· Private foundation
Waldfogel Family Foundation
Its FY2025 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Read this first · the figures below need context
85% of Waldfogel Family Foundation’s FY2025 grant dollars went to Massachusetts Institute Of Technology, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2025 names 6 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2023, the last year Waldfogel Family Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 5 organizations, $15k. It is dated, not current.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
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.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| NEXLEAF ANALYTICS | $5,000 |
| GRABHORN INSTITUTE | $5,000 |
| HUMANE SOCIETY OF SILICON VALLEY | $1,000 |
| BLAINE COUNTY CHARITABLE FUND | $1,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $1,000 |
| PENINSULA HUMANE SOCIETY | $1,000 |
| BEST FRIENDS | $500 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 30% of your dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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.
18 repeat relationships — 7 still active in FY2023, 11 since wound down; 4 grantees were first funded in FY2023 (too recent to call). Read against FY2023, the last year this funder named its own grantees directly; its giving has since run through a sponsor, which reports no donor behind each grant.
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, 60% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $7k 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
- SFSAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM OF MODERN ART4× · 2017–2021 · $40k · revenue +37%
- NANEXLEAF ANALYTICS5× · 2017–2023 · $30k · revenue +110%
- GIGRABHORN INSTITUTE5× · 2017–2025 · $27k · revenue +289%
Funded once
- CCCALIFORNIA COLLEGE OF ARTSone grant, 2017 · $30k
- WMWHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ARTgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $25k · revenue +161%
- HRHUMAN RIGHTS WATCH INCgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $3k · revenue +53%
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.
Nurture empathy and connection by engaging communities with socially relevant contemporary art
The museum's mission statement is: "to discover, interpret, and disseminate - through scientific research and education - knowledge about human cultures, the natural world, and the universe."
To ensure every companion animal has access to quality medical care, compassionate shelter, and a loving home.
To inspire, educate and cultivate curiosity through great works of art.
*increase and diffusion of knowledge* is the mission set forth by james smithson. the smithsonian endeavors to shape the future by preserving our heritage, discovering new knowledge, and sharing our resources with the world.
The museum's mission is to inspire all californians to create a more vibrant future for themselves and their communities. through collections, exhibitions, education programs, and public dialogue, we inspire people of all ages and…
Chm decodes technology - its computing past, digital present, and future impact on humanity.
We believe opera is a uniquely compelling, entertaining and emotionally thrilling art form. our mission is to bring together growing audiences to experience opera's transformative power.
The huntington library, art museum, and botanical gardens shares its world-renowned collections to support scholarship, foster learning, inspire creativity, and offer transformative experiences for diverse audiences.
Warnecke architectural archives mission:the warnecke archives welcomes and encourages the study of its architectural collection. a wealth of material exists for historians, students, and other researchers to use at warnecke archives. the…
The mission of southern california university of health sciences (scu) is to educate students as competent, caring and successful practitioners of integrative healthcare. the university is committed to providing excellence in academics,…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Human Rights Watch Inc and the most unlike its peers is Embarcadero Institute. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
15 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. 15 of the 26 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 Massachusetts Institute of Technology ↗
- Who funds EMBARCADERO INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds SAN FRANCISCO MUSEUM OF MODERN ART ↗
- Who funds NEXLEAF ANALYTICS ↗
- Who funds GRABHORN INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART ↗
- Who funds SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds BLAINE COUNTY CHARITABLE FUND INC ↗
- Who funds HUMANE SOCIETY SILICON VALLEY ↗
- Who funds SUN VALLEY SUMMER SYMPHONY INC ↗
- Who funds SOUND EQUINE OPTIONS ↗
- Who funds HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH INC ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN'S HEALTH COUNCIL INC ↗
- Who funds ANIMAL SHELTER OF WOOD RIVER VALLEY DBA MOUNTAIN HUMANE ↗
- Who funds ELIZABETH F GAMBLE GARDEN ↗
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: 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 Waldfogel 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.
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology — 35% 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 Waldfogel Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Waldfogel Family 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.