· Private foundation
The Yelp 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 $10k629 grants · $256k
- $10k–50k6 grants · $180k
- $50k–250k9 grants · $450k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Valencia | $50,000 |
| Raising A Reader | $50,000 |
| Inner City Computer Stars Fdn | $50,000 |
| Building Pathways Inc | $50,000 |
| Freedom of The Press Foundation | $50,000 |
| Local First Arizona Foundation | $50,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $50,000 |
| Seed Spot | $50,000 |
| LA Cocina Inc | $50,000 |
| Nexstar Legacy Foundation Inc | $30,000 |
| Washington Area Community Investme | $30,000 |
| Hot Bread Kitchen | $30,000 |
| Girls Garage | $30,000 |
| Fresh Start Women's Foundatio | $30,000 |
| Cards for Hospitalized Kids Inc | $30,000 |
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 (FY17–24, $958k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 97% 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.
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 +33% since the first grant, against +27% for the ones you funded once.
931 repeat relationships — 356 still active in FY2024, 575 since wound down; 133 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, 42% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $506k 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
NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE & EDUC FUND INC6× · 2018–2024 · $417k · revenue +206%
EQUAL JUSTICE INITIATIVE5× · 2018–2023 · $411k · revenue +92%- FSFRESH START WOMEN'S FOUNDATION5× · 2020–2024 · $230k · revenue +87%
Funded once
- 2G2020 Gofundmeorgone grant, 2020 · $500k
- 2B2020 Benevity Annual feeone grant, 2020 · $94k
- 2C2019 Contest NY - 826NYCone grant, 2019 · $60k
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.
Improving the lives of animals and people through advocacy, education, and support.
the organization provides professional investment management services for endowed gifts and financial assets entrusted to the UCSF Foundation.
A people-centered approach to the conservation of gorillas and their habitats in Africa
To advance the rights and opportunities of children and youth worldwide.
Witness helps people use video and technology to protect and defend human rights. the organization operates globally. witness' global team designs solutions, provides guidance, and co-develops strategies that enable human rights defenders…
Women's foundation of california amplifies the voices and experiences of community leaders, redistributes knowledge, power, and resources, and mobilizes communities and funders to advance justice for all.
Actionaid is an international network building a just, equitable, and sustainable world in solidarity with communities on the frontlines of poverty and injustice.
Pathfinder builds lasting and trusted local partnerships to strengthen health systems, forging resilient pathways to sexual and reproductive health and rights for all.
Animal welfare organization
California changelawyers is a statewide foundation whose mission is to build a better justice system for all californians. changelawyers empowers the next generation of lawyers, judges, and activists to create a more diverse legal…
California forward (ca fwd) brings people together across regions to improve government and create resilient growth statewide.
On a mission to connect every person facing hunger with nutritious meals... feeding san diego is on a mission to connect every person facing hunger with nutritious meals by maximizing food rescue. through direct service and community…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Education Training and Research and the most unlike its peers is Nihonmachi Little Friends. 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 29 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 2% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 1% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
1466 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. 1466 of the 2,000 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
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
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 NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE & EDUC FUND INC ↗
- Who funds EQUAL JUSTICE INITIATIVE ↗
- Who funds FRESH START WOMEN'S FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds 826 Valencia ↗
- Who funds LA COCINA ↗
- Who funds HOT BREAD KITCHEN LTD ↗
- Who funds THE LITERACY LAB ↗
- Who funds INNER-CITY COMPUTER STARS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds WASHINGTON AREA COMMUNITY INVESTMENT FUND INC ↗
- Who funds FREEDOM OF THE PRESS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SEED SPOT ↗
- Who funds LOCAL FIRST FOR BUSINESS ↗
- Who funds 826NYC Inc ↗
- Who funds BYTE BACK ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO LITERACY ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds LOCAL FIRST ARIZONA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds FREE SPIRIT MEDIA NFP ↗
- Who funds THE BAIL PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds CHINESE PROGRESSIVE ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds Alliance for Global Justice Corp ↗
- Who funds Raising A Reader ↗
- Who funds ONE DEGREE ↗
- Who funds Full Circle Fund ↗
- Who funds OPEN BOOKS LTD ↗
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: Salesforce Foundation · The Intuit Foundation · McNabb Foundation · Bothin Foundation · Thunderbirds Charities · The San Francisco Foundation · Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco the Peninsula Marin & Sonoma · Bright Funds Foundation · The James Irvine Foundation · Esb Charitable Foundation · United Way of the Bay Area · The Lazard Charitable 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 Yelp 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.
- Save the Children Federation Inc — 30% of income from government
- Building Pathways Inc — 23% of income from government
- National Black Justice Coalition Inc — 17% of income from government
- Pace Center for Girlsinc — 2% of income from government
- Rising Tide Capital Inc and Subsidiaries — 2% of income from government
- Literacy Volunteers of Greater Hartford Inc — 0% 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 Yelp Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Yelp 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.