· Private foundation
Watling 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 FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k23 grants · $55k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $15k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CHRIST CHURCH GREENWICH | $15,000 |
| GREENWICH HOSPITAL FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| BRUCE MUSEUM | $5,000 |
| PLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION | $4,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $3,750 |
| FOODBANK OF SANTA BARBARA | $3,500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $2,500 |
| HURON MOUNTAIN WILDLIFE F | $2,500 |
| LOS ANGELES CONSERVANCY | $2,500 |
| GANNA WALSKA LOTUSLAND FO | $2,500 |
| NEW BEGINNINGS | $2,500 |
| SARAH LAWRENCE COLLEGE | $2,500 |
| TRANSITION HOUSE | $2,500 |
| FRIENDS OF GREENWICH LIBRARY | $2,500 |
| NATIONAL TRUST FOR HISTORIC PRESERV | $2,000 |
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 (FY20–23, $8k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 13%. 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.
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 +35% since the first grant, against +2% for the ones you funded once.
26 repeat relationships — 22 still active in FY2025, 4 since wound down; 2 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, 89% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $8k 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
- GHGREENWICH HOSPITAL6× · 2020–2025 · $30k · revenue +17%
- FOFoodbank of Santa Barbara County Inc6× · 2020–2025 · $19k · revenue +5%
- THTRANSITION HOUSE6× · 2020–2025 · $16k · revenue +127%
Funded once
- WFWOMEN'S FUND OF SANTA BARBARAone grant, 2024 · $3k · revenue +2%
- SBSANTA BARBARA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL INCgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $3k · revenue +85%
- SBSANTA BARBARA LIBRARY FOUNDATIONone grant, 2021 · $2k
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 mission of the santa barbara foundation (sbf) is to mobilize collective wisdom and philanthropic capital to build empathetic, inclusive and resilient communities.
It is the mission of Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital Foundation to solicit, receive, invest, maintain and distribute funds for the support of charitable, scientific, and educational activities of Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital.
To integrate art into the lives of people, fostering imagination, stimulating thought, and creating personally rewarding experiences.
MISSION STATEMENT: MISSION: CARING FOR OUR PATIENTS FIRST AND OUR PEOPLE ALWAYS. VISION: TO BE THE MOST COMPREHENSIVE, INTEGRATED AND CONNECTED HEALTH SYSTEM FOR GETTING AND STAYING WELL. VALUES: EXCELLENCE - We deliver high-quality,…
To inspire meaningful connections to santa barbara history.
The santa barbara public library foundation supports the long-term health and sustainability of the santa barbara public library through public-private partnerships.
To provide a vibrant performing arts center that generates and promotes excellence in the performing arts and enhances the quality of life in the region by offering outstanding and diverse entertainment, including events of cultural and…
The following three guiding principles are the foundation for all of the santa barbara museum of natural history's activities: inspiring an awe for nature and a thirst for discovery; promoting sustainability; and connecting our…
See schedule 0founded in 1994, opera santa barbara is the signature provider of professional opera on the california central coast. we aspire to be a cultural leader in the santa barbara region, voicing and advancing our community's spirit…
Mission statement: mission: caring for our patients first and our people always. vision: to be the most comprehensive, integrated and connected health system for getting and staying well. values: excellence - we deliver high-quality,…
To provide high-quality civil legal services to vulnerable santa barbara county residents.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Scholarship Foundation of Santa Barbara and the most unlike its peers is Santa Barbara Courthouse Legacy Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 40 years old; the field is 19. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 19% 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 10% 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.
23 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. 23 of the 35 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 BRUCE MUSEUM INC ↗
- Who funds GREENWICH HOSPITAL ↗
- Who funds Foodbank of Santa Barbara County Inc ↗
- Who funds TRANSITION HOUSE ↗
- Who funds GANNA WALSKA LOTUSLAND ↗
- Who funds SARAH LAWRENCE COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds LOS ANGELES CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds SANTA BARBARA NEIGHBORHOOD CLINICS ↗
- Who funds LOBERO THEATRE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Casa Serena ↗
- Who funds EASY LIFT TRANSPORTATION INC ↗
- Who funds CASA DEL HERRERO ↗
- Who funds HOSPICE OF SANTA BARBARA INC ↗
- Who funds SCHOLARSHIP FOUNDATION OF SANTA BARBARA ↗
- Who funds PEOPLE FOR PALMER PARK ↗
- Who funds PLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION OF AMERICA INC ↗
- Who funds WOMEN'S FUND OF SANTA BARBARA ↗
- Who funds SANTA BARBARA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL INC ↗
- Who funds VNA HEALTH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds WOMEN'S ECONOMIC VENTURES ↗
- Who funds PARTNERS IN HEALTH A NONPROFIT CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds SANTA BARBARA COURTHOUSE LEGACY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SANTA BARBARA CLUB PRESERVATION FOUNDATION ↗
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: Hutton Foundation Dba Hutton Parker Foundation · Santa Barbara Foundation · Mosher Foundation · Alice Tweed Tuohy Foundation · Towbes Foundation · Ann Jackson Family Foundation · Volentine Family Foundation · St Francis Foundation of Santa Barbara · Walter J & Holly O Thomson Charitable · Brittingham Family Foundation · Williams-Corbett Foundation · The Wood-Claeyssens 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 Watling 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.
- Bruce Museum Inc — 0% of income from government
- Greenwich Hospital — 0% of income from government
- Partners in Health a Nonprofit Corporation — 0% 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.