· Private foundation
Vital Spark Foundation
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2018–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k2 grants · $8k
- $250k+2 grants · $716k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Harriet Arthur Memorial Charitable | $357,793 |
| SMJ Spark Foundation | $357,793 |
| White Coat Waste Project | $5,000 |
| Harriet Arthur Memorial Ch Tr | $3,348 |
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 (FY18–21, $39k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, 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.
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 +79% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
7 repeat relationships — 1 still active in FY2025, 6 since wound down; 3 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (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 FY2025, 1% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $719k 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
- CFCENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY INC5× · 2018–2024 · $61k · revenue +123%
- PMPOPULATION MEDIA CENTER INC3× · 2018–2020 · $19k · revenue +27%
- RLREADING LEGACIES3× · 2019–2023 · $19k · revenue +79%
Funded once
- URUS RIGHT TO KNOWone grant, 2021 · $20k · revenue -34%
- PRPACIFIC REPERTORY THEATREgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $10k · revenue +273%
- FSForest Svc EmployeesEnvironment Ethone grant, 2021 · $9k
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.
World animal protection is a global organization working to end factory farming and wildlife exploitation. we expose cruel systems, promote animal-friendly alternatives, and influence policy change. for over 75 years, we've been rewriting…
To prevent cruelty to animals, we promote enacting and enforcing good public policies. enacting good laws depends upon electing good lawmakers, and we remind voters which candidates care about and support animal issues.
Wwf's mission is to conserve nature and reduce the most pressing threats to the diversity of life on earth. (continued on schedule o)
Founded in 1877, american humane association, dba american humane society (american humane) is committed to ensuring the safety, welfare and well-being of animals. our leadership programs are first to serve in promoting and nurturing the…
The union of concerned scientists puts rigorous, independent science into action, developing solutions and advocating for a healthy, safe, and just future.
Panthera's mission is the conservation of the world's 40 wild cat species, many of which are endangered or threatened. panthera develops, implements and oversees wild cat conservation strategies on a global scale.
Ci works to spotlight and secure the critical benefits that nature provides to humanity.
To advocate for policy changes by governments and corporations in order to preserve ocean life and return the oceans to their former abundance.
The Nonhuman Rights Project (NhRP) is the only civil rights organization in The United States dedicated solely to securing fundamental rights for nonhuman animals and the leading force in building a national and global nonhuman rights…
The open markets institute works to help people relearn how to use competition policy to build stronger democracies, more just and equitable societies, more innovative and sustainable economies, and a more secure and peaceful world.
Friends of the earth strives for a more healthy and just world by defendng the environment and human health while advancing social and economic justice by conducting research and education, transforming the economy so it protects the…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Jane Goodall Institute for Wildlife Research Education and Conservation and the most unlike its peers is Smj Spark Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
18 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. 18 of the 28 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 SMJ SPARK FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR BIOLOGICAL DIVERSITY INC ↗
- Who funds US RIGHT TO KNOW ↗
- Who funds POPULATION MEDIA CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds READING LEGACIES ↗
- Who funds THE INNOCENCE PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds THE WHITE COAT WASTE PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds ORGANIC CONSUMERS ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds PACIFIC REPERTORY THEATRE ↗
- Who funds JOSEPHINE KERNES MEMORIAL POOL ↗
- Who funds ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds JANE GOODALL INSTITUTE FOR WILDLIFE RESEARCH EDUCATION AND CONSERVATION ↗
- Who funds INSTITUTE OF NOETIC SCIENCES ↗
- Who funds Peaceful Valley Donkey Rescue Inc ↗
- Who funds CHIMP HAVEN INC ↗
- Who funds MARA ELEPHANT PROJECT USA INC ↗
- Who funds MIDDLE EAST CHILDREN'S ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds LANTERN THEATER COMPANY ↗
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: The Chicago Community Trust · National Philanthropic Trust · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · 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 Vital Spark 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.