How much does The Polen Foundation give?

The Polen Foundation reported 23 grants totaling $21,250 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 20 and 25 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does The Polen Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Civil Rights (28%), Health (21%), International (14%).

Who are The Polen Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: Women for Women International ($9k), Lehigh University ($9k), International Rescue Committee INC ($9k).

Does The Polen Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 5% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does The Polen Foundation 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 Polen Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Jewish Communal Fund, Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund, Amazonsmile Foundation.

Where is The Polen Foundation based?

The Polen Foundation is based in NY.

The Polen Foundation

The Polen Foundation at a glance

· 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.

$21k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$2k

Largest

01What it funds

0195% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.

Civil Rights$47kHealth$35kInternational$24kEducation$18kPublic Safety & Disaster$6kAnimals$6kFood & Nutrition$6kRecreation & Sports$4kOther$0

02FY2025 · 23 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

$1,000

Median grant

States reached

$287k

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
PLANNED PARENTHOOD	$2,000
FRIENDS OF COPAKE GRANGE	$1,500
BERKSHIRE SOUTH COMMUNITY CENTER	$1,000
ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE	$1,000
Individual grant recipient	$1,000
LEHIGH UNIVERSITY	$1,000
WOMEN FOR WOMEN INTERNATIONAL	$1,000
PEOPLE FOR THE AMERICAN WAY	$1,000
CENTER FOR CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS	$1,000
RAINN	$1,000
WORLD WILDLIFE FUND	$1,000
THE GUTTMACHER INSTITUTE	$1,000
INTERNATIONAL RESCUE COMM	$1,000
CCNY-GROVE SCHOOL OF ENGINEERING	$1,000
RAICES	$1,000

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 (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. 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.

95%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$160k · 28 repeat orgs$9k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +48% since the first grant, against +1% for those 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

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$160k

$6k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+48%

+1%

Still filing today

79%

40%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 88% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $3k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

InternationalCivil RightsHealthCommunity ImprovementRecreation & SportsEducationOther

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

WF
WOMEN FOR WOMEN INTERNATIONAL
9× · 2017–2025 · $9k · revenue +41%
LU
LEHIGH UNIVERSITY
9× · 2017–2025 · $9k · revenue +69%
IR
International Rescue Committee INC
9× · 2017–2025 · $9k · revenue +81%

Funded once

DIRECT RELIEF
one grant, 2024 · $2k · revenue +1%
H
HECDC
one grant, 2021 · $1k
FF
FOUNDATION FOR PUERTO RICO INC
one grant, 2017 · $1k · revenue -59%

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.

The International Institute On Race Equality and Human Rights

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…

International

Washington Office On Latin America

To advance human rights and social justice in the americas.

International

Women's Refugee Commission Inc

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…

Human Services

The Population Council Inc

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…

International

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

Philanthropy

Rights and Resources Institute Inc

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…

Environment

Conservation International Foundation

Ci works to spotlight and secure the critical benefits that nature provides to humanity.

Environment

Actionaid Usa

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…

Social Science

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

The Center for Reproductive Rights Inc

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.

Civil Rights

Rainforest Alliance Inc

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.

—

World Resources Institute

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…

International

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is People for the American Way; 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.

04the grantee network

26 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

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 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.

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)

26/26

Grantees still filing

20/26

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$76,950International$39,400Civil Rights$21,500Education$9,000Health$9,000Crime & Legal$7,200Food & Nutrition$5,500

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.

Jewish Communal FundNY12.6× affinity4 shared granteesties to 2 of 2Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Jewish Communal Fund · 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 Polen Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Polen Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

0get no government money at all

7report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

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.

Play a game based on Polen’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