How much did Vital Spark Foundation grant in FY2025?

A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 45% of Vital Spark Foundation’s grantee dollars go to organizations outside the IRS cause taxonomy (common for large international and research funders), so a chart would be mostly “unclassified” and misrepresent the portfolio.

02beneath the categories

Past the labels — and the year it shifted

Beneath the NTEE codes, this is what the grant descriptions actually say.

…and in their own words, year by year

2019

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2020

—

2021

—

2022

—

2023

—

2024

—

2025

harriet arthur

Words distinctive to each year’s grant purposes (TF-IDF) · event-driven terms in cyan.

03FY2025 · 4 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k2 grants · $8k
$250k+2 grants · $716k

$357,793

Median grant

States reached

Total assets

Largest grants

Harriet Arthur Memorial Charitable$357,793
SMJ Spark Foundation$357,793
White Coat Waste Project$5,000
Harriet Arthur Memorial Ch Tr$3,348

02The need

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.

show:

Your human-services grants (FY18–21, $39k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14% — the area typically sits at 10%. 49% of those dollars reach neighborhoods with above-average need. Your grants spread fairly evenly across need levels.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in 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, United Way ALICE — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.

03Your edge

repeat funding

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.

18%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.

$171k · 7 repeat orgs$802k to everyone else

And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +127% since the first grant, against +50% 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

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$171k

$83k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+127%

+50%

Still filing today

86%

33%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 1% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $719k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

AnimalsHuman ServicesPhilanthropyEducationYouth DevelopmentPublic BenefitOther

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

CF
Center for Biological Diversity
5× · 2018–2024 · $61k · revenue +127%
IP
Innocence Project
3× · 2018–2020 · $19k · revenue +178%
RL
Reading Legacies
3× · 2019–2023 · $19k · revenue +89%

Funded once

UR
US Right to Knowgraduated
one grant, 2021 · $20k · revenue +40%
PR
Pacific Repertory Theatregraduated
one grant, 2022 · $10k · revenue +639%
FS
Forest Svc EmployeesEnvironment Eth
one grant, 2021 · $9k

Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Your field

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.

Physicians Committee for Responsible Med

The Physicians Committee promotes preventive medicine, particularly good nutrition, conducts clinical research, and encourages higher standards for ethics and effectiveness in research.

Health

Global Animal Partnership

Animals

Environment Now

—

Center for Responsible Science

Philanthropy

Pangea World Theater

Pangea World Theater strives to build a just world by creating multi-disciplinary theater that embodies decolonizing practices of solidarity, sustainability and equity.

Arts & Culture

Earthjustice

We use the power of the law to protect health, preserve ecosystems, and combat climate change.

Environment

Witness Inc

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…

International

Montana Innocence Project

Because liberty and justice are paramount to democratic society, it is the mission of the Montana Innocence Project to free the innocent and unjustly incarcerated, and advocate for systems of Justice that are accurate, accountable, and…

Crime & Legal

Nonhuman Rights Project Inc

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…

Animals

Regenerative Earth

Preserving biological diversity and indigenous wisdom in keystone ecosystems globally, as well as enabling conditions where humans and the environment thrive within.

Environment

Jabberwocky Theatre Company

Rogue Machine produces world premiere of new plays, primarily by Los Angeles-based playwrights, and plays new to Los Angeles, including American, West Coast, and Regional Premieres of significant contemporary theatrical works. Rogue…

Arts & Culture

Law of the Wild

At law of the wild we strive to protect nature for its intrinsic value. our mission is to conserve wildlife, habitats, and ecosystems, by ensuring that international and national legal frameworks and policies are robust, well implemented,…

Crime & Legal

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Population Media Center Inc 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.

05the grantee network

13 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2017–2025.

Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

13/13

Grantees still filing

9/13

Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

Other$441,141Philanthropy$357,793Animals$81,000Human Services$39,000Youth Development$19,000Education$19,000Public Benefit$16,000

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.

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.

The Chicago Community TrustIL14× affinity5 shared granteesties to 4 of 4Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: The Chicago Community 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 organisation 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.

2025

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

0get no government money at all

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–90%

typical government reliance, FY20–25

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. 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.

05Through Plinth

Through Plinth

Your grantmaking, live and operational

This dossier was generated cold from public filings. In Plinth it’s a working system — every applicant assessed and every grant monitored. Here’s a taste, run on one of your grantees: US Right to Know.

Agentic due diligence · confidence × risk

Financial management

high risk

~1 months of operating runway; revenue grew over 7 filed years.

Track record & reputation

low risk

7 years of Form 990 filings, still active.

Legal standing

low risk

US 501(c)(3); EIN 465676616 on file with current IRS Form 990 filings.

Governance

Live in Plinth

Board composition & governance documents — verified live in Plinth from the applicant.

Compliance & sanctions

Live in Plinth

OFAC / UN sanctions screening — run live in Plinth at assessment.

Program capacity

Live in Plinth

Staffing, M&E and activity alignment — assessed live in Plinth from submitted proposals.

Live · Plinth’s real DD engine

Run the actual assessment on US Right to Know, cold from public data.

Generated live from public IRS filings + open web sources by Plinth’s agentic engine. Shown as an illustration of the product, not a formal assessment.

Post-award monitoring · continuous checks

FlagFinancial stability— Roughly 1 months of cash on hand.
On trackSustained operations— Filing through 2025; revenue grew over the period.
On trackReliance on your funding— Your grants peaked at 3% of their budget — diversified.
Awaiting reportEvidence of delivery— Plinth collects the grantee's own monitoring reports post-award.

What you see here is static and public. In Plinth it’s operational — the full six-pillar framework on every applicant (with their own documents + live registry and sanctions checks), monitoring dashboards on every award, custom board reports, and eligibility routing for intake.

Agentic due diligenceMonitoring dashboardsCustom board reportsEligibility routing

Preview generated from this grantee’s public IRS filings and independent reporting. Pillars marked “live in Plinth” require the applicant’s submitted documents. Shown as illustration, not a formal assessment.

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPro

How do I get to Vital Spark Foundation?

Find your warmest path to Vital Spark Foundation through people who sit on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the introduction across shared trustees and officers.

Every link is a documented governance overlap in public IRS 990 filings — not a personal network — and each hop carries its own confidence tier. Low-confidence or distant paths are held back rather than guessed.

Vital Spark Foundation

What you funded, over time

Past the labels — and the year it shifted

Where the money goes

Do your dollars go where the need is?

Who you back again

Backed again, and grew

Funded once

13 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2017–2025.

Government reliance of your grantees

Your grantmaking, live and operational

How do I get to Vital Spark Foundation?

More from the funding graph

Vital Spark Foundation

What you funded, over time

Past the labels — and the year it shifted

Where the money goes

Do your dollars go where the need is?

Who you back again

Backed again, and grew

Funded once

13 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2017–2025.

Government reliance of your grantees

Your grantmaking, live and operational

How do I get to Vital Spark Foundation?

More from the funding graph