· Private foundation
Thomas and Michelle Wermers Family 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
By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).
A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 47% of THOMAS AND MICHELLE WERMERS FAMILY FOUNDATION’s grantee dollars fall outside its nine largest cause areas, whether because the recipient carries no IRS cause code or because its cause sits in the long tail. A chart would be mostly one residual band and misrepresent the portfolio.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k3 grants · $15k
- $10k–50k5 grants · $110k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $110k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CUREBOUND | $110,000 |
| YOUTH WITH A MISSION | $40,000 |
| GROSSMONT UNION HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT | $30,000 |
| RADY CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL | $15,000 |
| RADY CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL - SAN DIEGO | $15,000 |
| SCRIPPS HEALTH FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| GREEK ORTHODOX LADIES PHILOPTOCHOS SOCIETY INC | $5,000 |
| LA JOLLA COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL | $5,000 |
| MARANATHA CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS | $5,000 |
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 (FY17–17, $5k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 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 +49% since the first grant, against +19% for the ones you funded once.
12 repeat relationships — 8 still active in FY2024, 4 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, 94% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $15k 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
- CCUREBOUND6× · 2017–2024 · $416k · revenue +49%
- BABorrego Art Institute4× · 2020–2023 · $40k · revenue +32%
- USUC SAN DIEGO FOUNDATION2× · 2020–2021 · $20k · revenue +61%
Funded once
- TSTHE SURFSIDE CHURCHone grant, 2017 · $10k
- CHChildren's Hospital Los Angelesgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $5k · revenue +78%
- MTMOXIE THEATRE INCone grant, 2020 · $5k · revenue +19%
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.
At la jolla institute for immunology, our scientists focus on understanding how the immune system works in order to promote human health and prevent disease. our discoveries apply to many diseases, ranging from diabetes to heart disease,…
The california dental association is committed to the success of our members in service to their patients and the public.
Rady children's health (formerly rady children's hospital and health center (rchhc)) was formed to acquire, establish, maintain, conduct, operate, raise funds for, and otherwise support, directly or indirectly through its affiliates,…
The primary exempt purpose of children's healthcare of california includes without limitation the receipt of distributions and grants for the making of distributions and grants to children's hospital of orange county (choc) and to…
The New Childrens Museum (the Museum) in San Diego is an arts-based childrens museum whose mission is to stimulate imagination, creativity, and critical thinking in children and families through inventive, engaging experiences with…
Huntington Health stands for community. We stand for compassion. But more than anything, Huntington stands for health. Providing world-class health care is our specialty, and it's what we've been doing for the San Gabriel Valley since…
A not-for-profit, long-term acute care specialty healthcare organization is to improve the quality of life for patients with respiratory and other diseases that may require prolonged acute hospitalization of specialized treatment.
To be the preeminent pediatric, multispecialty medical group in the nation, dedicated to providing the highest quality medical care to infants, children and adolescents; and supporting the finest teaching and research endeavors of our…
The institute seeks to: translate research findings into new clinical tests and treatments to improve patient outcomes, enhance the knowledge in this field among current and future healthcare providers, and generate and share data and…
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…
The Corporation is a nonprofit public benefit corporation and is not organized for the private gain of any person. It is organized under the Nonprofit Public Benefit Corporation Law for public and charitable purposes. The Corporation is…
Rady children's health services san diego was formed to aid and assist rady children's hospital san diego in carrying out the hospital's exempt purpose.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Uc San Diego Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Oceansides Finest Basketball Club. 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 33 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 21% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 12% 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.
17 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. 17 of the 29 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 CUREBOUND ↗
- Who funds Borrego Art Institute ↗
- Who funds UC SAN DIEGO FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds RADY CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL SAN DIEGO ↗
- Who funds SCRIPPS HEALTH ↗
- Who funds LA JOLLA COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL EATING DISORDERS ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds Children's Hospital Los Angeles ↗
- Who funds MOXIE THEATRE INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds RANCHO COASTAL HUMANE SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds CATHOLIC CHARITIES OF LOS ANGELES INC ↗
- Who funds Kylie Rowand Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds CYT SD ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF CARLSBAD ↗
- Who funds The Vision of Children ↗
- Who funds OCEANSIDES FINEST BASKETBALL CLUB ↗
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: Sempra Foundation · The San Diego Foundation · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · National Philanthropic Trust · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · 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 Thomas and Michelle Wermers Family 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.