· Private foundation
Zera Foundation Inc
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
- Under $10k25 grants · $146k
- $10k–50k17 grants · $211k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $77k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| DARAJA EDUCATION FUND | $76,600 |
| PATH HOME | $30,000 |
| PREAR | $25,000 |
| OREGON FOOD BANK | $15,000 |
| PORTLAND RESCUE MISSION | $10,500 |
| JEWISH MUSEUM | $10,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $10,000 |
| PORTLAND REFUGEE SUPPORT GROUP | $10,000 |
| KINDNESS FARM | $10,000 |
| TRANSITION PROJECT | $10,000 |
| OUTSIDE THE FRAME | $10,000 |
| ECUMENICAL MINISTRIES OF OREGON | $10,000 |
| RAHAB'S SISTERS | $10,000 |
| PSU HIGHER EDUCATION ON PRISON PROG | $10,000 |
| THE INSIGHT ALLIANCE | $10,000 |
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, $299k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 95% 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 +68% since the first grant, against +31% for the ones you funded once.
74 repeat relationships — 33 still active in FY2024, 41 since wound down; 10 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, 70% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $129k 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
- PPEAR8× · 2017–2024 · $212k · revenue +21%
- PHPATH HOME6× · 2017–2024 · $140k · revenue +324%
- DEDaraja Education Fund5× · 2018–2023 · $105k · revenue +388%
Funded once
- HCHACIENDA COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CORPORATIONgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $16k · revenue +35%
- FBFOOD BANKone grant, 2021 · $15k
- PPHFSone grant, 2021 · $15k
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.
At l'arche portland people with and without developmental disabilities create home and build community together. we nurture long-term mutual relationships that reveal the gifts of people with developmental disabilities. in doing so we…
Impact nw prevents homelessness by supporting people as they navigate their journey to stability and strength. founded in portland in 1966, impact nw now serves 26,944 people a year in the greater portland, oregon metro area, including…
Oregon Justice Network is an alliance built and staffed by criminal legal system impacted people advocating for the well-being of people affected or at-risk of being affected by carceral systems. Our work centers around restorative…
Our village gardens brings a spirit of hope to the people by growing and sharing food, learning and teaching skills, and empowering community leadership.(continued on schedule o)our village gardens leverages community organizing, skill…
Pfm operates world-class farmers markets that contribute to the success of local food growers and producers and create vibrant community gatherings. as a trade association, success for our vendors is our primary objective. listening and…
To increase equitable access to healthful food and strengthen communities by empowering neighbors to share in the harvest and care of city-grown produce.
We offer our homeless neighbors accessible whole-person care to improve and support health, and to bridge a gap in trust between people and systems.
We nurture connections between people,nature,and food by ensuring access to garden space and farmland, and providing education and mentoring on regenerative and sustainable agricultural practices.
Next up amplifies the voice of diverse youth to achieve a more just oregon
To connect individuals to the housing and community resources they seek.
Open signal's mission is to nurture the change-making power of community media in service of a just and equitable world.
Our mission is to provide trauma-informed harm reduction services to people who are unhoused in the Portland Metro area. Our focus is on mental health services, nursing care, extreme weather supplies, food and safer use supplies for people…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Metropolitan Family Service and the most unlike its peers is In Kind Boxes. 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 26 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 23% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
78 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. 78 of the 132 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 PEAR ↗
- Who funds PATH HOME ↗
- Who funds Daraja Education Fund ↗
- Who funds URBAN GLEANERS ↗
- Who funds RAHAB'S SISTERS ↗
- Who funds OUTSIDE THE FRAME ↗
- Who funds FREE GEEK ↗
- Who funds OREGON SYMPHONY ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds JOIN ↗
- Who funds THE LIBRARY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds OPEN HEARTS OPEN MINDS ↗
- Who funds THE INSIGHT ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds PORTLAND ANIMAL WELFARE TEAM ↗
- Who funds OREGON FOOD BANK ↗
- Who funds Oregon Community Warehouse Inc ↗
- Who funds STORE TO DOOR ↗
- Who funds KINDRED PARTNERS ↗
- Who funds PROJECT POOCH ↗
- Who funds THE PONGO FUND ↗
- Who funds Portland Backpack ↗
- Who funds PDX DIAPER BANK ↗
- Who funds FENCES FOR FIDO ↗
- Who funds Growing Gardens ↗
- Who funds THE DENTAL FOUNDATION OF OREGON ↗
- Who funds BLANCHET HOUSE OF HOSPITALITY ↗
- Who funds Central City Concern ↗
- Who funds MEDICAL TEAMS INTERNATIONAL ↗
- Who funds HAND IN HAND AMERICAN FRIENDS OF THE CENTER FOR JEWISH-ARAB EDUCATION IN ISRA ↗
- Who funds MOTHER & CHILD EDUCATION CENTER ↗
- Who funds CASCADE AIDS PROJECT ↗
- Who funds THE CIRCUS PROJECT ↗
- Who funds SOCIAL GOOD FUND INC ↗
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: Marie Lamfrom Charitable Foundation Trust · The Oregon Community Foundation · The Autzen Foundation · OCF Joseph E Weston Public Foundation · The Collins Foundation · Juan Young Trust · Rose E Tucker Charitable Trust · Meyer Memorial Trust · Hillman Family Foundations · The Harold & Arlene Schnitzer Care Foundation · Careoregon Inc · Maybelle Clark Macdonald Fund
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 Zera Foundation Inc 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, a single department, or state — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Farmers Market Fund — 100% of income from government
- Pueblo Unido Pdx — 100% of income from government
- Hacienda Community Development Corporation — 48% of income from government
- Kindred Partners — 42% of income from government
- Adventures Without Limits — 39% of income from government
- Portland YouthBuilders — 35% of income from government
- Adelante Mujeres — 31% of income from government
- Transition Projects Inc — 29% of income from government
- Metropolitan Family Service — 29% of income from government
- Friends of Zenger Farm — 28% of income from government
- Oregon Justice Resource Center — 26% of income from government
- Oregon Community Warehouse Inc — 24% of income from government
- Oregon Food Bank — 21% of income from government
- New Avenues for Youth Inc — 20% of income from government
- Holla School — 15% of income from government
- Medical Teams International — 14% of income from government
- Cascade Aids Project — 13% of income from government
- My Voice Music Inc — 11% of income from government
- Central City Concern — 10% of income from government
- Hollywood Senior Center dba Community for Positive Aging — 9% of income from government
- Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Inc — 7% of income from government
- Growing Gardens — 6% of income from government
- Free Geek — 5% of income from government
- Friends of the Children-Portland — 5% of income from government
- The Immigrant and Refugee Community Organization — 4% of income from government
- Join — 4% of income from government
- Open Hearts Open Minds — 4% of income from government
- Pdx Diaper Bank — 2% of income from government
- Rose Community Development Corporat — 1% of income from government
- Eastside Jewish Commons — 1% of income from government
- Pear — 1% of income from government
- Outside the Frame — 1% of income from government
- Black United Fund of Oregon — 1% of income from government
- Youth Music Project — 1% of income from government
- William Temple House — 0% of income from government
- Bird Alliance of Oregon Inc — 0% of income from government
- David's Harp 930771871 — 0% of income from government
- Oregon Symphony Association — 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Zera Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to Zera Foundation Inc 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.