· Private foundation
The Traverse Foundation
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.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2021–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k1 grant · $731
- $50k–250k4 grants · $402k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Lucille Packard Foundation | $164,834 |
| Yale University | $100,000 |
| Invincikids | $75,000 |
| Bhutan Foundation | $62,000 |
| Sumaritan House | $731 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY21–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 8%, against an area that typically sits at 7%. 85% of your 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 +50% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
9 repeat relationships — 4 still active in FY2025, 5 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (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 FY2025, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $731 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
- IInvincikids3× · 2023–2025 · $275k · revenue +81% · 33% of their budget
- TBThe Bhutan Foundation3× · 2021–2025 · $110k · revenue +50%
- LTLittle Traverse Conservancy Inc3× · 2021–2023 · $14k · revenue +17%
Funded once
- YUYALE UNIVERSITYone grant, 2024 · $100k
- MNMCLAREN NORTHERN MICHIGAN FOUNDATIONone grant, 2021 · $10k · revenue -60%
MONTEREY BAY AQUARIUM FOUNDATIONone grant, 2022 · $10k · revenue 0%
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.
The Elkhorn Slough Foundation's mission is to conserve and restore Elkhorn Slough and its watershed, California's largest tidal salt marsh south of San Francisco Bay. Renowned for its extraordinary biodiversity, Elkhorn Slough features a…
To engage and catalyze global seafood supply chains in rebuilding depleted fish stocks and reducing the environmental impacts of fishing and fish farming.
Wwf's mission is to conserve nature and reduce the most pressing threats to the diversity of life on earth. (continued on schedule o)
To ensure coast redwood forests in the santa cruz mountains thrive for generations to come. since 1900, sempervirens has protected more than 36,000 acres. learn more about our mission, vision, and strategic plan through 2030 at:…
Ci works to spotlight and secure the critical benefits that nature provides to humanity.
Nature collective's mission is to drive a passion for nature for all. we think inclusively and diversely when serving those devoid of nature those who remember nature and want to connect back to it and those who have an affinity with…
Increase societal understanding of the earth system through scientific research and education.
The wildlife conservation society (wcs) saves wildlife and wild places worldwide through science, conservation action, education, and inspiring people to value nature.
The Chile-California Council is a San Francisco-based nonprofit dedicated to developing and promoting joint endeavors and cooperative relations between Chile and California, as well as individuals, legal entities and other institutions in…
Maine Audubon works to conserve Maine's wildlife and habitat by engaging people of all ages in education, conservation, and action. We are helping the people of Maine become the nation's most informed and effective stewards of wildlife and…
It is our mission at huron pines to conserve and enhance northern michigan's natural resources to ensure healthy water, protected places and vibrant communities. for alomst 50 years, our work across the forests, lakes and streams of…
Mission statement: mission: caring for our patients first and our people always. vision: to be the most comprehensive, integrated and connected health system for getting and staying well. values: excellence - we deliver high-quality,…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Afs-Usa Inc and the most unlike its peers is Invincikids. 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 13 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 Invincikids ↗
- Who funds The Bhutan Foundation ↗
- Who funds Little Traverse Conservancy Inc ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF ALTA INC ↗
- Who funds MCLAREN NORTHERN MICHIGAN FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds AFS-USA INC ↗
- Who funds MONTEREY BAY AQUARIUM FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ECUMENICAL HUNGER PROGRAM ↗
- Who funds SAMARITAN HOUSE ↗
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: Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile 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 Traverse 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 Traverse Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Traverse 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.