· Public charity
The San Francisco Japantown Foundation
Organization is established to provide financial support of cultural, charitable, and educational activities and services for the benefit of residents, visitors, and other stakeholders of san francisco japantown and services that promote such activities.
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.
The 2 grants below total $59,190 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $71,340 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $12,150 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k1 grant · $5k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $54k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| GOLDEN GATE INSTITUTE INC | $54,040 |
| JCCCNC | $5,150 |
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 (FY19–23, $85k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 100% 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.
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 +41% since the first grant, against +16% for the ones you funded once.
10 repeat relationships — 2 still active in FY2024, 8 since wound down.
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, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
- GGGOLDEN GATE INSTITUTE4× · 2019–2024 · $105k · revenue +211% · 44% of their budget
- HNHOKKA NICHI BEI KAI2× · 2021–2023 · $45k · revenue +34% · 41% of their budget
- JCJAPANESE COMMUNITY YOUTH COUNCIL3× · 2019–2023 · $40k · revenue +53%
Funded once
- SMSOTO MISSION OF SAN FRANCISCOone grant, 2023 · $20k
JAPANESE AMERICAN CITIZENS LEAGUEgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $20k · revenue +97%- GAGENRYU ARTSone grant, 2021 · $15k · revenue +16%
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.
Cultural education.
Promote San Francisco's Japantown
Our mission is to perpetuate the japanese american experiences, cultural customs, and traditions. we do this in part by hosting the annual nikkei matsuri festival in san jose japantown, providing a forum for sharing cultural exhibits and…
To promote goodwill between the united states and japan, cultural exchange, education, and to encourage appreciation of the cultural heritage of various japanese prefectures in the kansai region of japan.
Introduce the public to and educate the public on japanese culture
To initiate and participate in activities that will promote the history, culture and social welfare of the japanese american community in southern california.this includes education about the world war ii incarceration of japanese american.
To promote and foster the understanding and appreciation of japanese and japanese american art, history, and culture. to preserve and disseminate inforation about the japanese american way of life to promote the study of the japanesese…
The Japanese American Citizens League is a national organization whose ongoing mission is to secure and maintain the civil rights of Japanese Americans and all others who are victimized by injustice and bigotry. The leaders and members of…
To educate the public on japanese and japanese-american history and culture.
To advocate for the civil and human rights of Japanese Americans and others, and to educate about and preserve the cultural heritage and values of Japanese Americans.
To introduce Japanese traditional and modern art and culture to public through supporting small NPO organizations, having the seminar and workshop for all different age groups. Asunaro is charitabloe, cultural, and educational non profit…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Japanese Cultural and Community Center and the most unlike its peers is Hokka Nichi Bei Kai. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
14 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. 14 of the 16 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 GOLDEN GATE INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds JAPANESE CULTURAL AND COMMUNITY CENTER ↗
- Who funds HOKKA NICHI BEI KAI ↗
- Who funds JAPANESE COMMUNITY YOUTH COUNCIL ↗
- Who funds National Japanese American Historical Society Inc ↗
- Who funds JAPANTOWN COMMUNITY BENEFIT DISTRICT INC ↗
- Who funds SAKURA MATSURI INC ↗
- Who funds Nihonmachi Little Friends ↗
- Who funds NICHI BEI FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds JAPANESE AMERICAN CITIZENS LEAGUE ↗
- Who funds GENRYU ARTS ↗
- Who funds Parent Teacher and Community Council of the Japanese Bilingual Bicultural Prog ↗
- Who funds KIMOCHI INC ↗
- Who funds SAN FRANCISCO PARKS ALLIANCE ↗
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: Marin Community Foundation · Ja Community Foundation · Asian Pacific Fund · Kinjiro and Eiko Moriguchi Fund · KT Foundation · The Henri & Tomoye Takahashi Charitable Foundation · McNabb Foundation · Network for Good · National Philanthropic Trust · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund
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 Japantown 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.
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 San Francisco Japantown Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The San Francisco Japantown 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.