wildlife exploitation. we expose cruel systems, promote animal-friendly alternatives, and influence policy change. for over 75 years, we've been rewriting…
Rainforest trust saves endangered wildlife and protects our planet by creating rainforest reserves through partnerships, community engagement, and donor support.
To pass animal protection laws, educate the public, and support humane candidates for office.
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…
Panthera's mission is the conservation of the world's 40 wild cat species, many of which are endangered or threatened. panthera develops, implements and oversees wild cat conservation strategies on a global scale.
Our vision is a world where humans treat animals with respect, empathy and understanding. four paws mission is to be the strong, global and independent voice for animals.
We exist to end the abuse of animals raised for food. this mission is executed by persuading companies and institutions to adopt animal welfare policies through negotiation and pressure campaigns, and then holding them accountable to their…
To advocate for policy changes by governments and corporations in order to preserve ocean life and return the oceans to their former abundance.
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;…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Seeing Eye Inc and the most unlike its peers is The Healing Hands 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 41 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) — 1% of your grantees by number, and just 0% 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.
111 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. 111 of the 250 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
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
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 AUSTRIAN-AMERICAN COUNCIL WEST ↗
- Who funds OPERATION SMILE INC ↗
- Who funds ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INC ↗
- Who funds LOS ANGELES SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS ↗
- Who funds Children's Hospital Los Angeles ↗
- Who funds MARC LUSTGARTEN PANCREATIC CANCER FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Mercy Ships International ↗
- Who funds STEPHEN SILLER TUNNEL TO TOWERS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN INSTITUTE FOR CANCER RESEARCH ↗
- Who funds THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds WORLD WILDLIFE FUND INC ↗
- Who funds Humane World for Animals Inc ↗
- Who funds NPR FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds LA FAMILY HOUSING CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds TREEPEOPLE INC ↗
- Who funds GUIDE DOGS FOR THE BLIND INC ↗
- Who funds LANGE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN INC ↗
- Who funds SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA PUBLIC RADIO ↗
- Who funds JANE GOODALL INSTITUTE FOR WILDLIFE RESEARCH EDUCATION AND CONSERVATION ↗
- Who funds UNITED IN HARMONY ↗
- Who funds I Stand With My Pack Inc ↗
- Who funds UCLA FOUNDATION ↗
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: Amg Charitable Gift Foundation · Joyce a Ward Foundation · PC Fund for Animals Charitable Tr · Sempra Foundation · Bernard Weinberg Foundation · Paula Knickerbocker Foundation Inc · Gat Family Foundation · The Susan and Ford Schumann Foundation · Grace and Li Yu Family Foundation · Seckinger Foundation Corporation · The Gerald B Shreiber Foundation · American Express Foundation
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 Phyllis & Donald Epstein 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.
- National Park Trust Inc — 51% of income from government
- Mercy Corps — 47% of income from government
- Save the Children Federation Inc — 30% of income from government
- From the Top Inc — 6% of income from government
- Feed the Children Inc — 1% of income from government
- Wounded Warrior Project Inc — 0% of income from government
- Shriners Hospitals for Children — 0% of income from government
- Oxfam-America Inc — 0% 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 Phyllis & Donald Epstein Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Phyllis & Donald Epstein 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.