· Private foundation
William Fries II 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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- $10k–50k2 grants · $50k
- $50k–250k5 grants · $480k
- $250k+2 grants · $1.0M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Individual grant recipient | $600,000 |
| UCSF Benioff Children's Hospitals | $400,000 |
| THE SAN FRANCISCO FOUNDATION | $180,000 |
| SAN FRANCISCO - MARIN FOOD BANK | $100,000 |
| ST ANTHONY FOUNDATION | $75,000 |
| CHRONICLE SEASON OF SHARING FUND | $75,000 |
| SAN FRANCISCO EDUCATION FUND | $50,000 |
| San Francisco Symphony | $25,000 |
| San Francisco Opera | $25,000 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 99% 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.
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 — 5 still active in FY2024, 7 since wound down; 3 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, 52% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $650k 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
- CACALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES3× · 2017–2022 · $2.5M · revenue +17%
- CPCALIFORNIA PACIFIC MEDICAL CENTER FOUNDATION4× · 2019–2022 · $750k · revenue +64%
- CSCHRONICLE SEASON OF SHARING FUND6× · 2019–2024 · $385k · revenue +78%
Funded once
- SFSAN FRANCISCO ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETYone grant, 2021 · $250k · revenue -11%
- LDLIVING DESERT THEgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $250k · revenue +57%
- TAThe Association for the Preservation of the Potomacgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $87k · revenue +191% · 27% of their budget
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.
See schedule osfmoma believes the art of our time is vital and shares it with passion and purpose, and that art and the creative process can open minds and help build a better world. for that reason, we assemble unparalleled collections,…
The organization provides professional investment management services for endowed gifts and financial assets entrusted to the ucsf foundation.
Gardens of golden gate park connects people to plants, the planet, and each other. the gardens offer educational and experiential programs for visitors and actively manages the living collections.
The San Francisco Bay Bird Observatory is dedicated to the conservation of birds and their habitats through science and outreach.
SFFILM is a nonprofit organization whose mission ensures independent voices in film are welcomed, heard, and given the resources to thrive. SFFILM connects and inspires audiences, students and teachers, and filmmakers through our film…
The mission of the San Francisco Public Press is to enrich civic life by publishing investigative and solutions journalism that engages diverse audiences and promotes public accountability. The San Francisco Public Press…
The aquarium of the pacific's mission is to instill a sense of wonder, respect, and stewardship for the pacific ocean, its inhabitants, and ecosystems.
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.
At san francisco friends school, students learn in a community grounded in the quaker values of reflection, integrity, peaceful problem-solving and stewardship. our teachers challenge students with a dynamic curriculum that inspires…
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…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The San Francisco Foundation and the most unlike its peers is San Francisco Opera Association. 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 19 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 CALIFORNIA ACADEMY OF SCIENCES ↗
- Who funds THE EXPLORATORIUM ↗
- Who funds THE SAN FRANCISCO FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CALIFORNIA PACIFIC MEDICAL CENTER FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CHRONICLE SEASON OF SHARING FUND ↗
- Who funds KQED INC ↗
- Who funds SAN FRANCISCO FOOD BANK ↗
- Who funds ASIAN ART MUSEUM FOUNDATION OF SAN FRANCISCO ↗
- Who funds SAN FRANCISCO ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds LIVING DESERT THE ↗
- Who funds San Francisco Education Fund ↗
- Who funds The Association for the Preservation of the Potomac ↗
- Who funds St Anthony Foundation ↗
- Who funds SAN FRANCISCO SYMPHONY ↗
- Who funds SAN FRANCISCO OPERA ASSOCIATION ↗
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: Lisa & Douglas Goldman Fund · The James Irvine Foundation · Gordon E and Betty I Moore Foundation · Jewish Community Federation of San · Silicon Valley Community Foundation · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund · National Philanthropic Trust · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · 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 William Fries II 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 William Fries II Foundation?
Find your warmest path to William Fries II 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.