· Public charity
The Sobrato Foundation
The Sobrato Foundation supports nonprofits and social impact organizations serving at-risk and vulnerable members of our community.
Read this first · the figures below need context
100% of The Sobrato Foundation’s FY2024 grant dollars went to Silicon Valley Community Foundation, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2024 names 0 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2018–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| SILICON VALLEY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | $4,100,000 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY18–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 8%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 12% of your dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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
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 +21% since the first grant, against +7% for the ones you funded once.
3 repeat relationships — 3 still active in FY2023, 0 since wound down; 6 grantees were first funded in FY2023 (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 FY2023, 24% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2.8M 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
- CICERES INC2× · 2022–2023 · $700k · revenue +29%
ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND INCORPORATED3× · 2021–2023 · $650k · revenue +21%
The Partnership Project Inc2× · 2022–2023 · $525k · revenue -23%
Funded once
- ILInternational Land and Forest Tenure Facilityone grant, 2021 · $2.0M
- CFCLIMATEWORKS FOUNDATIONone grant, 2022 · $1.8M · revenue +6%
- RARIGHTS AND RESOURCES INSTITUTE INCone grant, 2022 · $850k · revenue -76%
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.
To research and develop healthy climate solutions comprising global food security, ecosystem regeneration and carbon balance in seas and soils.
Ci works to spotlight and secure the critical benefits that nature provides to humanity.
The purpose of rainforest foundation us is to support indigenous peoples and forest communities in their efforts to secure their lands, protect their environment, and uphold their rights.
The Climate Center is a climate and energy policy nonprofit working to rapidly reduce climate pollution at scale, starting in California.
Improving the transparency and scientific integrity of climate solutions through open data and tools.
Rainforest trust saves endangered wildlife and protects our planet by creating rainforest reserves through partnerships, community engagement, and donor support.
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,…
Friends of the earth strives for a more healthy and just world by defendng the environment and human health while advancing social and economic justice by conducting research and education, transforming the economy so it protects the…
Climate catalyst sparks collective action to tackle the biggest climate challenges we face today: cutting emissions in heavy industries.
To investigate, research, write, publish, present conferences and teach with respect to global, regional, transboundary, and comparative environmental issues and to make the findings from such activities available to the general public; to…
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…
Wwf's mission is to conserve nature and reduce the most pressing threats to the diversity of life on earth. (continued on schedule o)
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Environmental Defense Fund Incorporated and the most unlike its peers is Workers Assistance Program Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
21 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. 21 of the 22 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 Silicon Valley Community Foundation ↗
- Who funds WINDWARD FUND ↗
- Who funds ROCKEFELLER FAMILY FUND INC ↗
- Who funds CLIMATEWORKS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Rainforest Action Network ↗
- Who funds ROCKEFELLER PHILANTHROPY ADVISORS INC ↗
- Who funds RIGHTS AND RESOURCES INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds CERES INC ↗
- Who funds ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds The Partnership Project Inc ↗
- Who funds NIA TERO FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds OCEANA INC ↗
- Who funds ENVIRONMENTAL INTEGRITY PROJECT ↗
- Who funds The Real Estate Trust of Silicon Valley Community Foundation ↗
- Who funds Texas Campaign for the Environment Fund ↗
- Who funds INSIDE CLIMATE NEWS INC ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR PLANNING EXCELLENCE ↗
- Who funds GLOBAL GREENGRANTS FUND ↗
- Who funds Earthworks ↗
- Who funds MAGICAL BRIDGE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Workers Assistance Program Inc ↗
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: Silicon Valley Community Foundation · Jacob and Terese Hershey Foundation · United States Energy Foundation · The David and Lucile Packard Foundation · The William & Flora Hewlett Foundation · Amalgamated Charitable Foundation Inc · The Ford Foundation · Tides Foundation · High Tide Foundation · Climate Imperative Foundation · Climateworks Foundation · The Bloomberg Family Foundation Inc
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 Sobrato 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.
- Ceres Inc — 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 Sobrato Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Sobrato 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.