· Private foundation
The Virginia B Hirsh 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 FY2019–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k11 grants · $25k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $11k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| TTCF | $11,000 |
| BMCHS | $6,770 |
| Tahoe Fund | $5,000 |
| Northernettes | $5,000 |
| WORT FM Back Porch Radio Broadcasti | $2,000 |
| Wil-Mar Neighborhood Center | $2,000 |
| Four Lakes Community Collection | $2,000 |
| PBS Reno | $1,200 |
| Olbrich Botanical Society | $763 |
| Second Harvest Food Bank | $500 |
| Scotty Lapp Foundation | $100 |
| Sierra Senior Services | $50 |
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 (FY19–24, $9k) 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 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 +43% since the first grant, against +23% for the ones you funded once.
28 repeat relationships — 9 still active in FY2024, 19 since wound down; 3 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, 84% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $6k 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
- TFTAHOE FUND6× · 2019–2024 · $33k · revenue +336%
- FOFSC OF MADISON INC3× · 2019–2022 · $9k · revenue +43%
- SMSHANE MCCONKEY FOUNDATION3× · 2019–2021 · $5k · revenue +79%
Funded once
- EHEDGEWOOD HIGH SCHOOLone grant, 2023 · $8k
- FSFigure Skating Club of Madisonone grant, 2021 · $5k
- TATCU AthleticsFrog Clubone grant, 2023 · $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.
Sierra watch secures conservation outcomes to protect the natural resources, mountain communities, and timeless values of the tahoe sierra.
The Truckee Trails Foundation (TTF) is working towards a system of trails and bikeways in and around Truckee, California that will connect people and places, reduce our community's dependence on automobiles, and improve our physical,…
The wyoming outdoor council's mission is to protect wyoming's environment and quality of life now and for future generations.
The adirondack council ensures the ecological integrity (clean water and air, wildlife habitat, etc.), wild character (solitude, scenic beauty, etc.), and vibrant communities of new york's six-million-acre adirondack park. the adirondack…
Works to make action on climate change a top policy priority for the outdoor sports community.
To advance the natural history, conservation and ecosystem knowledge of the Tahoe region through science, education and outreach.
To protect wisconsin's lands, waters, and wildlife by providing funding, leading partnerships, and connecting all people with nature.
The sierra avalanche center provides avalanche forecasts and education for safe winter backcountry travel in tahoe.
The Sierra Fund (TSF) is a non-profit organization with a mission to restore ecosystem and community resiliency in the Sierra Nevada.
Landmark conservancy is a nationally accredited, nonprofit conservation organization serving 20 counties across northwest wisconsin. their mission is to conserve wisconsin's natural legacy for everyone...forever.
The door county land trust is a local, non-governmental non-profit organization whose mission is to preserve door county's exceptional lands and waters forever.
The Sierra State Parks Foundation provides critically needed financial and professional support to the Lake Tahoe-Donner Sierra State Parks for Education, Restoration, and Cultural and Environmental Preservation in partnership with…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Tahoe Fund and the most unlike its peers is Aim High. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 28 years old; the field is 13. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 24% startups (under 5 years old) — 10% of your grantees by number, and just 2% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 15% 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.
23 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. 23 of the 61 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 TAHOE FUND ↗
- Who funds FSC OF MADISON INC ↗
- Who funds SHANE MCCONKEY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ONE MILLION AOK ↗
- Who funds WIL-MAR NEIGHBORHOOD CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds IRWIN A AND ROBERT D GOODMAN COMMUNITY CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds Mountain Area Preservation Foundation ↗
- Who funds CHANNEL 5 PUBLIC BROADCASTING INC ↗
- Who funds SECOND HARVEST FOODBANK OF SOUTHERN WI ↗
- Who funds WINGRA SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds AIM HIGH ↗
- Who funds TRUCKEE DONNER LAND TRUST ↗
- Who funds ACHIEVE TAHOE ↗
- Who funds OLBRICH BOTANICAL SOCIETY INC ↗
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: Tahoe Truckee Community Foundation · Tahoe Community Foundation · Barbara L & Richard C Barrett Foundation · United Way of Dane County Inc · Madison Gas and Electric Foundation Inc · Madison Community Foundation · Baird Foundation Inc · Park L Loughlin Charitable Foundation · The Corrigan-Walla Foundation · The Evjue Foundation Inc · Mightycause Charitable Foundation · The Blackbaud 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 Virginia B Hirsh 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 Virginia B Hirsh Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Virginia B Hirsh 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.