· Public charity
United Way of Santa Cruz County
The mission of the United Way of Santa Cruz County is to ignite our community to give, advocate and volunteer so that our youth succeed in school and in life, our residents are healthy and our families are financially independent.our most significant activity is the united for youth initiative, a community partnership that works to…
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 3 grants below total $84,250 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $599,248 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $514,998 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CRADLE TO CAREER | $33,000 |
| COMMUNITY ACTION BOARD | $30,000 |
| SANTA CRUZ COMMUNITY VENTURES | $21,250 |
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 (FY18–23, $133k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 7%. 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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 13% of United Way of Santa Cruz County’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another. Read by recipient address, 100% of the giving stays in CA; read by stated purpose it is 88% — less of the work is directed home than the recipients' locations suggest.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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 +19% since the first grant, against +18% for the ones you funded once.
17 repeat relationships — 3 still active in FY2025, 14 since wound down.
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; $0 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
- UWUnited Way of Santa Cruz County4× · 2020–2025 · $302k · revenue +48%
- CBCommunity Bridges4× · 2020–2024 · $171k · revenue +42%
- CACommunity Action Board5× · 2021–2025 · $167k · revenue +27%
Funded once
- BCBOULDER CREEK VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENTone grant, 2021 · $60k · revenue -37%
- CFCOMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF SAN Bone grant, 2020 · $50k
- UWUNITED WAY OF MONTEREY COUNTYone grant, 2020 · $50k · revenue +12%
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.
Create and support mentoring matches that ignite the power and promise of youth.
To serve our community by providing direct access to sustainable sources of fresh produce and other unique foods, and provide education about food issues, both local and beyond.
Coastside childrens programs (ccp) mission is to provide a safe and caring environment where children learn through experience, play, and friendships - building a foundation for success in school and life. ccp is offering preschool…
CASA of Santa Cruz advocates for children and youth, providing court appointed volunteers so each child in the dependency and juvenile court system feels cared for and connected with the people, families and resources they need to heal and…
CASA recruits, trains, and supports community volunteers who advocate for chidren and youth throughout their journey in foster care.
The mission is to end relationship and sexual violence by being a catalyst for caring communities and social justice. the vision is for all people to live full, free, expressive, and empowered lives in a safe, healthy, vibrant, and…
The Child Care Coordinating Council of San Mateo County, Inc. (4Cs) connects and empowers families, educators, and child care providers with resources today for a stronger San Mateo County tomorrow.
Independent nonpartisan newsroom serving Santa Cruz County, California we are all watching and engaged in our local government, our needs are addressed, democracy works better and our community is stronger.
To alleviate hunger and homelessness in south santa clara county by providing food, housing and employment related services, and advocating for system changes to improve the quality of life for the most vulnerable people in the communities…
Advocates for abused, neglected and other identified children within the court system, with the belief that every child is entitled to a safe and stable home.
Our mission is to improve the health of our patients and the community and advocate the feminist goals of social, political, & economic equality.
To deliver comprehensive health and human service programs that improve the health and well-being of under-served california residents.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Community Bridges and the most unlike its peers is Kidpower Teenpower Fullpower International. 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 31 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) — 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 11% 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.
27 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. 27 of the 37 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 United Way of Santa Cruz County ↗
- Who funds Community Bridges ↗
- Who funds Community Action Board ↗
- Who funds PAJARO VALLEY PREVENTION AND STUDENT ASSISTANCE INC ↗
- Who funds VENTURES ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FOUNDATION FOR SAN BENITO COUNTY ↗
- Who funds BOULDER CREEK VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT ↗
- Who funds Emmaus House ↗
- Who funds SENIORS COUNCIL OF SANTA CRUZ AND SAN BENITO COUNTIES ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF MONTEREY COUNTY ↗
- Who funds Court Appointed Special Advocate of San Benito County Inc ↗
- Who funds NATION'S FINEST ↗
- Who funds VALLEY CHURCHES UNITED ↗
- Who funds SUN STREET CENTERS ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FOOD BANK OF SAN BENITO COUNTY ↗
- Who funds HOPE SERVICES ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FOUNDATION SANTA CRUZ COUNTY ↗
- Who funds MARTHA'S KITCHEN ↗
- Who funds FAMILY SERVICE ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds CENTRAL COAST YOUNG MENS CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds Girls Incorporated of the Central Coast ↗
- Who funds TANNERY WORLD DANCE & CULTURAL CENTER ↗
- Who funds SANTA CRUZ EDUCATION FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SALUD Y CARINO INC ↗
- Who funds KIDPOWER TEENPOWER FULLPOWER International ↗
- Who funds Santa Cruz Childrens Museum of Discovery ↗
- Who funds LIVING EVOLUTION ↗
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: Monterey Peninsula Foundation · Community Foundation Santa Cruz County · Community Foundation for San Benito County · The David and Lucile Packard Foundation · Kaiser Foundation Hospitals · Sunlight Giving · Pajaro Valley Community Health Trust · Dignity Health · East Bay Community Foundation · Silicon Valley Community Foundation · Volunteer Centers of Santa Cruz County · The Albertsons Companies 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 United Way of Santa Cruz County 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.