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The Shens Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

The Shens 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.

$84k
Granted FY2025still arriving
15
Grants FY2025still arriving
5
States reached
$21k
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its granteesRead
04Its fieldRead
01What it funds
01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.

Religion$164kHealth$117kEducation$43kArts & Culture$38kPhilanthropy$36kCommunity Improvement$10kHuman Services$6kInternational$3kOther$0
02FY2025 · 15 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

  • Under $10k11 grants · $32k
  • $10k–50k4 grants · $51k
$3,000
Median grant
5
States reached
$646k
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
JIK$21,000
MONTALVO ARTS CENTER$10,160
US SICHUAN CHUNGOING GENERAL ASSOCIATION INC$10,000
ELK GROVE CHINESE ASSOCIATION$10,000
SAN JOSE KOREAN PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH$8,400
WEST VALLEY-MISSION FOUNDATION$4,000
UNICEF USA$3,137
SARATOGA HIGH SCHOOL FOUNDATION$3,000
ASIAN AMERICAN FOR BETTER COMMUNITY$3,000
INTERNATIONAL SOCIETY FOR CHILDREN WITH CANCER$3,000
THE JOEL FUND$3,000
ASIAN LIVER CENTER FUND$3,000
GATES FOUNDATION$1,000
CHP11-99 FOUNDATION$500
ELAN FOUNDATION$370
02The need
03

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:

Its human-services grants (FY17–25, $4k) land where the poverty rate runs at 8%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 0% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.

area typical 10%THE JOEL FUND: $3k → 8%AMERICAN RED CROSS: $500 → 8%0%20%40%50%more need →
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.

91%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$348k · 11 repeat orgs$34k to everyone else

11 repeat relationships: 6 still active in FY2025, 5 since wound down; 9 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

11
4

Total granted

$348k
$4k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+24%
+46%

Still filing today

36%
50%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 63% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $31k went to new ones.

50%100%’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25
RenewedFirst-time

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

’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25
HealthHuman ServicesArts & CultureInternationalCivil RightsEducationOther
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

  • SJ
    SAN JOSE KOREAN PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
    9× · 2017–2025 · $156k
  • PANCREATIC CANCER ACTION NETWORK INC
    7× · 2017–2023 · $106k · revenue +24%
  • J
    JIK
    2× · 2024–2025 · $31k

Funded once

  • BI
    BURNRUNNING INC
    one grant, 2020 · $2k · revenue -39%
  • CP
    CALVARY PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH
    one grant, 2019 · $1k
  • AN
    American National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branchesgraduated
    one grant, 2017 · $500 · revenue +46%
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.

1
Sino-American Cancer Foundation
Health
2
Gates Foundation Trust
Philanthropy
3
Gates Family Foundation
—
4
The Julian Chang Family Foundation for Dravet
Health
5
Shoucheng Zhang Foundation
Education
6
Uc Chinese Alumni Foundation
—
7
Sangwan Family Foundation
Philanthropy
8
United States - Japan Foundation
—
9
Cern Foundation
—
10
The Goldman Sachs Foundation
Philanthropy
11
Urologic Cancer Foundation
—
12
University of Science and Technology of China Alumni Foundation

Promote the excellence of members of USTC and helping the students with finacial needs. Promote the academic and cultural exchange between USTC and researchers and students in USA Raising donations from alumni and elsewhere. Present…

International
How this is measured
The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is United States Fund for Unicef; the most unlike its peers is Gates Foundation. 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

14 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. 14 of the 25 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.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
1
Early backer (in before they grew)
14/14
Grantees still filing
5/14
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

SAN JOSE KOREAN PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH: $155,600 · OtherSAN JOSE KOREAN PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHJIK: $31,000 · OtherJIKUS SICHUAN CHONGQING GENERAL ASSOCI: $17,000 · OtherUS SICHUAN CHONGQING GENERAL ASSOCIELK GROVE CHINESE ASSOCIATION: $10,000 · Other+11 more: $23,858 · Other+11 morePANCREATIC CANCER ACTION NETWORK INC: $106,260 · HealthPANCREATIC CANCER ACTION NETW…+2 more: $5,187 · HealthTHE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY: $40,000 · EducationTHE BOARD O…SARATOGA HIGH SCHOOL FOUNDATION: $3,000 · EducationSARATOGA HI…MONTALVO ASSOCIATION: $21,160 · Arts & CultureJOEL FUND: $3,000 · Human ServicesAmerican National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches: $500 · Human ServicesUNITED STATES FUND FOR UNICEF: $3,137 · InternationalASIAN AMERICAN FOR BETTER COMMUNITY: $3,000 · Civil Rights
Other$237,458Health$111,447Education$43,000Arts & Culture$21,160Human Services$3,500International$3,137Civil Rights$3,000

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

25%50%75%100%$100k$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetPANCREATIC CANCER ACTION NETWORK INC: $106,260 over 7y, 0.1% of budgetTHE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY: $40,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetMONTALVO ASSOCIATION: $21,160 over 3y, 0.2% of budgetUS SICHUAN CHONGQING GENERAL ASSOCI: $17,000 over 2y, 11% of budgetUNITED STATES FUND FOR UNICEF: $3,137 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetSARATOGA HIGH SCHOOL FOUNDATION: $3,000 over 1y, 0.9% of budgetJOEL FUND: $3,000 over 1y, 0.5% of budgetELAN FOUNDATION: $2,187 over 2y, 3.1% of budgetBURNRUNNING INC: $2,000 over 1y, 2.4% of budgetCHP 11-99 FOUNDATION: $500 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetAmerican National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches: $500 over 1y, 0.0% of budget
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.

American Online Givin…Donor Advised Charita…Fidelity Investments …Amazonsmile Foundation
American Online Giving Foundation IncDE6.1× affinity6 shared granteesties to 3 of 3Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile Foundation

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 Shens Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Shens Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%1%4%8%15%funder's share of their income ↑0%5%10%15%20%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    2report 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.

    On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 25 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

    How this is measured
    Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears.

    Generated from the IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2025, released 2025. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

    Play a game based on Shens’ 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