· Private foundation
Waterman 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
100% of Waterman Family Foundation’s FY2025 grant dollars went to Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2025 names 0 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2017, the last year Waterman Family Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 26 organizations, $385k. 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.
By grant size · FY2017
- Under $10k43 grants · $81k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $53k
- $250k+1 grant · $250k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| TEMPLE BETH EL | $250,000 |
| FIDELITY INVESTMENT CHARITABLE GIFT | $43,394 |
| DISCOVERY CENTER | $10,000 |
| CENTER THEATRE GROUP | $9,000 |
| BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB | $5,250 |
| SOUTHERN POVERTY CENTER | $5,000 |
| ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE | $5,000 |
| CITY OF HOPE | $5,000 |
| SIMON WEISENTHAL CENTER | $5,000 |
| SOVA FOOD BANK | $5,000 |
| AMER JEWISH WORLD SERVICE | $3,500 |
| FEEDING AMERICA | $3,000 |
| DIRECT RELIEF INTERNATIONAL | $2,500 |
| DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS USA | $2,500 |
| ALZHEIMER ASSOCIATION | $2,500 |
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.
Your human-services grants (FY17–17, $3k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 67% 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.
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 organization's mission is to engage in non partisan analysis of u.s. foreign policy in the middle east, with special emphasis on the middle east peace process, and to present policymakers in the united states, in the region and in the…
Operate a state-of-the-art, world-class genomic research center that creates and uses advanced genomics to understand the genetic basis of disease. for more information, see schedule o.
Chartered by a unanimous act of congress, the museum is america's national institution for the documentation, study, interpretation, and education of holocaust history and serves as our country's memorial to the victims of the holocaust.…
The central mission of the university of southern california is the development of human beings and society as a whole through the cultivation and enrichment of the human mind and spirit. the principal means by which our mission is…
Nyu is a private university with approximately 60,000 matriculating students in 20 schools and institutes. nyu's primary missions are education, research and scholarship, and patient care.
The committee to protect journalists promotes press freedom worldwide and defends the right of journalists to report the news safely and without fear of reprisal. cpj ensures the free flow of news and commentary by taking action wherever…
The middle east media research institute (memri) explores the middle east through its media, providing timely translations from arabic, farsi, urdu, pashtu, and turkish media and publishing original analysis of political, ideological,…
Leadership in the prevention, treatment, and cure of cancer through excellence, vision and cost effectiveness in patient care, outreach programs, research, and education.
(msh) saves lives and improves the health of the world's poorest (see schedule o) and most vulnerable people by closing the gap between knowledge and action in public health.
We generate ideas, produce evidence, and design solutions to improve the lives of underserved populations around the world. we take a multidisciplinary, intergenerational, life-cycle approach that contributes to (see schedule o)four global…
To improve the lives of people through innovative scientific and engineering research.
Project drawdown's mission is to drive meaningful climate action by advancing science-based solutions and strategies. project drawdown's work is focused on three pillars: science - advancing science-based climate solutions and strategies;…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Simon Wiesenthal Center Inc and the most unlike its peers is Chrysalis Foundation. 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 39 years old; the field is 15. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 23% 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 14% 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.
26 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. 26 of the 46 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 FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ↗
- Who funds DISCOVERY CENTER DBA FRESNO DISCOVERY CENTER ↗
- Who funds CENTER THEATRE GROUP OF LOS ANGELES ↗
- Who funds SIMON WIESENTHAL CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE ↗
- Who funds Feeding America ↗
- Who funds Children's Hospital Los Angeles ↗
- Who funds DIRECT RELIEF ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds Chrysalis Foundation ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds WOMEN IN NEED INC ↗
- Who funds ALLIANCE FOR MIDDLE EAST PEACE INC ↗
- Who funds AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL OF THE USA INC ↗
- Who funds JEWISH WORLD WATCH ↗
- Who funds JEWISH NATIONAL FUND (KEREN KAYEMETH LEISRAEL) INC ↗
- Who funds B NAI B RITH ↗
- Who funds Casa Pacifica Centers for Children & Families ↗
- Who funds PLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION OF AMERICA INC ↗
- Who funds ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INC ↗
- Who funds OPERATION SMILE INC ↗
- Who funds Assistance League of San Pedro-South Bay ↗
- Who funds MARINE TOYS FOR TOTS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds International Guiding Eyes Inc DBA Guide Dogs of America ↗
- Who funds TOBERMAN NEIGHBORHOOD CENTER INC ↗
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: Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · National Philanthropic Trust · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving 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 Waterman 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.
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 Waterman Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Waterman 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.