How much did THE SCHMIDT FAMILY FOUNDATION grant in FY2024?

Environment$154MInternational$76MAnimals$38MEducation$34MArts & Culture$32MFood & Nutrition$29MPhilanthropy$28MCommunity Improvement$21MHuman Services$19MOther$253M

02beneath the categories

Past the labels — and the year it shifted

Beneath the NTEE codes, this is what the grant descriptions actually say.

…and in their own words, year by year

2019

rights defendersdefenders africaconferenceanniversarysailingplasticafrican

2020

covid emergencyemergency aidafrica covideconomically disadvantageddisadvantaged geographicoil gasunderwater camera

2021

fuels workingworking resilientresilient equitableequitable foodfood systemadvancing diversitydiversity equity

2022

tomaquag museumvotersanta barbararesource educationsustainable marketsconservation labsstewardship research

2023

native advancingresearch advancingstewardship researchfuels oceannative nativesustainable materialsadvancing diversity

Words distinctive to each year’s grant purposes (TF-IDF) · event-driven terms in cyan.

03FY2024 · 695 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

By grant size · FY2024

Under $10k14 grants · $56k
$10k–50k81 grants · $2.0M
$50k–250k396 grants · $48M
$250k+204 grants · $136M

$130,000

Median grant

States reached

$2.0B

Total assets

Largest grants

MONTEREY BAY AQUARIUM FOUNDATION$8,000,000
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH INC$6,665,000
SUSTAINABLE MARKETS FOUNDATION$3,537,500
ROCKEFELLER PHILANTHROPY ADVISORS INC$3,400,000
REALIZE IMPACT$3,200,000
SOGOREA TE LAND TRUST$3,175,000
KQED INC$3,000,000
RSF SOCIAL FINANCE$2,679,117
GRIST MAGAZINE INC$2,513,000
MYRIAD USA$2,447,786
JUSTICE OUTSIDE$2,090,000
REGENERATIVE AGRICULTURE FOUNDATION$2,050,000
APPAREL IMPACT INSTITUTE$2,000,000
CONSERVATION X LABS INC$2,000,000
CALIFORNIA FARMLINK$1,920,700

02The need

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 (FY19–24, $10.1M) land where the poverty rate runs at 14% — the area typically sits at 10%. 60% of those dollars reach neighborhoods with above-average need. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

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 line in 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, United Way ALICE — 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.

90%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.

$620M · 636 repeat orgs$65M to everyone else

And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +109% since the first grant, against +81% for the ones you funded once.

636 repeat relationships — 476 still active in FY2024, 160 since wound down; 219 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

636

305

Total granted

$620M

$32M

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+109%

+81%

Still filing today

79%

58%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 82% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $33M went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

EnvironmentEducationArts & CultureInternationalCommunity ImprovementHuman ServicesOther

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

HR
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH INC
6× · 2019–2024 · $28M · revenue +22%
SM
SUSTAINABLE MARKETS FOUNDATION
6× · 2019–2024 · $24M · revenue +242%
MONTEREY BAY AQUARIUM FOUNDATION
6× · 2019–2024 · $23M · revenue +105%

Funded once

G
GOFUNDMEORGgraduated
one grant, 2021 · $1.5M · revenue +719%
PARTNERS IN HEALTH A NONPROFIT CORPORATIONgraduated
one grant, 2022 · $700k · revenue +60%
FF
FRESNO FOOD COMMONS TRUST
one grant, 2019 · $700k · revenue +121% · 76% of their budget

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.

Nature for Justice

Mobilize funds and provide the necessary technical resources to leading, in-country organizations working with local, indigenous communities to achieve climate resiliency.

Environment

CarbonPlan

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…

Environment

The Climate Center

The Climate Center is a climate and energy policy nonprofit working to rapidly reduce climate pollution at scale, starting in California.

Education

Climate Foundation

To research and develop healthy climate solutions comprising global food security, ecosystem regeneration and carbon balance in seas and soils.

Science & Tech

Taproot Earth

Taproot Earth works with communities to support strategies around the use of water, energy and land.

Environment

Sustainable Conservation

Sustainable Conservation advances the collaborative stewardship of Californias land, air, and water for the benefit of nature and people. For over three decades, Sustainable Conservation has built coalitions of people with different…

Environment

Partnership for Policy Integrity

Partnership for Policy Integrity (PFPI) uses science, communications, and strategic advocacy to protect forests and our climate future.

Environment

Global Forest Generation

Global Forest Generation restores and protects forest ecosystems in partnership with grassroots leaders and local communities across vast landscapes which play a critical role in preserving water, protecting biodiversity, storing carbon,…

Environment

Multinational Exchange for Sustainable a

MESA connects and cultivates sustainable farmers and food systems leaders around the world.

Education

350 Bay Area

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.

Environment

E3G Third Generation Environmentalism

E3g is a leading international not-for-profit think tank specialising in climate diplomacy harnessing expertise in the politics and economics of climate change.

Environment

Environment Next Inc

Environment next supports individuals, nonprofits and businesses around the world on solutions to complex climate issues.

Environment

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Social & Environmental Entrepreneurs and the most unlike its peers is International Tennis Hall of Fame. 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.

the sector your giving your giving is ahead of the sector the sector’s ahead of you· dot size = how much the theme matters to each side

Ordered by the change in your giving — leaning in on top, pulling back at the bottom. The bar between the two dots is how out of step you are with the sector. Hover any row for detail.

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 19 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.

The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 8% of your grantees by number, and just 3% of your money.

Closures · last 5 years

The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.6% lost their exemption, against 11% of the field you don’t fund.

orgs you fund

0.6%5/879

the rest of the field

11%

206,159/1,818,686

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.

05the grantee network

852 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2017–2025.

Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue.

121

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

390

Early backer (in before they grew)

840/852

Grantees still filing

714/852

Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

Other$321,193,300Environment$154,108,174International$76,279,769Animals$37,833,795Education$34,231,971Arts & Culture$31,880,734Food & Nutrition$29,175,500

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.

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.

Windward FundDC101.7× affinity84 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Windward Fund · Resources Legacy Fund · Patagoniaorg · United States Energy Foundation · Rsf Social Finance Inc · Natural Resources Defense Council Inc · Common Counsel Foundation · Amalgamated Charitable Foundation Inc · Solutions Project Inc · Rockefeller Family Fund Inc · Movement Strategy Center · Sustainable Markets 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 organisation THE SCHMIDT 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.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

18get no government money at all

0rely on government for over half their income

typical government reliance, FY20–24

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. 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.

05Through Plinth

Through Plinth

Your grantmaking, live and operational

This dossier was generated cold from public filings. In Plinth it’s a working system — every applicant assessed and every grant monitored. Here’s a taste, run on one of your grantees: GULF REACH INSTITUTE.

Agentic due diligence · confidence × risk

Financial management

insufficient risk

Limited financial data in public filings.

Track record & reputation

medium risk

3 years of Form 990 filings, still active; revenue up 3.3× since.

Legal standing

low risk

US 501(c)(3); EIN 851384441 on file with current IRS Form 990 filings.

Governance

Live in Plinth

Board composition & governance documents — verified live in Plinth from the applicant.

Compliance & sanctions

Live in Plinth

OFAC / UN sanctions screening — run live in Plinth at assessment.

Program capacity

Live in Plinth

Staffing, M&E and activity alignment — assessed live in Plinth from submitted proposals.

Live · Plinth’s real DD engine

Run the actual assessment on GULF REACH INSTITUTE, cold from public data.

Generated live from public IRS filings + open web sources by Plinth’s agentic engine. Shown as an illustration of the product, not a formal assessment.

Post-award monitoring · continuous checks

Awaiting reportFinancial stability— Runway not derivable from filings.
On trackSustained operations— Filing through 2024; revenue grew over the period.
WatchReliance on your funding— Your grants peaked at 95% of their budget — load-bearing; a dependency Plinth would track.
Awaiting reportEvidence of delivery— Plinth collects the grantee's own monitoring reports post-award.

What you see here is static and public. In Plinth it’s operational — the full six-pillar framework on every applicant (with their own documents + live registry and sanctions checks), monitoring dashboards on every award, custom board reports, and eligibility routing for intake.

Agentic due diligenceMonitoring dashboardsCustom board reportsEligibility routing

Preview generated from this grantee’s public IRS filings and independent reporting. Pillars marked “live in Plinth” require the applicant’s submitted documents. Shown as illustration, not a formal assessment.

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPro

How do I get to The Schmidt Family Foundation?

Find your warmest path to The Schmidt Family Foundation through people who sit on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the introduction across shared trustees and officers.

Every link is a documented governance overlap in public IRS 990 filings — not a personal network — and each hop carries its own confidence tier. Low-confidence or distant paths are held back rather than guessed.

More from the funding graph

The regranting layer

51% of grant dollars pass through an intermediary

The DAF merry-go-round

$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds

Strange bedfellows

the named clusters of US funding

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