· Public charity
The San Francisco Foundation
THE SAN FRANCISCO FOUNDATION mobilizes resources and acts as a catalyst for change to build strong communities, foster civic leadership, and promote philanthropy.
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.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k132 grants · $921k
- $10k–50k904 grants · $18M
- $50k–250k484 grants · $49M
- $250k+187 grants · $151M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| EAST BAY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | $21,128,283 |
| HARVARD UNIVERSITY | $5,685,000 |
| UC BERKELEY FOUNDATION | $4,846,820 |
| GEORGE WASHINGTON HIGH SCHOOL ALUMNI ASSOCIATION | $4,189,735 |
| SAN FRANCISCO GENERAL HOSPITAL FOUNDATION | $3,925,075 |
| DUKE UNIVERSITY | $3,160,500 |
| UCSF FOUNDATION | $3,072,294 |
| WADHWANI INSTITUTE FOR ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE FOUNDATION | $3,000,000 |
| COMMITTEE ON THE SHELTERLESS | $2,601,000 |
| CATE SCHOOL | $2,532,000 |
| CORO NORTHERN CALIFORNIA INC | $2,522,694 |
| CENTER FOR THE ART OF TRANSLATION | $2,040,241 |
| CALIFORNIA PACIFIC MEDICAL CENTER FOUNDATION | $1,871,453 |
| TIDES CENTER | $1,770,250 |
| THE ANTI POLICE-TERROR PROJECT | $1,675,000 |
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, $52.8M) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 92% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 8% of The San Francisco Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another.
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 foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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 +45% since the first grant, against +1% for the ones you funded once.
1580 repeat relationships — 1006 still active in FY2025, 574 since wound down; 62 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, 91% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $15M 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
- UOUNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY FOUNDATION9× · 2017–2025 · $60M · revenue +189%
CATE SCHOOL9× · 2017–2025 · $20M · revenue +51%- MAMULTIDISCIPLINARY ASSOCIATION FOR PSYCHEDELIC STUDIES INC8× · 2017–2025 · $14M · revenue +42% · 27% of their budget
Funded once
- MEMARGARET E HAAS FUNDone grant, 2018 · $4.8M · revenue -45% · 67% of their budget
- TOTRUSTEES OF DARTMOUTH COLLEGEone grant, 2018 · $3.3M
- AFARCS FOUNDATION INC ATLANTA CHAPTERone grant, 2017 · $2.7M · revenue +17%
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 organization provides professional investment management services for endowed gifts and financial assets entrusted to the UCSF Foundation.
California forward (ca fwd) brings people together across regions to improve government and create resilient growth statewide.
California Competes: Higher Education for a Strong Economy is a nonpartisan policy and research organization focused on identifying solutions to the states most critical challenges at the intersection of higher education, equity, and the…
Unitedly is a nonprofit organization based in San Mateo County, California. Unitedly was established to ensure Asian families and communities have access to equitable opportunities and resources to thrive in the San Francisco Bay Area.
The AIA California, in collaboration with local components, is the voice of the architectural profession.
The California Water Data Consortium is an independent, nonprofit organization created by a partnership of state agencies and others to ensure that Californians have access to the best possible water and ecological information to make…
We are building a grassroots climate movement in the Bay Area and beyond to eliminate carbon pollution and achieve a clean energy future with racial, economic, and environmental justice.
California changelawyers is a statewide foundation whose mission is to build a better justice system for all californians. changelawyers empowers the next generation of lawyers, judges, and activists to create a more diverse legal…
to work alongside communities to build power, challenge systems of injustice, protect health, and improve quality of life.
California Coastkeeper Alliance coordinates, supports & enhances the work of the local California Waterkeeper programs to provide a statewide voice for safeguarding California's waters, and its world renowned coast & ocean, for the benefit…
Center for Domestic Peace mobilizes individuals and communities to transform our world so domestic violence no longer exists, creating greater safety, justice, and equality.
We work collaboratively to build open tools and resources for the evaluation and deployment of robust climate programs. We share analyses through public communication and collaboration with journalists in order to foster effective climate…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is People Acting in Community Together and the most unlike its peers is Wadhwani Institute for Artificial. 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 28 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) — 5% of your grantees by number, and just 3% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 2% 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.
1867 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. 1867 of the 2,000 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
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
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 DONOR ADVISED CHARITABLE GIVING INC ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MARIN COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds GS DONOR ADVISED PHILANTHROPY FUND FOR WEALTH MANAGEMENT INC ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN FRANCISCO FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds EAST BAY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds TOMKAT RANCH EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CATE SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds President and Fellows of Harvard College ↗
- Who funds MULTIDISCIPLINARY ASSOCIATION FOR PSYCHEDELIC STUDIES INC ↗
- Who funds FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ↗
- Who funds THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds TIDES CENTER ↗
- Who funds Bay Area Community Services Inc ↗
- Who funds JEWISH COMMUNITY FEDERATION OF SAN FRANCISCO THE PENINSULA MARIN & SONOMA ↗
- Who funds TIPPING POINT COMMUNITY ↗
- Who funds SAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM OF MODERN ART ↗
- Who funds Center for the Art of Translation ↗
- Who funds NEW PROFIT INC ↗
- Who funds THE OAKLAND PUBLIC EDUCATION FUND ↗
- Who funds THE SAN FRANCISCO HOUSING ACCELERATOR FUND ↗
- Who funds WADHWANI INSTITUTE FOR ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SAN FRANCISCO OPERA ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds NEW VENTURE FUND ↗
- Who funds Trustees of Dartmouth College ↗
- Who funds FOODCORPS INC ↗
- Who funds NEXTGEN CLIMATE AMERICA INC ↗
- Who funds SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY INITIATIVES ↗
- Who funds CORO NORTHERN CALIFORNIA INC ↗
- Who funds POLICYLINK ↗
- Who funds GOLDEN GATE NATIONAL PARKS CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds MISSION ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT AGENCY ↗
- Who funds SUMMER SEARCH ↗
- Who funds CHINESE PROGRESSIVE ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds SAN FRANCISCO GENERAL HOSPITAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CORPORATION OF THE FINE ARTS MUSEUMS ↗
- Who funds COMPASS FAMILY SERVICES ↗
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: Crankstart Foundation · Walter and Elise Haas Fund · Tipping Point Community · The Zellerbach Family Foundation · Akonadi Foundation · Bothin Foundation · United Way of the Bay Area · The Morris Stulsaft Foundation · Kenneth Rainin Foundation · Evelyn and Walter Haas Jr Fund · Metta Fund · Stupski 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 San Francisco 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.
- Enterprise Community Partners Inc — 22% of income from government
- Foodcorps Inc — 21% of income from government
- Yale University — 12% of income from government
- The Trustees of Princeton University — 11% of income from government
- President and Fellows of Harvard College — 7% of income from government
- Pacific University — 2% of income from government
- New Haven International Festival of Arts and Ideas Inc — 1% of income from government
- Shriners Hospitals for Children — 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.