· Private foundation
Watson Family 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 FY2019–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k3 grants · $15k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $16k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| JSerra Catholic High School | $15,500 |
| National Philanthropic Trust | $9,896 |
| Orange County School of the Arts | $2,600 |
| B Foundation - NYDM | $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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY19–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 7%. 89% of your 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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 19% of Watson Family Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another. Read by recipient address, 81% of the giving stays in CA; read by stated purpose it is 62% — less of the work is directed home than the recipients' locations suggest.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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 +60% since the first grant, against +11% for the ones you funded once.
5 repeat relationships — 2 still active in FY2024, 3 since wound down; 1 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, 87% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $3k 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
JUNIPERO SERRA CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL2× · 2023–2024 · $23k · revenue +16%- SHSAGE HILL SCHOOL5× · 2019–2023 · $21k · revenue +60%
- TATHE ANDREW MCDONOUGH B FOUNDATION2× · 2021–2022 · $3k · revenue +94%
Funded once
- TPTHE PEGASUS SCHOOLone grant, 2019 · $5k · revenue +11%
- SCSADDLEBACK COLLEGE FOUNDATIONone grant, 2022 · $4k · revenue +19%
- NBNEWPORT BEACH JUNIOR LIFEGUARD FOUNDATIONone grant, 2021 · $3k · revenue -98%
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.
A private school that cultivates and celebrates the intellectual, imaginative, and humanitarian promise of each student in a community that practices mutual respect, embraces diversity, and inspires passion for learning.
The association serves its members by creating resources that enable california school administrators to develop and apply creative leadership and management skills and in turn, improve the educational process for all students.
Sonoma charter school seeks to achieve academic excellence through engaged learning in a setting that involves students, teachers, and parents.
Guided by the principles of academic rigor and diversity, the international school of san francisco offers programs of study in french and english to prepare its graduates for a world in which the ability to think critically and to…
The institution provides educational instruction and activities to students ranging from preschool through 8th grade.
Saint andrew's school is an independent school founded in the episcopal tradition. our mission is to build a community of learners, provide excellence in education, and nurture each student in mind, body, and spirit.
At san franicisco university high school, we engage our community of diverse voices in a transformational experience that embraces the spirited pursuit of learning and empowers purpose larger than self.
The mission of polytechnic school is to develop the unique intellect, talents, and character of each student in a community dedicated to academic excellence, personal responsibility, and service to others. the school envisions a community…
Pacific collegiate school's mission is to provide exemplary, standards based college preparatory and fine arts education for public middle and high school students of santa cruz county and bordering areas.
Vistamar school empowers students, preparing them to contribute and excel in higher education and in life, and commits to: a broad and balanced program that challenges and engages students, building their individual skills and inspiring a…
Santa catalina school exists to develop in each student a striving for excellence, a maturing awareness of moral and spiritual values, a sense of responsible purpose, and a determination to serve the world with courage, grace, and…
To provide an academically exceptional education to students grade 9 through 12 in a warm, supportive, and nurturing environment.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Junipero Serra Catholic High School and the most unlike its peers is Newport Beach Junior Lifeguard Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
8 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. 8 of the 11 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 JUNIPERO SERRA CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds SAGE HILL SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL PHILANTHROPIC TRUST ↗
- Who funds THE PEGASUS SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds SADDLEBACK COLLEGE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE ANDREW MCDONOUGH B FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ORANGE COUNTY SCHOOL OF THE ARTS ↗
- Who funds NEWPORT BEACH JUNIOR LIFEGUARD 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: Orange County Community Foundation · California Community Foundation · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Charities Aid Foundation America · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · American Endowment Foundation · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · 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 Watson 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 Watson Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Watson 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.