· Private foundation
The Skoll Foundation
Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k8 grants · $33k
- $10k–50k41 grants · $769k
- $50k–250k65 grants · $8.3M
- $250k+43 grants · $36M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MAYO CLINIC | $7,021,950 |
| GLOBAL FUND TO FIGHT AIDS TUBERCULOSIS AND MALARIA | $3,000,000 |
| PROTECT DEMOCRACY PROJECT | $2,000,000 |
| CHANCELLOR MASTERS & SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD | $1,562,621 |
| AMALGAMATED CHARITABLE FOUNDATION INC | $1,500,000 |
| 2X GLOBAL LIMITED | $1,200,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA FOUNDATION | $1,000,000 |
| MPEDIGREE NETWORK LIMITED | $1,000,000 |
| FREETHINK MEDIA INC | $918,750 |
| SOCIAL FINANCE ISRAEL LTD (CC) | $800,000 |
| FOOD FOR EDUCATION FOUNDATION INC | $800,000 |
| AVINA AMERICAS INC | $800,000 |
| FOOD FOR EDUCATION FOUNDATION INC | $800,000 |
| REACH DIGITAL HEALTH NPC | $750,000 |
| WORLD RESOURCES INSTITUTE | $750,000 |
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 US giving — 77% of grant dollars ($324M). The need read here covers only this US portion; the 23% that went abroad ($97M) is mapped below.
Your human-services grants (FY20–23, $12.5M) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 80% 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
Beyond the US — 23% of all-years giving ($97M)
32 countries, by the recipient’s country on the filing.
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. International giving is mapped by the recipient’s country from the same 990filings; comparable need data isn’t available at that grain.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 12% of The Skoll 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 +12% since the first grant, against +7% for the ones you funded once.
229 repeat relationships — 84 still active in FY2024, 145 since wound down; 32 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 78% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $7.7M 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
- TFTED FOUNDATION INC5× · 2020–2024 · $8.0M · revenue +58%
- LGLIVING GOODS4× · 2020–2024 · $6.0M · revenue +59%
- PGPANORAMA GLOBAL5× · 2020–2024 · $5.4M · revenue +83%
Funded once
- NFNATIONAL FOUNDATION FOR THE CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION INCone grant, 2020 · $7.2M · revenue -35%
- RCRF CATALYTIC CAPITAL INCgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $5.0M · revenue ×25 · 74% of their budget
- SUSOKOINE UNIVERSITY OF AGRICULTUREone grant, 2020 · $4.0M
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.
Our mission is to create a fair and inclusive economy where underserved people have quality financial choices and opportunities to improve their economic well-being. we find and help build innovative companies with the potential to reach…
A nonprofit scientific research organization that develops vaccines and antibodies for hiv, tuberculosis, and emerging infectious diseases.
Partnersglobal (partners) works through a global network to support local leaders and create partnerships that transform conflict, strengthen democratic institutions, and achieve sustainable development.
Actionaid is an international network building a just, equitable, and sustainable world in solidarity with communities on the frontlines of poverty and injustice. actionaid usa is the u.s. branch of actionaid international, which works in…
The open markets institute works to help people relearn how to use competition policy to build stronger democracies, more just and equitable societies, more innovative and sustainable economies, and a more secure and peaceful world.
Water.org's goal is to bring safe water and sanitation to the world through access to small, affordable loans.
Devworks international is dedicated to a society where all people enjoy the freedom to pursue their own sustainable development. we contribute to this by strengthening the capacity of local organizations.
Common impact's mission is to strengthen the capacity of social change organizations, enabling them to better run and scale their programs. through its partnership with companies, common impact taps into the business skills and expertise…
Cdp north america, inc. 's ("cdp-na") vision for the future is a thriving economy that works for people and planet in the long term. we focus investors and companies on taking urgent action to build a truly sustainable economy by measuring…
Activate empowers scientists to reinvent the world by bringing their research to market. activate partners with u.s. based funders, research institutions, and other pillars of the hard technology community to help entrepreneurial…
Bringing diverse voices together across global sectors, disciplines, and demographics so developments in ai advance positive outcomes for people and society.
To strenghten people's ability to guarantee their individual and collective right to a healthy environment, via the development, implementation, and effective enforcement of national and international law.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Policylink and the most unlike its peers is T Colin Campbell Center for Nutrition Studies. 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 23 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) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.9% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
442 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. 442 of the 592 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 MAYO CLINIC ↗
- Who funds NEW VENTURE FUND ↗
- Who funds The ONE Campaign ↗
- Who funds THE ALLIANCE FOR CLIMATE PROTECTION ↗
- Who funds TED FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL FOUNDATION FOR THE CENTERS FOR DISEASE CONTROL AND PREVENTION INC ↗
- Who funds ROCKEFELLER PHILANTHROPY ADVISORS INC ↗
- Who funds Amalgamated Charitable Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds LIVING GOODS ↗
- Who funds THE TRUSTEES OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK ↗
- Who funds 50BREAKTHROUGHS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds TIDES FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds PANORAMA GLOBAL ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR TECHNOLOGY AND CIVIC LIFE ↗
- Who funds HUMANITARIAN OPENSTREETMAP TEAM UNITED STATES INC ↗
- Who funds THORN ↗
- Who funds RF CATALYTIC CAPITAL INC ↗
- Who funds LAST MILE HEALTH ↗
- Who funds PARTNERS IN HEALTH A NONPROFIT CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds CODE FOR AMERICA LABS INC ↗
- Who funds WINDWARD FUND ↗
- Who funds CHANCELLOR MASTERS & SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD ↗
- Who funds NDN COLLECTIVE INC ↗
- Who funds NOORA HEALTH ↗
- Who funds University of Arizona Foundation ↗
- Who funds EDUCATE GIRLS ↗
- Who funds GIVE2ASIA ↗
- Who funds RESOLVE TO SAVE LIVES INC ↗
- Who funds PROTECT DEMOCRACY PROJECT ↗
- Who funds POLICYLINK ↗
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: Skoll Fund · The David and Lucile Packard Foundation · The William & Flora Hewlett Foundation · Gates Foundation · The Rockefeller Foundation · Conrad N Hilton Foundation · Silicon Valley Community Foundation · The Ford Foundation · Gordon E and Betty I Moore Foundation · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · Mulago Foundation · Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco the Peninsula Marin & Sonoma
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 Skoll 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.
- Youthbuild Global Inc — 69% of income from government
- Mercy Corps — 47% of income from government
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology — 35% of income from government
- College for Social Innovation Inc — 30% of income from government
- The Broad Institute Inc — 19% of income from government
- Yale University — 12% of income from government
- Citizen Schools Inc — 8% of income from government
- President and Fellows of Harvard College — 7% of income from government
- The Walden Woods Project — 6% of income from government
- Ceres Inc — 0% of income from government
- Partners in Health a Nonprofit Corporation — 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to The Skoll Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Skoll 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.