· Private foundation
The Tinybell Charitable Fund
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.
Read this first · the figures below need context
54% of The Tinybell Charitable Fund’s FY2025 grant dollars went to Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2025 names 10 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2023, the last year The Tinybell Charitable Fund named its own grantees at scale: 10 organizations, $371k. 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 · FY2023
- Under $10k3 grants · $9k
- $10k–50k6 grants · $95k
- $50k–250k4 grants · $267k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| VANGUARD CHARITABLE ENDOWMENT PROGRAM | $80,000 |
| PUNAHOU SCHOOL | $75,000 |
| UC SANTA BARBARA FOUNDATION | $62,000 |
| PENN STATE HEALTH | $50,000 |
| BELLINGCAT FUND | $25,000 |
| MID-PACIFIC INSTITUTE | $20,000 |
| CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY | $20,000 |
| ELECTRONIC FRONTIER FOUNDATION INC | $10,000 |
| THE FREEBSD FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| FREE SOFTWARE FOUNDATION INC | $10,000 |
| ARRL FOUNDATION INC | $5,000 |
| ARRL FOUNDATION INC | $2,500 |
| NETBSD FOUNDATION | $1,000 |
Does the money reach high-need areas?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.
Its human-services grants (FY21–21, $3k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
How this is measured
Which US states its grants reach
How this is measured
Who it funds again
Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.
Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +40% since the first grant, against +28% for those funded once.
10 repeat relationships: 6 still active in FY2023, 4 since wound down; 11 grantees were first funded in FY2023 (too recent to call). Read against FY2023, 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 FY2025, 85% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $42k went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
How this is measured
Backed again, and grew
- PSPUNAHOU SCHOOL5× · 2021–2025 · $345k · revenue +40%
UC SANTA BARBARA FOUNDATION6× · 2020–2025 · $338k · revenue +157%- MIMID-PACIFIC INSTITUTE5× · 2021–2025 · $145k · revenue +25%
Funded once
- UOUNIVERSITY OF SASKATCHEWANone grant, 2021 · $10k
- UOUNIVERSITY OF HAWAII FOUNDATIONgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $5k · revenue +64%
- TCThe Concord Review Incgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $5k · revenue +31%
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.
Closest unfunded matches
The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.
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.
Undergraduate, graduate, and professional education and research across a broad array of academic domains.
Research, education and general - princeton university is a private not-for-profit, non-sectarian institution of higher learning with approximately 5,700 undergraduate and 3,300 graduate students. 2,500 students graduated in the 2024-2025…
Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.
A diverse and sustainable learning community dedicated to discovery and excellence in teaching, scholarship and practice, pacific university inspires students to think, care, create and pursue justice in our world.
The institute for advanced study (the institute) is one of the world's leading centers for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. see schedule o.
The ucla foundation is the giving, receiving, and investing arm of the ucla campus. the foundation enables private donors to help build, sustain and advance one of the world's finest academic and research institutions. private philanthropy…
Organization's mission: boston university is an international, comprehensive, private research university, committed to educating students to be reflective, resourceful individuals ready to live, adapt, and lead in an interconnected world.…
To provide a superior, student-centered learning experience integrating liberal arts and professional education and preparing individuals for lasting achievement and responsible leadership in their careers and communities.
Guided by the principles of academic rigor and diversity, the international school of san francisco offers programs of study in french and english to prepare its graduates for a world in which the ability to think critically and to…
The organization provides professional investment management services for endowed gifts and financial assets entrusted to the ucsf foundation.
Tmt international observatory (tio) was founded by the members listed below exclusively to further charitable, educational and scientific purposes and, within such limits, to advance scientific knowledge and education through the study,…
How this is measured
28 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. 28 of the 36 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.
- Who funds VANGUARD CHARITABLE ENDOWMENT PROGRAM ↗
- Who funds PUNAHOU SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds UC SANTA BARBARA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds MID-PACIFIC INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY ↗
- Who funds Penn State Health ↗
- Who funds Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital Foundation ↗
- Who funds ARRL FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds SILICON VALLEY INTERNATIONAL SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds Free Software Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds THE NETBSD FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE FREEBSD FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Electronic Frontier Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds The Concord Review Inc ↗
- Who funds KQED INC ↗
- Who funds UNICEF USA Impact Fund for Children Inc ↗
- Who funds LOKAHI TENNIS CORP ↗
- Who funds Internet Archive ↗
- Who funds WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE TAHIRIH JUSTICE CENTER ↗
- Who funds KHAN ACADEMY INC ↗
- Who funds ONE MIND ↗
- Who funds HUNAKAI PARK ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF HAWAII FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MO HOCK KE LOCK BO MUN LUN SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds HAWAIIAN HUMANE SOCIETY ↗
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: The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Silicon Valley Community Foundation · Verizon Foundation · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · American Endowment Foundation · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · National Philanthropic Trust · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund
How this is measured
How much its grantees rely on government
Each dot is one organization The Tinybell Charitable Fund funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Tinybell Charitable Fund. Bigger dots raise more.
How this is measured
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to The Tinybell Charitable Fund?
Find your warmest path to The Tinybell Charitable 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 Tinybell’s filings →