· Private foundation
The Tu 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 $10k1 grant · $3k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $50k
- $50k–250k3 grants · $319k
- $250k+5 grants · $19M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| AMERICAN ENDOWMENT FOUNDATION FBO MT ONWARD CHARITABLE FUND | $13,224,815 |
| GLOBAL GIFTED FOUNDATION | $4,683,062 |
| UC-IRVINE FOUNDATION | $800,000 |
| PACIFIC SYMPHONY | $350,000 |
| SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA PUBLIC RADIO | $250,000 |
| OPERATION MOBILIZATION | $119,062 |
| WESTERN IOWA JOURNALISM FOUNDATION | $100,000 |
| BRIGHTER UKRAINE FOUNDATION | $100,000 |
| SAN MUSAE CULTURAL CENTER | $30,000 |
| INTERNATIONAL BIRD RESCUE | $20,000 |
| FREEDOM WRITERS FOUNDATION | $3,000 |
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 (FY19–19, $25k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 0% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +43% since the first grant, against +5% for the ones you funded once.
22 repeat relationships — 9 still active in FY2024, 13 since wound down; 1 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, 98% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $100k 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
- UOUNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA IRVINE FOUNDATION8× · 2017–2024 · $14M · revenue +51%
- GGGLOBAL GIFTED FOUNDATION3× · 2022–2024 · $8.7M · revenue +134% · 100% of their budget
SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA PUBLIC RADIO8× · 2017–2024 · $5.7M · revenue +20%
Funded once
- USUC SAN DIEGOone grant, 2020 · $1.0M
- SCSOUTHERN CALIFORNIA INSTITUE FOR RES & EDUone grant, 2017 · $300k
- KFKOCE-TV FOUNDATIONone grant, 2017 · $250k · revenue -94%
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 central mission of the university of southern california is the development of human beings and society as a whole through the cultivation and enrichment of the human mind and spirit. the principal means by which our mission is…
We use the power of media for public good. we strengthen the civic fabric of southern california, share our distinctive perspective with the rest of the nation, and provide our community with an essential connection to a wider world. we…
To distribute public affairs and other educational information in order to create an electronic bridge between californians and their public officials, and, in the process educate a new generation of voting citizens and civic leaders who…
The asian art museum celebrates, preserves, and promotes asian and asian american art and cultures for local and global audiences. we provide a dynamic forum for exchanging ideas, inviting collaboration, and fueling imagination to deepen…
National public radio, inc. ("npr") works collaboratively with member public radio station licensees ("member stations") to create a more informed public, one that is challenged and invigorated by a deeper understanding and appreciation of…
The Television Academy is dedicated to celebrating excellence, innovation and the advancement of the telecommunications arts and sciences through recognition, education and leadership, while fostering a diverse, inclusive and accessible…
The Institute is a scientific research center dedicated to conducting basic and applied research to advance the understanding of human disease and the improvement of human health. The Institute fosters an innovative research environment…
To serve the public by producing world-class opera that preserves, promotes and advances the art form while embodying the diversity, spirit and artistic sensibility unique to los angeles. we envision an engaged and enlightened community in…
Mission: the mission of san diego opera is to deliver exceptional performances and exciting, accessible programs to diverse audiences, focusing on community partnerships, and the transformative and expressive power of the human voice. as…
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.
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…
The organization is a non-partisan, membership based speakers' forum that connects business leaders, community members, and engaged individuals with shared interest in local, national, and global affairs. it provides an open and accessible…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Hope Center for the Arts and the most unlike its peers is Brighter Ukraine Foundation Inc. 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 41 years old; the field is 14. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 24% startups (under 5 years old) — 7% of your grantees by number, and just 22% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 14% 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 43 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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA IRVINE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds GLOBAL GIFTED FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA PUBLIC RADIO ↗
- Who funds Pacific Symphony ↗
- Who funds CHARLES W BOWERS MUSEUM CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds University of New Haven ↗
- Who funds ORANGE COUNTY MUSIC AND DANCE INC ↗
- Who funds WESTERN IOWA JOURNALISM FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds American Heart Association Inc ↗
- Who funds PROVIDENCE SPEECH AND HEARING CENTER ↗
- Who funds PDXWildlife ↗
- Who funds KOCE-TV FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds The Freedom Writers Foundation ↗
- Who funds SOUTH COAST REPERTORY INC ↗
- Who funds INTERNATIONAL BIRD RESCUE ↗
- Who funds BRIGHTER UKRAINE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INC ↗
- Who funds THE NATIONAL FOUNDATION FOR AMERICAN POLICY INC ↗
- Who funds SAN MUSAE CULTURE CENTER ↗
- Who funds BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF THE SOUTH COAST AREA ↗
- Who funds THE CELL THEATRE COMPANY LTD ↗
- Who funds TMIT GLOBAL CORP ↗
- Who funds Go and Do Likewise Inc ↗
- Who funds Serving People In Need Inc ↗
- Who funds HOPE CENTER FOR THE ARTS ↗
- Who funds ACADEMY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SOUTH COAST CHINESE CULTURAL ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL CHARITY LEAGUE INC ↗
- Who funds ASIAN PACIFIC AMERICAN LEADERSHIP FOUNDATION ↗
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: Orange County Community Foundation · The Crean Foundation · Argyros Family Foundation · The Annenberg Foundation · California Community Foundation · American Endowment Foundation · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · Paypal Charitable Giving 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 Tu 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.
- University of New Haven — 2% of income from government
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 Tu Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Tu 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.