· Private foundation
Writer Family Foundation
Its FY2024 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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k12 grants · $28k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $20k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| THE LAND TRUST FOR SANTA BARBARA COUNTY | $10,000 |
| DIRECT RELIEF INTERNATIONAL | $10,000 |
| DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS | $8,000 |
| TRUST TAI | $4,625 |
| PROJECT HOPE | $2,500 |
| SANTA BARBARA TENNIS PATRONS | $2,000 |
| THE TRUST FOR PUBLIC LAND | $2,000 |
| ACCION INTERNATIONAL | $2,000 |
| ONIRACOM | $1,803 |
| SANTA BARBARA COTTAGE HOSPITAL FOUNDATION | $1,000 |
| COAST GUARD FOUNDATION | $1,000 |
| SBCC FOUNDATION | $1,000 |
| UC REGENTS | $1,000 |
| EPISCOPAL RELIEF & DEVELOPMENT | $1,000 |
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 (FY17–24, $8k) land where the poverty rate runs at 17%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +94% since the first grant, against +19% for the ones you funded once.
25 repeat relationships — 10 still active in FY2024, 15 since wound down; 4 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, 79% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $10k 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
MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC8× · 2017–2024 · $78k · revenue +98%
DIRECT RELIEF6× · 2017–2024 · $60k · revenue +94%- TLTHE LAND TRUST FOR SANTA BARBARA COUNTY7× · 2017–2024 · $51k · revenue +179%
Funded once
- GGREENPEACEone grant, 2017 · $10k
- SCSIERRA CLUB FOUNDATIONone grant, 2018 · $3k · revenue -70%
- ETENSEMBLE THEATRE COMPANY OF SANTA BARBARA INCgraduatedone grant, 2018 · $2k · revenue +44%
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…
The catalina island conservancy protects and stewards 88% of catalina island. more than 42,000 acres of wildlands, coves and coastal habitats. founded to preserve the island's natural resources, the conservancy advances a mission rooted in…
The san diego foundation inspires enduring philanthropy and enables community solutions to improve the quality of life in our region.
To promote philanthropy to make santa cruz county a better place to live, now and in the future.we bring together people, ideas, and resources to inspire philanthropy and accomplish great things.
The santa fe community foundation inspires philanthropic generosity, strengthens nonprofits, and fosters positive change to build a more vibrant, healthy, and resilient region. the foundation's vision is a thriving northern new mexico,…
The union of concerned scientists puts rigorous, independent science into action, developing solutions and advocating for a healthy, safe, and just future.
California ocean science trust (ost) is a non-profit organization dedicated to accelerating progress towards a healthy and productive ocean future for california. created by state legislation, ost bridges the gap between cutting-edge…
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 integrate art into the lives of people, fostering imagination, stimulating thought, and creating personally rewarding experiences.
To develop the resources to support san antonio regional hospital's mission to improve the health and wellbeing of the people we serve.
To protect and steward in perpetuity the unique natural, cultural, and asthetic resources of the preserve and serve as a model of ecologically sustainable development to committees outside the preserve.
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,…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Santa Barbara Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Network for Africa. 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 59 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.
35 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. 35 of the 50 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 MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds DIRECT RELIEF ↗
- Who funds THE LAND TRUST FOR SANTA BARBARA COUNTY ↗
- Who funds SANTA BARBARA MARITIME MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY ARTS MUSIC ASSOCIATION OF SANTA BARBARA INC ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds GREENPEACE FUND INC ↗
- Who funds THE TRUST FOR PUBLIC LAND ↗
- Who funds Tennis Patrons Assoc of Santa Barbara ↗
- Who funds COLORADO OPEN LANDS ↗
- Who funds MUSIC ACADEMY OF THE WEST ↗
- Who funds Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital Foundation ↗
- Who funds EPISCOPAL RELIEF AND DEVELOPMENT ↗
- Who funds NETWORK FOR AFRICA ↗
- Who funds Foundation for Cottage Rehab and Goleta Valley Cottage Hosp ↗
- Who funds Goleta Valley Cottage Hospital Foundation ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Santa Barbara Youth Sailing Foundation ↗
- Who funds COAST GUARD FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds ACCION INTERNATIONAL ↗
- Who funds VNA HEALTH ↗
- Who funds SIERRA CLUB FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds PROJECT HOPE - THE PEOPLE-TO-PEOPLE HEALTH FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds ENSEMBLE THEATRE COMPANY OF SANTA BARBARA INC ↗
- Who funds SIERRA CLUB ↗
- Who funds UNITED STATES FUND FOR UNICEF ↗
- Who funds SANTA BARBARA CHANNELKEEPER INC ↗
- Who funds THE FOUNDATION FOR SANTA BARBARA CITY COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds SANTA BARBARA NEIGHBORHOOD CLINICS ↗
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: Santa Barbara Foundation · Hutton Foundation Dba Hutton Parker Foundation · Ann Jackson Family Foundation · Alice Tweed Tuohy Foundation · The Wood-Claeyssens Foundation · The John C Mithun Foundation · Raintree Foundation · The Osherenko-Young Foundation · Schlinger Chrisman Foundation Northern Trust Company Trustee · Towbes Foundation · Mosher Foundation · Giles 2000 Tr Dba Giles 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 Writer 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.
- The Shriners' Hospital for Children — 6% 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.