How much does The River Foundation give?

The River Foundation reported 27 grants totaling $61,900 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 14 and 32 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does The River Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Crime & Legal (22%), International (16%), Environment (16%).

Who are The River Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: The Innocence Project Inc ($100k), Freedom of the Press Foundation ($60k), Survival International (Usa) ($53k).

Does The River Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 26% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does The River 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 River Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include The Ford Foundation, Impactassetsinc, Tides Foundation.

Where is The River Foundation based?

The River Foundation is based in CA.

The River Foundation

The River Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

The River 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.

$62k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$5k

Largest

01What it funds

01100% classified

What it funded, over time

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

Crime & Legal$158kInternational$117kEnvironment$114kEducation$79kHuman Services$73kArts & Culture$58kCivil Rights$41kPublic Benefit$17kOther$0

02FY2025 · 27 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

$2,000

Median grant

States reached

$1.2M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
FREEDOM OF THE PRESS FOUNDATION	$5,000
DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS USA	$5,000
THE BAIL PROJECT	$5,000
CIVIL LIBERTIES DEFENSE CENTER	$3,000
PALESTINE CHILDREN'S RELIEF FUND	$3,000
Individual grant recipient	$3,000
HEAL PALESTINE	$3,000
SURVIVAL INTERNATIONAL USA	$3,000
WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN	$3,000
Individual grant recipient	$2,500
THE ZAYNAB PROJECT	$2,000
MIDDLE EAST CHILDREN'S ALLIANCE	$2,000
MONDOWEISS	$2,000
AMERICAN FRIENDS OF COMBATANTS FOR PEACE	$2,000
UNITED PALESTINIAN APPEAL	$2,000

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, $168k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 99% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-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.

Where the work is directed

The same grants placed two ways: where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose sends the money.

About 43% of The River Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked for a different county than the recipient’s own address. By recipient address, 43% of the giving stays in CA; by stated purpose, 30%.

The River Foundationlessmore of its giving

Placed by recipient address · 3.9% directed abroad (not shown)

How this is measured

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 funder’s own 990 grant descriptions.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

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

89%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$629k · 39 repeat orgs$76k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +39% since the first grant, against +17% for those funded once.

39 repeat relationships: 16 still active in FY2025, 23 since wound down; 11 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$629k

$58k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+39%

+17%

Still filing today

79%

61%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 70% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $19k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

InternationalEnvironmentHuman ServicesEducationHealthCivil RightsOther

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

TI
THE INNOCENCE PROJECT INC
8× · 2017–2024 · $100k · revenue +135%
SI
SURVIVAL INTERNATIONAL
9× · 2017–2025 · $53k · revenue +141%
WILLIAM J BRENNAN CENTER FOR JUSTICE INC
9× · 2017–2025 · $40k · revenue +206%

Funded once

TA
THE AFRICAN AMERICAN POLICY FORUM INCgraduated
one grant, 2018 · $10k · revenue +499%
DN
DEMOCRACY NOW PRODUCTIONS INC
one grant, 2017 · $5k · revenue -4%
FL
First Look Institute Inc
one grant, 2019 · $5k · revenue -95%

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.

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

Asociacion Interamericana Para La Defensa Del Ambiente

To strenghten people's ability to guarantee their individual and collective right to a healthy environment, via the development, implementation, and effective enforcement of national and international law.

Crime & Legal

Environmental Law Alliance Worldwide

Educational & charitable. to provide legal and scientific information to public interest attorneys and scientists in numerous countries.

—

Open Markets Institute

The open markets institute works to help people relearn how to use competition policy to build stronger democracies, more just and equitable societies, more innovative and sustainable economies, and a more secure and peaceful world.

Education

CarbonPlan

Improving the transparency and scientific integrity of climate solutions through open data and tools.

Environment

Amazon Watch Inc

To protect the rainforest and advance the rights of Indigenous peoples in the Amazon Basin. We partner with Indigenous communities in campaigns for human rights, corporate accountability, and the preservation of the Amazon Basin's…

Environment

American Flood Coalition Inc

To drive transformational adaptation to protect communities across the country from higher seas, stronger storms, and more frequent flooding.

Environment

Indigenous Peoples Rights Inc

To lead and coordinate the global initiative to address and prevent criminalization, violence, and impunity against indigenous peoples towards strengthening their collectives, solidarity, and actions.

Human Services

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

Legal Advocates for Safe Science and Technology Inc

Using legal advocacy to make advances in science and technology safer for people and the planet.

Science & Tech

International Rivers Network

International Rivers protects rivers and defends the rights of communities that depend on them.

Environment

Center for International Environmental Law Inc

To investigate, research, write, publish, present conferences and teach with respect to global, regional, transboundary, and comparative environmental issues and to make the findings from such activities available to the general public; to…

International

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Social and Environmental Entrepreneurs (See) Inc; the most unlike its peers is Montgomery Pride United. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

05the grantee network

59 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. 59 of the 83 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)

59/59

Grantees still filing

43/59

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Human Services$172,500Other$194,820International$113,510Environment$87,034Education$82,302Civil Rights$36,250Crime & Legal$24,000

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.

The Ford FoundationNY23.3× affinity11 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: The Ford Foundation · Impactassetsinc · Tides Foundation · Santa Barbara Foundation · Rsf Social Finance Inc · Silicon Valley Community Foundation · The Artemisia Fund · The Yelp Foundation · Amalgamated Charitable Foundation Inc · Weingart Foundation · The San Francisco Foundation · John D and Catherine T Macarthur 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 River Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The River Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

5get 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

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 River Foundation?

Find your warmest path to The River 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.

Play a game based on River’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