· Private foundation
The Ticknor Foundation Inc
Its FY2023 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Read this first · the figures below need context
96% of The Ticknor Foundation Inc’s FY2023 grant dollars went to Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2023 names 21 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2022, the last year The Ticknor Foundation Inc named its own grantees at scale: 22 organizations, $130k. 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 FY2017–2023.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2022
- Under $10k26 grants · $80k
- $10k–50k5 grants · $50k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| LUCILE PACKARD FOUND FOR CHILDRENS | $10,000 |
| STANFORD SCHOOL OF BUSINESS | $10,000 |
| KCTS 9 | $10,000 |
| THE FOOD DEPOT | $10,000 |
| DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS | $10,000 |
| FOOD BANK FOR MONTEREY COUNTY | $7,500 |
| FOOD IS FREE SOLANO | $5,000 |
| THE ACCESS FUND | $5,000 |
| RICHMOND EMERGENCY FOOD BANK | $5,000 |
| STUDENTS RISING ABOVE | $5,000 |
| KUOW 949 | $5,000 |
| IDAHO SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL | $5,000 |
| LOCKER 505 - STUDENTS CLOTHING BANK | $5,000 |
| CHRIST HOUSE | $5,000 |
| Awhs Falcon Foundation | $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 (FY20–23, $32k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, 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.
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.
35 repeat relationships — 30 still active in FY2022, 5 since wound down; 4 grantees were first funded in FY2022 (too recent to call). Read against FY2022, 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 FY2023, 88% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $15k 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
- CPCASCADE PUBLIC MEDIA7× · 2017–2023 · $70k · revenue +158%
- FBFOOD BANK FOR MONTEREY COUNTY4× · 2020–2023 · $35k · revenue +8%
- TATHE ACCESS FUND7× · 2017–2023 · $33k · revenue +11%
Funded once
- CHCATHOLIC HOUSING SERVICESone grant, 2017 · $10k
- SASALVATION ARMYone grant, 2019 · $9k
- TSTHE SALVATION ARMYone grant, 2021 · $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.
Food forward fights hunger and prevents food waste by rescuing fresh surplus produce, connecting this abundance with people experiencing food insecurity, and inspiring others to do the same.
The organization provides professional investment management services for endowed gifts and financial assets entrusted to the ucsf foundation.
The union of concerned scientists puts rigorous, independent science into action, developing solutions and advocating for a healthy, safe, and just future.
To promote philanthropy to make santa cruz county a better place to live, now and in the future.we bring together people, ideas, and resources to inspire philanthropy and accomplish great things.
The san diego foundation inspires enduring philanthropy and enables community solutions to improve the quality of life in our region.
The foundation's mission is to improve the oral health of all californians by supporting the dental profession and its efforts to meet community needs.
On a mission to connect every person facing hunger with nutritious meals by maximizing food rescue. through direct service and community partnerships, feeding san diego provides more than 26 million meals each year to children, families,…
United Food Bank unites communities to alleviate hunger.
The npr foundation ("foundation") is organized and operated exclusively for the benefit of its sole supported organization, national public radio, inc. ("npr inc."). the foundation supports npr inc. through various activities such as…
To lead, serve and collaborate to mobilize enduring philanthropy for a better arizona.
The california dental association is committed to the success of our members in service to their patients and the public.
The fsmb serves as the voice for state medical boards, supporting them through education, assessment, research and advocacy while providing services and initiatives that promote patient safety, quality health care and regulatory best…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc and the most unlike its peers is Awhs Falcon 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 37 years old; the field is 12. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 27% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% lost their exemption, against 17% 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.
30 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. 30 of the 49 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 DONOR ADVISED CHARITABLE GIVING INC ↗
- Who funds CASCADE PUBLIC MEDIA ↗
- Who funds FOOD BANK FOR MONTEREY COUNTY ↗
- Who funds THE ACCESS FUND ↗
- Who funds FOUNDATION FOR STUDENTS RISING ABOVE ↗
- Who funds PACIFIC SCIENCE CENTER FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Christ House ↗
- Who funds AWHS FALCON FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Bucknell University ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds SAN FRANCISCO FOOD BANK ↗
- Who funds CANAL ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds American National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches ↗
- Who funds THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds THE FOOD DEPOT ↗
- Who funds FRED HUTCHINSON CANCER RESEARCH CENTER ↗
- Who funds IDAHO SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL INC ↗
- Who funds Side By Side ↗
- Who funds MARIN HUMANE SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds ST VINCENT DE PAUL SOCIETY DISTRICT COUNCIL OF MARIN COUNTY ↗
- Who funds Food is Free Solano ↗
- Who funds Lime Foundation ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
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: Marin Community Foundation · Leonard & Beryl Buck Foundation · The San Francisco Foundation · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · American Endowment Foundation · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · Network for Good · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · 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 Ticknor Foundation Inc 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.