How much does The Shamos Family Foundation give?

The Shamos Family Foundation reported 1 grants totaling $20,000 in its FY2024 IRS filing. It funded between 4 and 32 organizations a year over FY2017 to FY2023.

What does The Shamos Family Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2024, its largest causes are Education (45%), Arts & Culture (30%), Health (18%).

Who are The Shamos Family Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2024: Samaritan Counseling Center ($291k), St Johns College in Santa Fe ($250k), Colorado Academy ($225k).

Does The Shamos Family Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2023, 25% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does The Shamos Family Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

Which funders back the same organizations as The Shamos Family Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Colorado Gives Foundation, The Denver Foundation, Rose Community Foundation.

Where is The Shamos Family Foundation based?

The Shamos Family Foundation is based in CO.

The Shamos Family Foundation

The Shamos Family Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

The Shamos Family 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.

$20k

Granted FY2024still arriving

Grants FY2024still arriving

States reached

$20k

Largest

01What it funds

0199% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2024.

Education$730kArts & Culture$493kHealth$298kReligion$35kCivil Rights$27kHousing & Shelter$13kRecreation & Sports$10kFood & Nutrition$9kOther$0

02FY2024 · 1 grant

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

$20,000

Median grant

States reached

$1.2M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
TEMPLE EMANUEL	$20,000

02The need

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY17–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 80% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

How this is measured

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.

How this is measured

US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

96%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$1.5M · 34 repeat orgs$65k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +30% since the first grant, against +24% for those funded once.

34 repeat relationships: 0 still active in FY2024, 34 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$1.5M

$45k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+30%

+24%

Still filing today

74%

44%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 0% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $20k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

Arts & CultureEducationCivil RightsHealthInternationalRecreation & SportsOther

How this is measured

First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

SC
Samaritan Counseling Center
6× · 2017–2022 · $291k · revenue +208%
CA
COLORADO ACADEMY
5× · 2017–2021 · $225k · revenue +54%
SE
ST ELIZABETH'S SCHOOL
6× · 2017–2022 · $96k · revenue +87%

Funded once

CT
CURIOUS THEATRE COMPANY
one grant, 2023 · $15k · revenue +8%
DA
DENVER ACADEMY INC
one grant, 2021 · $5k · revenue +4%
DC
Denver Center of the Performing Art
one grant, 2018 · $5k

How this is measured

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

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

Denver Children's Choir

To provide a challenging environment where children can reach their full potential by enhancing their musical talents, forging diverse meaningful friendships, and sharing their joy of music with others.

Arts & Culture

Chicago Opera Theater

Chicago opera theater expands the tradition of opera as a living art form by engaging lovers of music and storytelling through innovative experiences, predominantly of new and rarely performed works.

Arts & Culture

Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company

Boulder ensemble theatre company creates powerful, engaging, top-quality performances and programs, with meaningful impacts beyond the stage. we serve and welcome colorado's many diverse communities, cultivating an inclusive environment…

Arts & Culture

Aia Colorado

AIA Colorado,is the voice of the architecture profession in Colorado. Through advocacy, leadership development, education and resources for architects, the organization supports architecture professionals in designing a better world where…

—

Colorado Music Bridge

Colorado nbsp;music nbsp;bridge nbsp;provides nbsp;access nbsp;to nbsp;inclusive nbsp;modern nbsp;music nbsp;education nbsp;programs nbsp;curricular nbsp;resources nbsp;and nbsp;professional nbsp;development

Arts & Culture

New York City Center Inc

The mission of new york city center is to be new york city's leading center for dance and musical theater. dedicated to making the arts accessible to the broadest possible audience, city center seeks to create a welcoming environment and…

Arts & Culture

Colorado Symphony Association

The colorado symphony association (csa) is a not-for-profit organization established to fund and operate the colorado symphony orchestra for the enjoyment and benefit of the citizens of metropolitan denver and (cont'd on schedule…

Arts & Culture

Denver Center for the Performing Arts

The dcpa engages and inspires nearly 950,000 people every year through broadway tours, locally produced theatre, intimate cabaret, immersive experiences, theatre for young audiences and educational opportunities for all ages. continued on…

Arts & Culture

Colorado Ballet

Colorado ballet's mission is to present exceptional classical ballet and contemporary dance through performances, training, education and community engagement while inspiring and growing an increasingly diverse audience base.

Arts & Culture

Fort Collins Symphony Association

Providing entertainment and education through the production of high-quality orchestral music.

—

The Colorado College

At colorado college our goal is to provide the finest liberal arts education in the country. drawing upon the adventurous spirit of the rocky mountain west, we challenge students, one course at a time, to develop those habits of intellect…

Education

Columbia College Chicago

The organization's mission is to educate students for creative occupations in diverse fields of arts and media.

Education

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Santa Fe Opera; the most unlike its peers is Phillips Exeter Academy. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

04the grantee network

36 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 36 of the 54 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

34/36

Grantees still filing

27/36

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$636,000Education$365,000Health$291,350Arts & Culture$275,100International$25,000Philanthropy$15,000Recreation & Sports$10,100

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Colorado Gives FoundationCO29.2× affinity13 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Colorado Gives Foundation · The Denver Foundation · Rose Community Foundation · The Anschutz Foundation · Bonfils-Stanton Foundation · The Colorado Health Foundation · Xcel Energy Foundation · Margulf Foundation · Hill Foundation Wells Fargo Bank Na · Boettcher Foundation · Amg Charitable Gift Foundation · Mile High United Way Inc

How this is measured

Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization The Shamos Family Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Shamos Family Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

0get no government money at all

14report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–20%

typical government reliance, FY20–25

How this is measured

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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to The Shamos Family Foundation?

Find your warmest path to The Shamos 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.

Play a game based on Shamos Family’s filings →

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 endowment market

who holds foundation money, and what just moved

The camps

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

By state

where grant money is based, and what stays home