· Private foundation
Whimsie Fund
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 $10k8 grants · $41k
- $10k–50k7 grants · $120k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $161k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Individual grant recipient | $111,000 |
| LAGUNA BLANCA SCHOOL | $50,000 |
| WINDMARK FOUNDATION | $25,000 |
| OLDFIELDS SCHOOL | $25,000 |
| ROGER WILLIAMS UNIVERSITY | $15,000 |
| SANTA BARBARA YOUTH SAILING FDN | $15,000 |
| LOBERTO THEATRE | $15,000 |
| SANTA BARBARA MARITIME MUSEUM | $15,000 |
| TRANSPAC YACHT CLUB | $10,000 |
| ISLAND ACADEMY | $8,500 |
| VNA HEALTH FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| HEARTS THERAPEUTIC EQUESTRIAN CENTE | $5,000 |
| LAKE FOREST COLLEGE | $5,000 |
| ELING'S PARK FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| SANTA BARBARA FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
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 (FY20–21, $10k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 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.
12 repeat relationships — 9 still active in FY2024, 3 since wound down; 7 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, 74% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $84k 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
- LBLAGUNA BLANCA SCHOOL6× · 2019–2024 · $307k · revenue +42%
- SBSANTA BARBARA MARITIME MUSEUM5× · 2020–2024 · $103k · revenue +98%
- SBSanta Barbara Youth Sailing Foundation6× · 2019–2024 · $100k · revenue +10%
Funded once
- MBMANHATTAN BEACH EDUCATION FOUNDATIONgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $50k · revenue +53%
- NHNEWPORT HARBOR SAILING FOUNDATIONgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $12k · revenue +152%
- DRDIRECT RELIEF FUNDone grant, 2023 · $10k
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 uc santa barbara foundation actively works to further the goals of the university of california, santa barbara. the foundation seeks to maintain and nurture the university's quality and distinction. on behalf of the campus, the…
Santa Barbara Education Foundation (SBEF) provides and supports programs that enrich the academic, artistic, and personal development of all students in the Santa Barbara Unified School District.
To operate a school for grades 6-9, delivering a holistic program of academics, arts & athletics, community service, and outdoor education that fosters passion for life and learning, self trust, strength and courage to succeed, and…
To inspire meaningful connections to santa barbara history.
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…
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…
Marin academy asks every individual to think, question, and create in an environment of encouragement and compassion, and challenges each person to accept the responsibilities posed by education in a democratic society.
The sbcc foundation fuels the excellence of santa barbara city college by engaging the community, building relationships, and inviting the generosity of donors. the resources raised and managed by the foundation enrich college programs,…
The santa barbara public library foundation supports the long-term health and sustainability of the santa barbara public library through public-private partnerships.
California college of the arts educates students to shape culture and society through the practice and critical study of art, architecture, design, and writing. benefitting from its san francisco bay area location, the college prepares…
To educate women to develop their intellect and talents through active participation in a community of scholars, so that as graduates they may contribute to society through public and private lives of leadership, service, integrity and…
To support educational, research and public functions and programs of the riverside campus of the university of california.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Santa Barbara Foundation and the most unlike its peers is McIntyre House. 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 46 years old; the field is 14. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 24% 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.
22 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. 22 of the 33 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 LAGUNA BLANCA SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds SANTA BARBARA MARITIME MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds Santa Barbara Youth Sailing Foundation ↗
- Who funds Lake Forest College ↗
- Who funds ROGER WILLIAMS UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds MANHATTAN BEACH EDUCATION FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds VNA HEALTH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds OLDFIELDS SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds McIntyre House ↗
- Who funds NEWPORT HARBOR SAILING FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds HEARTS THERAPEUTIC EQUESTRIAN CENTER ↗
- Who funds WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN INC ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY COALITION ↗
- Who funds Island Academy Inc ↗
- Who funds SANTA BARBARA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds WOMEN'S FUND OF SANTA BARBARA ↗
- Who funds VAN NESS RECOVERY HOUSE ↗
- Who funds URBAN TREE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ELINGS PARK FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds NEWPORT HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds CANCER FOUNDATION OF SANTA BARBARA ↗
- Who funds OAKBROOK PARK CHUMASH INDIAN CORPORATION ↗
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 · Www Foundation · The Robert & Christine Emmons Foundation · Mosher Foundation · Ann Jackson Family Foundation · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc · The Nurture Foundation · The John C Mithun Foundation · Alice Tweed Tuohy Foundation · June G Outhwaite Charitable Trust JS Poucher KL Englert & CM Cooney Co-Tr · Mithun Family 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 Whimsie Fund 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 Whimsie Fund?
Find your warmest path to Whimsie Fund 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.