· Private foundation
The Ronald Whittier Family Foundation
Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
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 $10k20 grants · $21k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $44k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART - SAN JOSE | $33,541 |
| SAN FRANCISCO PLAYHOUSE | $10,000 |
| SAN JOSE MUSEUM OF ART | $5,000 |
| PLAYWRIGHT'S FOUNDATION | $2,650 |
| CHILDREN'S ORGAN TRANSPLANT ASSOCIATION | $2,600 |
| ARTADIA | $1,500 |
| AURORA THEATRE | $1,500 |
| PALO ALTO ART CENTER | $1,500 |
| PLAYGROUND | $1,100 |
| UC BERKELEY SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM | $1,000 |
| NATIONAL CENTER FOR FAMILY PHILANTHROPY | $1,000 |
| HEADLANDS CENTER FOR THE ARTS | $525 |
| Z SPACE | $500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $350 |
| CITY LIGHTS THEATRE | $250 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 8%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 19% of your 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 +110% since the first grant, against +19% for the ones you funded once.
19 repeat relationships — 3 still active in FY2024, 16 since wound down; 19 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, 20% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $51k 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
- SFSan Francisco Playhouse4× · 2020–2024 · $47k · revenue +112%
- RARESOURCE AREA FOR TEACHING2× · 2021–2023 · $11k · revenue +110%
- DVDREAM VOLUNTEERS2× · 2017–2018 · $4k · revenue +165%
Funded once
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2023 · $31k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2021 · $16k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2021 · $10k
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.
Stages makes plays and tells stories that invite everyone to live more deeply and love more boldly.
Profile theatres mission is to produce a season of first-class productions and community engagement activities centered around a season-long featured writer whose vision broadens our perspective on the world and deepens our collective…
(cont from page 1) democratic society, and invaluable as a source of personal enrichment and growth.
The asian art museum celebrates, preserves, and promotes asian and asian american art and cultures for local and global audiences. we provide a dynamic forum for exchanging ideas, inviting collaboration, and fueling imagination to deepen…
Sfbatco unites artists and audiences through live theatre that is reflective of the authentic perspectives and history of the san francisco bay area.
The Museum of Modern Art is a private, non-profit institution chartered by the State of New York Department of Education in 1929 to foster public awareness of modern and contemporary art. (Continued in Schedule O)
Aurora Theatre Company inspires new audiences and longtime theatre lovers alike with the visceral power of live theatre. Our venues, the most intimate professional stages in the Bay Area, highlight great acting, nuanced language, and an…
See schedule osfmoma believes the art of our time is vital and shares it with passion and purpose, and that art and the creative process can open minds and help build a better world. for that reason, we assemble unparalleled collections,…
The description of Cutting Ball Theater's mission starts on Form 990 Page 1 and continues on Schedule O
Marin theatre company is the bay area's premier mid-size theater and the leading professional theater in the north bay. mtc produces a six-show season of provocative plays by passionate playwrights from the 20th century and today in an…
Wp theater is the nation's oldest and largest theater company dedicated to developing, producing, and promoting the work of women+ at every stage of their careers. for over four decades we have served as leaders of a global movement…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Playground and the most unlike its peers is Nim Family 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 32 years old; the field is 14. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 24% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 14% 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.
38 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. 38 of the 96 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 San Francisco Playhouse ↗
- Who funds RESOURCE AREA FOR TEACHING ↗
- Who funds ST LUKE'S WOOD RIVER FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds SAN JOSE MUSEUM OF ART ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds DREAM VOLUNTEERS ↗
- Who funds PLAYWRIGHTS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL PSORIASIS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds COTA - Children's Organ Transplant Association ↗
- Who funds MAGIC THEATRE INC ↗
- Who funds TEATRO VISION ↗
- Who funds ARTCOUNCIL INC DBA ARTADIA ↗
- Who funds PLAYGROUND ↗
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: The Whittier Educational Foundation · The San Francisco Foundation · The William & Flora Hewlett Foundation · Kenneth Rainin Foundation · Silicon Valley Community Foundation · Phyllis C Wattis Foundation · Fleishhacker Foundation · The David and Lucile Packard Foundation · The Bernard Osher Foundation · Marin Community Foundation · The Zellerbach Family Foundation · The Barth 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 Ronald Whittier Family 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.
- Als Therapy Development Foundation Inc — 8% 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 Ronald Whittier Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Ronald Whittier Family 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.