· Private foundation
The Starfish Group
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.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- $50k–250k1 grant · $150k
- $250k+1 grant · $500k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ICAHN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE | $500,000 |
| Yale University | $150,000 |
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 (FY20–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 7%. 100% 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.
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.
9 repeat relationships — 2 still active in FY2025, 7 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 FY2025, 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
- SSSeattle Storm Foundation2× · 2020–2024 · $50k · revenue +53%
- HIHELPUSADOPTORG INC2× · 2022–2023 · $30k · revenue +321%
- TGThe George Washington University2× · 2022–2023 · $20k · revenue +18%
Funded once
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2022 · $25k
- JTJOYCE THEATER FOUNDATION INCgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $13k · revenue +48%
- SSSOLAR SISTER INCgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $5k · revenue +26%
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.
(see schedule o)
To improve the lives of people through innovative scientific and engineering research.
The weizmann institute of science, located in rehovot, israel, is one of the worlds top-ranking, multidisciplinary research institutions. at any one time, several thousand scientists, staff and students are involved in hundreds of research…
Committed to exceptional healthcare quality for all and actively engaged with our community, einstein drives scientific discovery and educates compassionate leaders in health and science.
Mount sinai is committed to the advancement of the art and science of medicine through clinical excellence. the central mission consists of high-quality patient care and teaching conducted in an atmosphere of social concern and scholarly…
Since its founding, over 120 years ago, as a medical dispensary to meet the needs of the impoverished and underserved jewish community of the lower east side, beth israel medical center has been committed to the care of persons of all…
Provide administrative and other support services to academic programs sponsored by rochester institute of technology both in the united states and abroad.
The mission of mit is to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century.
Mjhs health system is a charitable not-for-profit established to support the activities of affiliated organizations. mjhs is built on the core values of compassion, dignity and respect, first established by the four brooklyn ladies in…
Washington school for girls ignites the joyful pursuit of learning and inspires lives of faith-filled purpose, leadership, and service by educating girls in underserved areas through an academically challenging education. an extended day…
The university of washington foundation solicits and otherwise facilitates private contributions to or for the benefit of the university of washington.
To provide pre-kindergarten through grade 12 college preparatory education, growing students into socially and environmentally aware global citizens in a multi-lingual, cross-cultural setting.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Icahn School of Medicine At Mount Sinai and the most unlike its peers is Solar Sister Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
9 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. 9 of the 14 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 ICAHN SCHOOL OF MEDICINE AT MOUNT SINAI ↗
- Who funds Seattle Storm Foundation ↗
- Who funds HELPUSADOPTORG INC ↗
- Who funds The George Washington University ↗
- Who funds LA ESCUELITA INC ↗
- Who funds JOYCE THEATER FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds SOLAR SISTER INC ↗
- Who funds The Ideal School of Manhattan ↗
- Who funds CITYMEALS-ON-WHEELS ↗
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: Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Amazonsmile Foundation
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 Starfish Group 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 Starfish Group?
Find your warmest path to The Starfish Group 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.