· Public charity
The Solar Foundation
To accelerate adoption of the world's most abundant energy source: the sun.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2021.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2021
- Under $10k1 grant · $8k
- $10k–50k6 grants · $160k
- $50k–250k3 grants · $225k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| UNIVERSITY OF PUERTO RICO MAYAGUEZ | $104,219 |
| US CHAMBER OF COMMERCE FOUNDATION | $62,047 |
| SOLAR ENERGY INDUSTRIES ASSOCIATION INC | $59,175 |
| NORTH AMERICAN BOARD OF CERTIFIED ENERGY PRACTITIONERS INC | $49,170 |
| NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF COUNTIES RESEARCH FOUNDATION | $32,432 |
| Individual grant recipient | $28,598 |
| NATIONAL LEAGUE OF CITIES INSTITUTE | $25,820 |
| THE CADMUS GROUP LLC FKA MEISTER CONSULTING GROUP INC | $13,488 |
| ELECTRIC POWER RESEARCH INSTITUTE | $10,977 |
| THE REGULATORY ASSISTANCE PROJECT | $8,495 |
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 (FY17–21) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 7%. 81% of your 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
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.
16 repeat relationships — 10 still active in FY2021, 6 since wound down.
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 FY2021, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
- AFALLIANCE FOR SUSTAINABLE ENERGY LLC4× · 2017–2020 · $607k · revenue +163%
- NLNATIONAL LEAGUE OF CITIES INSTITUTE INC5× · 2017–2021 · $435k · revenue +322%
- SESOLAR ENERGY INDUSTRIES ASSOCIATION3× · 2017–2021 · $262k · revenue +163%
Funded once
- NANATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF COUNTIESgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $168k · revenue +58%
- CECLEAN ENERGY SOLUTIONS INCone grant, 2017 · $39k
- UIURBAN INGENUITYone grant, 2017 · $13k
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.
Founded in 1889, the national association of regulatory utility commisioners (naruc) is a non-profit organization dedicated to representing the state public service commisions who regulate the utilities that provide essential services such…
Nacwa is the national voice of public clean water utilities, shaping water policy, convening a vibrant peer network, and empowering water leaders.
American gas association's (the association) mission is to develop and advocate for informed, innovative, and durable policy that fulfills our nation's energy needs, environmental aspirations and economic potential. we are committed to…
To enhance both the global competitiveness of u.s. business and the u.s. quality of life by promoting and facilitating voluntary consensus standards and conformity assessment systems, and safeguarding their integrity.
Ncapec is the only u.s. business association focused exclusively on facilitating american private sector input to the apec process. programs typically feature discussions between business, government and academia on key trade and economic…
Empowering college admission counseling professionals through education, advocacy, and community.
Empowering financial professionals and consumers through world-class advocacy and education.
The north american electric reliability corporation (nerc) is a not-for-profit international regulatory authority whose mission is to assure the effective and efficient reduction of risks to the reliability and security of the grid.
Advancing a national community to foster equity in dual and concurrent enrollment through accreditation, advocacy, research, and professional development.
The business association and voice of america's engineering industry, representing thousands of independent u.s. engineering companies engaged in the development of transportation, water, and other public and commercial facilities.
Neca is dedicated to enhancing the electrical contracting industry through continuing education, labor relations, current information and promotional activities and is working to promote higher standards, quality workmanship and training…
The NW Energy Coalition is an alliance of over 100 environmental, civic, and human service organizations, utilities, and businesses in Oregon, Washington, Idaho, Montana, and British Columbia, plus many individual members. The NW Energy…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is National Association of Counties Research Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Solar Energy International. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
12 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. 12 of the 20 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 ALLIANCE FOR SUSTAINABLE ENERGY LLC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL LEAGUE OF CITIES INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds SOLAR ENERGY INDUSTRIES ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds US Chamber of Commerce Foundation ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF COUNTIES RESEARCH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds REGULATORY ASSISTANCE PROJECT ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF COUNTIES ↗
- Who funds ELECTRIC POWER RESEARCH INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds NORTH AMERICAN BOARD OF CERTIFIED ENERGY PRACTITIONERS INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF WORKFORCE BOARDS ↗
- Who funds SOLAR ENERGY INTERNATIONAL ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF COMMUNITY COLLEGES ↗
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 set of overlaps that mostly run through you, not between each other.
Open a dossier: Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund
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 Solar 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.
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 Solar Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Solar 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.