· Private foundation
The Three Sisters Foundation
Its FY2024 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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k22 grants · $53k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $20k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| LOS ANGELES FIRE DEPARTMENT FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| SURFRIDER FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| NO KID HUNGRY | $5,000 |
| PLANNED PARENTHOOD | $5,000 |
| NATIONAL PARK FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| RICHARD J CARON FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| CALIFORNIA WILDLIFE CENTER | $3,000 |
| SIERRA CLUB FOUNDATION | $3,000 |
| ACLU FOUNDATION | $3,000 |
| EVERY MOTHER COUNTS | $3,000 |
| LOS ANGELES EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS FOUNDATION | $2,000 |
| CHALLENGE ASPEN | $2,000 |
| THE BRIDGE FOR YOUTH | $2,000 |
| DOWNTOWN WOMEN'S CENTER | $2,000 |
| FEEDING AMERICA | $2,000 |
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 (FY17–24, $44k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 52% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants spread fairly evenly across need levels.
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 +27% since the first grant, against -7% for the ones you funded once.
28 repeat relationships — 22 still active in FY2024, 6 since wound down; 2 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, 93% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $5k 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
- LALOS ANGELES FIRE DEPARTMENT FOUNDATION8× · 2017–2024 · $75k · revenue ×63
- TSTHE SURFRIDER FOUNDATION8× · 2017–2024 · $65k · revenue +107%
- RJRICHARD J CARON FOUNDATION8× · 2017–2024 · $50k · revenue +7%
Funded once
- AAASHLAND AREA RECREATION ASSOCIATIONone grant, 2019 · $30k · revenue -100%
- ATASPEN TIBETone grant, 2017 · $7k
ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND INCORPORATEDgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $3k · revenue +121%
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.
Animal outlook is a national animal protection organization working to end the abuse of farmed animals using a variety of strategies, including investigations, legal advocacy, corporate and food system reform, and vegan outreach.
Connect conservationists and supporters, deploy resources to the field, provide conservationists with tools and support they need to succeed.
The purpose of the water research foundation (wrf) is a definitive research organization to advance the science of all things water to better meet the evolving needs of its subscribers and the water sector. to engage exclusively in…
We exist to end the abuse of animals raised for food. this mission is executed by persuading companies and institutions to adopt animal welfare policies through negotiation and pressure campaigns, and then holding them accountable to their…
The mission of health care without harm (hcwh) is to transform health care worldwide so that it reduces its environmental footprint, becomes a community anchor for sustainability and a leader in the global movement for environmental health…
The union of concerned scientists puts rigorous, independent science into action, developing solutions and advocating for a healthy, safe, and just future.
Wildaid's mission is to inspire change and empower the world to protect wildlife and vital habitats from critical threats.
To advocate for policy changes by governments and corporations in order to preserve ocean life and return the oceans to their former abundance.
To establish and promote programs to protect the global climate, forests, wildlife and the natural environment, through research, advocacy, and investigation.
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…
Nacwa is the national voice of public clean water utilities, shaping water policy, convening a vibrant peer network, and empowering water leaders.
To drive transformational adaptation to protect communities across the country from higher seas, stronger storms, and more frequent flooding.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Environmental Defense Fund Incorporated and the most unlike its peers is Hit Living Foundation. 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 28 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) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% 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.
34 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. 34 of the 46 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 LOS ANGELES FIRE DEPARTMENT FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE SURFRIDER FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds RICHARD J CARON FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL PARK FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SHARE OUR STRENGTH ↗
- Who funds EVERY MOTHER COUNTS ↗
- Who funds ASHLAND AREA RECREATION ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds CHALLENGE ASPEN ↗
- Who funds ORGANIC CONSUMERS ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds THE CALIFORNIA WILDLIFE CENTER ↗
- Who funds MINNESOTA PUBLIC RADIO AMERICAN PUBLIC MEDIA ↗
- Who funds SIERRA CLUB FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds DOWNTOWN WOMEN'S CENTER ↗
- Who funds CONNECTIONS FOR ABUSED WOMEN AND THEIR CHILDREN ↗
- Who funds THE BRIDGE FOR YOUTH ↗
- Who funds THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS ↗
- Who funds ENVIRONMENTAL WORKING GROUP ↗
- Who funds Feeding America ↗
- Who funds ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds Dream of Wild Health ↗
- Who funds PENCILS OF PROMISE INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds MATTER ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds HAWAII COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds LOS ANGELES EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS FDN ↗
- Who funds SAVING GRACIE INC ↗
- Who funds TerraCycle Global Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds WOODSTOCK FARM ANIMAL SANCTUARY INC ↗
- Who funds HIT LIVING FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds National Domestic Workers Alliance 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: Mary Jo and Hank Greenberg Animal Welfare Foundation · Charities Aid Foundation America · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · National Philanthropic Trust · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Network for Good · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Paypal Charitable Giving Fund · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · The Bank of America Charitable 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 Three Sisters 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 Three Sisters Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Three Sisters 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.