· Private foundation
The Stensrud Foundation
Its FY2021 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
Read this first · the figures below need context
100% of The Stensrud Foundation’s FY2021 grant dollars went to The San Diego Foundation, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2021 names 0 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2019, the last year The Stensrud Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 5 organizations, $68k. It is dated, not current.
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 FY2017–2021.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2019
- Under $10k2 grants · $13k
- $10k–50k3 grants · $55k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| SOLUTIONSEXPLORING SUCCESS POST HS | $25,000 |
| Feeding San Diego | $20,000 |
| San Diego Food Bank | $10,000 |
| ART OF ELAN | $7,524 |
| KIDS' TURN SAN DIEGO | $5,000 |
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 human-services grants (FY18–19, $20k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 100% 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.
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 +79% since the first grant, against -7% for the ones you funded once.
4 repeat relationships — 4 still active in FY2019, 0 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2019 (too recent to call). Read against FY2019, the last year this funder named its own grantees directly; its giving has since run through a sponsor, which reports no donor behind each grant.
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 FY2020, 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
- JCJACOBS & CUSHMAN SAN DIEGO FOOD BANK3× · 2017–2019 · $50k · revenue +169%
- AOART OF ELAN3× · 2017–2019 · $20k · revenue +79%
- KTKids Turn San Diego2× · 2018–2019 · $20k · revenue +1%
Funded once
- SDSan Diego Opera Associationone grant, 2017 · $100k · revenue -15%
- FNFamilies NOWone grant, 2017 · $50k · 28% of their budget
- ROReach Out and Readone grant, 2017 · $5k
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.
San Diego Jewish Academy empowers each student to learn for life, guided by Jewish values and rooted in strength of community.
To partner with youth, families, adults and communities to reach their full potential and is achieved through comprehensive and integrated programming in the areas of child and youth development; youth, adult and family wellness and…
To spark breakthrough community action that elevates every child and family toward a brighter future.
produce, distribute, prepare, serve, and eat nutritional and culturally appropriate food.
The san diego municipal employees association (sdmea) is dedicated to being a strong and effective advocate for san diego city employees. sdmea is united to improve employees' standard of living and promote their fair treatment by…
The university of san diego is a contemporary catholic university, grounded in the liberal arts and anchored along an international border, advancing academic excellence to create a more inclusive, sustainable and hopeful world.
Jewish family service is a client-centered, impact-driven organization working to build a stronger, healthier, more resilient san diego.
Hannahs Family Center envisions a world where strong families enable children to thrive and communities to prosper. Since 1993, we have helped San Diego families navigate significant adverse changes, trauma and loss. As experts in…
To support and cultivate sustainable employment opportunities for San Diego County residents contributing to a prosperous local economy.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The San Diego Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Solutions Exploring Success Post Hs. 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 10 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 SOLUTIONS EXPLORING SUCCESS POST HS ↗
- Who funds San Diego Opera Association ↗
- Who funds Families NOW ↗
- Who funds JACOBS & CUSHMAN SAN DIEGO FOOD BANK ↗
- Who funds THE SAN DIEGO FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ART OF ELAN ↗
- Who funds Kids Turn San Diego ↗
- Who funds FEEDING SAN DIEGO ↗
- Who funds SIERRA FOREVER FAMILIES ↗
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: The San Diego 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 Stensrud 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.