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Plinth

· Private foundation

The Ron and Eva-Maria Sher 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.

$165k
Granted FY2025still arriving
43
Grants FY2025still arriving
9
States reached
$25k
Largest
01What you fundRead
02The needRead
03Your edgeRead
04Your fieldRead
01What you fund
01100% classified

What you funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2023–2025.

Environment$147kEducation$59kFood & Nutrition$52kYouth Development$45kArts & Culture$29kInternational$19kRecreation & Sports$13kReligion$12kOther$0
02FY2025 · 43 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

By grant size · FY2025

  • Under $10k40 grants · $106k
  • $10k–50k3 grants · $59k
$2,500
Median grant
9
States reached
$602k
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
FUTUREWISE$25,000
WASHINGTON CONSERVATION ACTION EDUCATION FUND$20,000
WHIDBEY INSTITUTE$14,000
WHIDBEY INSTITUTE$6,000
M-LISADA AFRICA FOUNDATION$6,000
KING COUNTY LIBRARY SYSTEM FOUNDATION$5,000
EVERGREEN COLLABORATIVE$5,000
ISLANDWOOD$5,000
BRAIDED RIVER$5,000
PANORAMA GLOBAL$5,000
EARTH SCHOOL EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION INC$5,000
CASCADE BICYCLE CLUB$5,000
SHELBURNE FARMS$5,000
YOUTH SERVICE AMERICA$5,000
WHIDBEY ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION NETWORK$4,875
02The need
03

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.

show:

Your human-services grants (FY25–25, $1k) land where the poverty rate runs at 7%, 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.

area typical 10%SENIOR SERVICES OF ISLAND COUNTY: $500 → 7%SENIOR SERVICES OF ISLAND COUNTY: $500 → 7%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

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

AK
VT
WA
WI
NY
CA
CO
AZ
NC
DC

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.

03Your edge
repeat funding

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.

67%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.
$269k · 25 repeat orgs$131k to everyone else

25 repeat relationships — 24 still active in FY2025, 1 since wound down; 15 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

25
19

Total granted

$269k
$83k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+1%
+14%

Still filing today

92%
95%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 71% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $48k went to new ones.

50%100%’23’24’25
RenewedFirst-time

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

’23’24’25
EnvironmentEducationArts & CultureRecreation & SportsInternationalAnimalsOther

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

  • WC
    WASHINGTON CONSERVATION ACTION EDUCATION FUND
    2× · 2023–2025 · $28k · revenue +26%
  • YS
    Youth Service America
    3× · 2023–2025 · $23k · revenue +15%
  • CB
    Cascade Bicycle Club
    3× · 2023–2025 · $11k · revenue +81%

Funded once

  • PC
    Pitzer College
    one grant, 2023 · $15k · revenue +10%
  • THE TRUST FOR PUBLIC LAND
    one grant, 2023 · $10k · revenue +1%
  • FN
    FORTERRA NWgraduated
    one grant, 2023 · $10k · revenue +156%

Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Your field

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.

1
Fsc I&P

Fsc i&p promotes environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial, and economically viable management of the world's forests. this mission aligns with the forest stewardship council (fsc), its network of offices, and other organizations.…

Philanthropy
2
Whatcom Land Trust

The mission of the Whatcom Land Trust is to preserve and protect wildlife habitat, scenic, agricultural and open space lands in Whatcom County for future generations by securing interests in land and promoting land stewardship.

Environment
3
Washington Wild

Washington wild protects and restores wild lands and waters in washington state through advocacy, education and civic engagement.

Animals
4
Cascade Climate Inc

To accelerate progress in interventions that harness Earths natural systems to stabilize the climate.

Environment
5
Earthcorps

To cultivate leaders and community partnerships to advance environmental justice.

International
6
Discover Your Northwest

Discover Your Northwest promotes the discovery of northwest public lands, enriches the experience of visitors and builds community stewardship of these special places today and for generations to come.

Recreation & Sports
7
Cowiche Canyon Conservancy

Protecting our shrub-steppe and connecting people to this vanishing landscape.

—
8
Center for Environmental Law & Policy

The Center for Environmental Law & Policy is a statewide organization whose mission is to protect, preserve and restore Washington's waters through education, advocacy, policy reform, and public interest litigation.

Environment
9
Stewardship Partners

Stewardship Partners helps private landowners restore and preserve the natural landscapes of WA State. We collaborate with diverse interest groups to build bridges and find solutions that achieve mutual goals of environmental protection,…

Environment
10
Great Peninsula Conservancy

Preserve in perpetuity the natural habitats, rural landscapes, and open spaces of the great peninsula of washington's puget sound.

Environment
11
10000 Years Institute

10,000 Years Institute evaluates the ecological effects of human activities on natural environments, and promotes the maintenance and restoration of ecological integrity through the integration of reliable scientific information, sound…

Unclassified
12
Coast Fork Willamette Watershed Council

The Coast Fork Willamette Watershed Council is a local nonprofit organization that strives to enhance and restore habitat for fish and wildlife our community and for future generations. Our Board of Directors consists of seven members with…

Environment

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Forterra Nw and the most unlike its peers is M-Lisada Africa Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

Your grantees are a median of 30 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.

THE FIELDby orgYOUR GRANTEESby number21%2%<5yr14%7%5–10yr20%13%10–20yr18%41%20–35yr13%24%35–55yr15%13%55yr+
THE FIELDby orgYOUR MONEYby value21%0%<5yr14%7%5–10yr20%12%10–20yr18%52%20–35yr13%20%35–55yr15%10%55yr+

The field is 21% startups (under 5 years old) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.

Closures · last 5 years

The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 12% of the field you don’t fund.

orgs you fund
0.0%0/57
the rest of the field
12%
4,745/38,911

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.

04the grantee network

55 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. 55 of the 59 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.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
9
Early backer (in before they grew)
55/55
Grantees still filing
36/55
Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

FUTUREWISE — $30,000 · EnvironmentFUTUREWISEWASHINGTON CONSERVATION ACTION EDUCATION FUND — $27,500 · EnvironmentWASHINGTON CONSERVATION ACTION EDUCATION FUNDSHELBURNE FARMS — $15,000 · EnvironmentSHELBURNE FARMSTHE TRUST FOR PUBLIC LAND — $10,000 · EnvironmentTHE TRUST FOR PUBLIC LANDFORTERRA NW — $10,000 · EnvironmentFORTERRA NWEVERGREEN COLLABORATIVE — $10,000 · EnvironmentEVERGREEN COLLABORATIVEISLANDWOOD — $10,000 · EnvironmentISLANDWOODBRAIDED RIVER — $9,500 · EnvironmentBRAIDED RIVERWHIDBEY ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION NETWORK — $7,375 · Environment+15 more — $32,000 · Environment+15 morePitzer College — $15,000 · EducationPitzer CollegeWASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION — $10,000 · EducationWASHINGTON STA…King County Library System Foundation — $10,000 · EducationKing County Li…THE COLORADO COLLEGE — $10,000 · EducationTHE COLORADO C…EARTH SCHOOL EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION INC — $5,000 · EducationEARTH SCHOOL E…+1 more — $1,000 · EducationORGANIC FARM SCHOOL FORMERLY GREENBANK FARM MANAGE — $35,000 · OtherORGANIC FARM SCHO…NATURE CONSERVANCY - WASHINGTON — $5,000 · OtherNATURE CONSERVANC…LIFT EVERY VOICE FOUNDATION — $4,000 · OtherLIFT EVERY VOICE …WHIDBEY ISLAND WALDORF SCHOOL — $3,500 · OtherWHIDBEY ISLAND WA…Phila Venture Fund — $4,500 · OtherPhila Venture Fun…+9 more — $10,000 · Other+9 moreBike Works Seattle — $22,500 · Recreation & SportsBike Works …Cascade Bicycle Club — $11,000 · Recreation & SportsCascade Bic…Friends of Third Place Commons — $6,000 · Recreation & SportsFriends of …+1 more — $1,000 · Recreation & SportsTHE WHIDBEY INSTITUTE — $21,000 · Arts & CultureKUOW PUGET SOUND PUBLIC RADIO — $4,500 · Arts & CultureFRIENDS OF EBEYS LANDING NATIONAL HISTORICAL RESERVE — $2,500 · Arts & CulturePOSITIVE FUTURES NETWORK DBA YES MEDIA — $1,500 · Arts & Culture+2 more — $2,000 · Arts & CultureM-LISADA AFRICA FOUNDATION — $13,000 · InternationalTIBETAN NUNS PROJECT — $11,500 · InternationalPANORAMA GLOBAL — $5,000 · International+1 more — $1,000 · InternationalYouth Service America — $22,500 · Youth Development
Environment$161,375Education$51,000Other$62,000Recreation & Sports$40,500Arts & Culture$31,500International$30,500Youth Development$22,500

Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ your share of their budgetFUTUREWISE — $30,000 over 2y, 0.3% of budgetWASHINGTON CONSERVATION ACTION EDUCATION FUND — $27,500 over 2y, 0.2% of budgetBike Works Seattle — $22,500 over 3y, 0.5% of budgetYouth Service America — $22,500 over 3y, 0.5% of budgetSHELBURNE FARMS — $15,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetPitzer College — $15,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetM-LISADA AFRICA FOUNDATION — $13,000 over 3y, 4.0% of budgetTIBETAN NUNS PROJECT — $11,500 over 3y, 0.3% of budgetCascade Bicycle Club — $11,000 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetTHE TRUST FOR PUBLIC LAND — $10,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetFORTERRA NW — $10,000 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetWASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION — $10,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetKing County Library System Foundation — $10,000 over 2y, 0.2% of budgetEVERGREEN COLLABORATIVE — $10,000 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetTHE COLORADO COLLEGE — $10,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetISLANDWOOD — $10,000 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetBRAIDED RIVER — $9,500 over 2y, 0.4% of budgetWHIDBEY ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION NETWORK — $7,375 over 2y, 1.4% of budgetFriends of Third Place Commons — $6,000 over 2y, 1.4% of budgetALASKA WILDERNESS LEAGUE — $5,000 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetFuse Innovation Fund — $5,000 over 1y, 0.3% of budgetNATUREBRIDGE — $5,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetKUOW PUGET SOUND PUBLIC RADIO — $4,500 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetPhila Venture Fund — $4,500 over 1y, 3.5% of budgetWHIDBEY ISLAND WALDORF SCHOOL — $3,500 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetEastrail Partners — $3,000 over 3y, 0.4% of budgetThe Mountains to Sound Greenway Trust — $2,500 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetTHE MOUNTAINEERS — $2,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetPCC FARMLAND TRUST — $2,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetPLANNED PARENTHOOD GREAT NORTHWEST HAWAII ALASKA INDIANA AND KENTUCKY — $2,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetPOSITIVE FUTURES NETWORK DBA YES MEDIA — $1,500 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetFRIENDS OF FRIENDS — $1,500 over 1y, 0.8% of budgetSoutheast Alaska Conservation Council Inc-SEACC — $1,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetWashington Wildlife & Recreation Coalition — $1,000 over 1y, 0.3% of budgetCLOCKSHOP — $1,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetCASCADE PUBLIC MEDIA — $1,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetTILTH ALLIANCE — $1,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetRAILS TO TRAILS CONSERVANCY — $1,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetAmerican Forests — $1,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetMEERKERK RHODODENDRON GARDENS — $1,000 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetWHIDBEY WATERSHED STEWARDS — $1,000 over 1y, 0.3% of budgetFOUR WINDS — $1,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetGIRAFFE PROJECT INC — $1,000 over 2y, 0.9% of budgetGrist Magazine Inc — $500 over 1y, 0.0% of budget
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.

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.

Seattle FoundationThe Norcliffe Foundat…Puget Sound Energy Fo…Kaleidoscope Foundati…The Bullitt FoundationMightycause Charitabl…The Hugh and Jane Fer…The Russell Family Fo…The Satterberg Founda…PatagoniaorgWhidbey Community Fou…Ridge Road Foundation
Seattle FoundationWA40.4× affinity22 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Seattle Foundation · The Norcliffe Foundation · Puget Sound Energy Foundation · Kaleidoscope Foundation · The Bullitt Foundation · Mightycause Charitable Foundation · The Hugh and Jane Ferguson Foundation · The Russell Family Foundation · The Satterberg Foundation Inc · Patagoniaorg · Whidbey Community Foundation · Ridge Road 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 Ron and Eva-Maria Sher 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.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%0%1%3%5%your share of their income ↑0%25%50%75%100%share of the org’s income from government →median 3%
  • Shelburne Farms — 3% of income from government
no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
0get no government money at all
21report 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

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.

On method. Every financial figure here is read directly from IRS e-file XML — your own 990/990-PF and the multi-year returns of the 59 grantees we resolved across every year we hold, several hundred filings in all (a different count from the grant rows on the cover, which are one fiscal year)— each linked to its source. Grantee achievements and outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III); we read these as association with sustained funding — the foundation is one of several forces — suppress low-confidence name matches rather than guess, and say so where a figure rests on a single grant or filing. Not everything on this page is a filed figure, and the difference matters. Filed is what you reported on your return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears. How we build these →

Generated from your IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2025, released 2025. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Source object · view filing

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 camps
funders cluster by geography, not ideology
By state
where grant money is based, and what stays home
State money flows
the interactive map of money crossing state lines