· Private foundation
The Polen 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 FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| PLANNED PARENTHOOD | $2,000 |
| FRIENDS OF COPAKE GRANGE | $1,500 |
| EQUALITY NOW | $1,000 |
| ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE | $1,000 |
| RAINN | $1,000 |
| WORLD WILDLIFE FUND | $1,000 |
| BERKSHIRE SOUTH COMMUNITY CENTER | $1,000 |
| RAICES | $1,000 |
| INTERNATIONAL RESCUE COMM | $1,000 |
| CCNY-GROVE SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING | $1,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $1,000 |
| THE GUTTMACHER INSTITUTE | $1,000 |
| PEOPLE FOR THE AMERICAN WAY | $1,000 |
| LEHIGH UNIVERSITY | $1,000 |
| CENTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS | $1,000 |
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 (FY17–25, $5k) land where the poverty rate runs at 6%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 0% 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +48% since the first grant, against +1% for the ones you funded once.
28 repeat relationships — 20 still active in FY2025, 8 since wound down; 3 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, 88% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $3k 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
- WFWOMEN FOR WOMEN INTERNATIONAL9× · 2017–2025 · $9k · revenue +41%
- LULEHIGH UNIVERSITY9× · 2017–2025 · $9k · revenue +69%
- IRInternational Rescue Committee INC9× · 2017–2025 · $9k · revenue +81%
Funded once
DIRECT RELIEFone grant, 2024 · $2k · revenue +1%- HHECDCone grant, 2021 · $1k
- FFFOUNDATION FOR PUERTO RICO INCone grant, 2017 · $1k · revenue -59%
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 international institute on race, equality and human rights contributes to the promotion and defense of human rights, through training, technical assistance, advocacy, and strategic litigation conducted at the regional and international…
To advance human rights and social justice in the americas.
To improve the lives and protect the rights of women, children and youth displaced by conflict and crisis. the women's refugee commission envisions a world in which refugees are safe, healthy and reliant and seeks to drive change in…
We generate ideas, produce evidence, and design solutions to improve the lives of underserved populations around the world. we take a multidisciplinary, intergenerational, life-cycle approach that contributes to (see schedule o)four global…
Rri's mission is to support local communities and indigenous peoples' struggles against poverty and marginalization by promoting greater global commitment and action towards policy, market, and legal reforms that secure their rights to…
Ci works to spotlight and secure the critical benefits that nature provides to humanity.
Actionaid is an international network building a just, equitable, and sustainable world in solidarity with communities on the frontlines of poverty and injustice. actionaid usa is the u.s. branch of actionaid international, which works in…
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;…
The center for reproductive rights ("the center") is an international non-governmental organization that uses the power of law to advance reproductive rights as fundamental human rights around the world.
RA works at the intersection of business, agriculture & forests to improve lives & protect nature by transforming how land is used, production of goods & consumer choices.
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…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is People for the American Way and the most unlike its peers is Guttmacher Institute 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 39 years old; the field is 18. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 19% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 10% 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.
26 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. 26 of the 36 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 WOMEN FOR WOMEN INTERNATIONAL ↗
- Who funds LEHIGH UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds International Rescue Committee INC ↗
- Who funds Equality Now Inc ↗
- Who funds ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS ↗
- Who funds SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds Guttmacher Institute Inc ↗
- Who funds CITY HARVEST INC ↗
- Who funds REFUGEE & IMMIGRANT CENTER FOR EDUCATION & LEGAL SERVICES ↗
- Who funds MARC LUSTGARTEN PANCREATIC CANCER FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Rape Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN) ↗
- Who funds THE LAURA ROSENBERG FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds LUNGEVITY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN INC ↗
- Who funds PEOPLE FOR THE AMERICAN WAY ↗
- Who funds HISPANIC FEDERATION INC ↗
- Who funds FRESH AIR FUND ↗
- Who funds HABITAT FOR HUMANITY INTERNATIONAL INC ↗
- Who funds ANCRAM OPERA HOUSE THEATER INC ↗
- Who funds GLOBALGIVING FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICARES FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds DIRECT RELIEF ↗
- Who funds FOUNDATION FOR PUERTO RICO INC ↗
- Who funds BERKSHIRE SOUTH REGIONAL COMMUNITY CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds WORLD WILDLIFE FUND 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 Communal Fund · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile 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 Polen 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.
- Americares Foundation 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.