· Private foundation
The Tikvah Fund
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.
Read this first · the figures below need context
60% of The Tikvah Fund’s FY2024 grant dollars went to Jewish Communal Fund, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2024 names 3 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2020, the last year The Tikvah Fund named its own grantees at scale: 5 organizations, $2M. It is dated, not current.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What it funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2019 to 2024.
Where the money goes
Grants by size, and the largest recipients.
By grant size · FY2020
- Under $10k5 grants · $29k
- $10k–50k3 grants · $55k
- $250k+1 grant · $2.4M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| SHALEM COLLEGE | $2,360,000 |
| PA'AMONIM | $25,000 |
| HIECHAL HATORAH | $20,000 |
| BAR ILAN UNIVERSITY | $10,000 |
| COMBAT HATE FOUNDATION | $7,500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $6,500 |
| BEIS YAAKOV MACHON ORA | $6,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $5,000 |
| MAIMONIDES SCHOOL | $4,000 |
Does the money reach high-need areas?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.
US giving: 34% of grant dollars ($7.4M). The need read here covers only this US portion; the 66% that went abroad ($14M) is mapped below.
Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY19–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 17%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 98% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
How this is measured
Beyond the US: 66% of all-years giving ($14M)
2 countries, by the recipient’s country on the filing.
How this is measured
Who it funds again
Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.
4 repeat relationships: 4 still active in FY2020, 0 since wound down; 11 grantees were first funded in FY2020 (too recent to call). Read against FY2020, 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
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2024, 0% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2.8M went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
How this is measured
Backed again, and grew
- SCSHALEM COLLEGE5× · 2019–2023 · $14M
- HHHEICHAL HATORAH4× · 2019–2022 · $73k · revenue +135%
- BYBAIS YAAKOV MACHON ORA A NJ NON- PROFIT CORPORATION2× · 2020–2021 · $18k · revenue +51%
Funded once
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2019 · $67k
- AFAMERICAN FRIENDS OF JSC INCone grant, 2019 · $50k
- TTZOHARone grant, 2019 · $50k
How this is measured
Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
7 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.
Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.
How this is measured
Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 7 of the 23 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.
Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.
Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee
Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing
Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding
A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.
Co-funders
Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.
Open a dossier: Jewish Communal Fund · The Ojc Fund · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · National Philanthropic Trust · American Endowment Foundation · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile Foundation
How this is measured
How much its grantees rely on government
Each dot is one organization The Tikvah Fund funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Tikvah Fund. Bigger dots raise more.
- Heichal Hatorah: 1% of income from government
How this is measured
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to The Tikvah Fund?
Find your warmest path to The Tikvah Fund 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.
Play a game based on Tikvah’s filings →