· Private foundation
Waitt 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 $10k26 grants · $26k
- $10k–50k7 grants · $140k
- $50k–250k3 grants · $453k
- $250k+6 grants · $9.3M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| WAITT INSTITUTE | $7,141,280 |
| BREN SCHOOL OF ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE & MANAGEMENT (UCSB) | $692,444 |
| SEASKETCH | $600,366 |
| OCEANO AZUL FOUNDATION | $300,000 |
| REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA- SD | $275,000 |
| THE UNIVERSITY OF QUEENSLAND | $250,000 |
| GLOBAL FISHING WATCH | $200,000 |
| CONSERVATION INTERNATIONAL FOUNDATION | $153,377 |
| SUSTAINABLE OCEAN ALLIANCE | $100,000 |
| BARBUDANGO | $30,000 |
| UNYT UTO NI YALO TRUST | $25,000 |
| MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY | $20,000 |
| MICRONESIA CONSERVATION TRUST | $20,000 |
| BERMUDA UNDERWATER EXPLORATION INSTITUTE BUEI | $20,000 |
| OCEAN FOUNDATION | $15,000 |
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, $41k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, 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 +49% since the first grant, against +45% for the ones you funded once.
78 repeat relationships — 19 still active in FY2024, 59 since wound down; 22 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, 97% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $337k 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
- WIWAITT INSTITUTE7× · 2018–2024 · $27M · revenue +293% · 100% of their budget
- WCWildlife Conservation Society3× · 2017–2019 · $3.0M · revenue +59%
CONSERVATION INTERNATIONAL FOUNDATION5× · 2019–2024 · $1.2M · revenue +120%
Funded once
- WIWAITT INSTITUTEone grant, 2017 · $1.6M
- CICONSERVATION INTERNATIONAL FOUNDATIONone grant, 2023 · $300k
- UOUNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELES UCLA INSTITUTE OF THE ENVIRONMENT & SUone grant, 2017 · $300k
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.
The union of concerned scientists puts rigorous, independent science into action, developing solutions and advocating for a healthy, safe, and just future.
Rainforest trust saves endangered wildlife and protects our planet by creating rainforest reserves through partnerships, community engagement, and donor support.
Connect conservationists and supporters, deploy resources to the field, provide conservationists with tools and support they need to succeed.
The purpose of the water research foundation (wrf) is a definitive research organization to advance the science of all things water to better meet the evolving needs of its subscribers and the water sector. to engage exclusively in…
Wildaid's mission is to inspire change and empower the world to protect wildlife and vital habitats from critical threats.
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…
To establish and promote programs to protect the global climate, forests, wildlife and the natural environment, through research, advocacy, and investigation.
Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.
Marin humane transforms lives through exceptional animal care, humane education, and advocacy. every day, marin humane inspires compassion and positive relationships between people and animals.
Wri is committed to creating change that improves people's lives and ensures the natural world can thrive. (see schedule o)wri's bold vision requires a formula for success we call "count it. change it. scale it.":- count it: our work is…
The aquarium of the pacific's mission is to instill a sense of wonder, respect, and stewardship for the pacific ocean, its inhabitants, and ecosystems.
Seattle humane promotes the human-animal bond by saving and serving pets in need, regardless of age, ability, circumstance or geography.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The San Diego Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Waitt Institute. 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 34 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) — 1% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% 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.
126 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. 126 of the 244 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 WAITT INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds Wildlife Conservation Society ↗
- Who funds CONSERVATION INTERNATIONAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds GLOBAL FISHING WATCH INC ↗
- Who funds MARINE CONSERVATION BIOLOGY INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds WAITT INSTITUTE FOR VIOLENCE PREVENTION ↗
- Who funds OCEANA INC ↗
- Who funds OCEAN RISK AND RESILIENCE ACTION ALLIANCE INC ↗
- Who funds INTERNATIONAL COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Environmental Law Institute ↗
- Who funds THE SAN DIEGO FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds OCEAN CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds SUSTAINABLE OCEAN ALLIANCE INC ↗
- Who funds NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL INC ↗
- Who funds INT'L UNION FOR CONSERVATION OF NATURE & NATURAL RESOURCES - US ↗
- Who funds Paso Pacifico ↗
- Who funds Save the Waves Coalition ↗
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: Missouri River Historical Development Inc · Siouxland Community Foundation · The Chesterman Family Foundation · Berenstein Family Foundation · Peterson Family Foundation · Helios Foundation · The Marisla Foundation · Ronald B and Joan B Krage Foundation · The Roth & Letch Family Charitable Foundation · Mercy Health Services - Iowa Corp · Food Bank of Siouxland Inc · Baird Foundation Inc
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 Waitt 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.
- Trustees of Boston University — 12% 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 Waitt Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Waitt 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.