California · Nonprofit
CANCER COMMONS
CANCER COMMONS (California) receives grants from 45 organizations whose IRS filings report $5,504,379 to it, the largest being Silicon Valley Community Foundation ($1,030,200). 24 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 66% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $1.8M
- Funders on record
- 45
- Grants received
- $5.5M
- Net assets
- $543k
What Cancer Commons does
Mission
Cancer Commons is a nonprofit that provides patients, caregivers, and treating physicians with actionable information to support informed treatment decisions, along with direct-to-patient navigation services for individuals with cancer and their caregivers.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Patient navigation and support:Cancer Commons provided personalized navigation and expert guidance to approximately 1,200 new and returning clients during the year ended june 30, 2025. Many of these individuals faced advanced or hard-to-treat cancers, including brain and pancreatic cancers, where treatment decisions are complex and time-sensitive.the organization's services help patients and caregivers understand their diagnosis, clarify treatment goals, and evaluate testing, therapies, and clinical trials. Each patient is paired with a scientist who reviews medical history, researches additional testing, and identifies potential treatment paths and trial opportunities. This individualized support empowers patients to make informed decisions at critical moments in their care and helps families navigate an overwhelming and rapidly evolving medical landscape. Donor support enables Cancer Commons to provide these services at no cost to patients.
$809,763 spent59% of program spendingLearning health system development:Cancer Commons continued development on the learning health system (lhs), a technology platform designed to accelerate and improve treatment decision-making for patients with advanced cancers. The system integrates real-world patient data and ai-driven analysis to help identify promising treatment options and refine recommendations over time. This work advances the organization's long-term vision: a learning health system in which each patient's experience contributes to knowledge that benefits the next. Donor investment in this initiative helps build a future where personalized, data-informed cancer care is accessible to all.
$298,783 spent22% of program spendingWebsite, marketing, and communications:the organization advanced its website, marketing, and communications initiatives to support an updated brand identity and improve access to patient-facing resources. During the year, Cancer Commons completed foundational work, including content development, design planning, and user-experience improvements that will enable a full launch in the following fiscal year. These efforts strengthen the organization's ability to reach patients and caregivers seeking timely, trustworthy guidance.
$133,290 spent10% of program spendingPartnerships:Cancer Commons collaborates with mission-aligned partners to extend expert guidance to patients who need it most. These partnerships strengthen the organization's reach and ensure that individuals referred by trusted institutions receive timely, personalized support.key partnerships included the musella foundation for brain tumor research & information and head for the cure, which jointly provided grant funding to expand brain cancer navigation services. This support enabled the organization to engage an oncology nurse navigator and offer specialized guidance to brain tumor patients and caregivers. Through these collaborations, Cancer Commons reached more families confronting some of the most challenging cancer diagnoses and ensured they had access to expert, compassionate support.
$127,653 spent9% of program spending
The 4 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $1,369,489.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2017, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2017, 50 means half. The number beside each label in the key is where it ended. The shaded band is where the middle 50% of its peers' revenue would sit, given their growth.
Balance sheet
Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2022 to 2023, from $833k to $409k (−51%).
How it's funded, over time
Each bar is one year's revenue split into where it came from, and every bar is the same height — these are shares, not amounts, so a year that raised twice as much looks the same size. Hover a bar for the split.
Government-grant reliance: 2020 10% · 2021 11%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
97% of CANCER COMMONS’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (51% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 1 of the last 8 reported years ran a deficit.
reserve
Leadership and staff
The officers, directors, trustees and key employees listed on each return. Joined and no longer listed compare each filing with the year before, matching people by surname and first initial; a year after a gap, or a roster under three people, has no comparison.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 6 funders to 15 funders, grant income rose $145k → $662k.
19 of 45 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 66% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
From the IRS filings of CANCER COMMONS’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 45 funders by total. Association, not causation. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How concentrated its funding is
CANCER COMMONS has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 19% of grant income, and it takes 4 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 4 funders to its left
82% of the income these shares are computed over arrives through pass-through sponsors or from payers whose filings do not say what kind of payment it is. Concentration is still measured over all of it, because the money is real; what it does not support is a claim about how many institutions have chosen to fund CANCER COMMONS.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 69% · 2018 26% · 2019 66% · 2020 62% · 2021 43% · 2022 29% · 2023 29% — diversifying over time.
“Effective funders” = inverse Herfindahl index (1 / Σ shareᵢ²) — the number of equal-sized funders that would give the same concentration. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How long its funders stay
39% of CANCER COMMONS's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 53% give in more than one year at all.
Share of funders still giving k years after their first recorded grant, pooled across every acquisition cohort. A funder counts as retained in a year only if it made a grant that year. Measured to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving — a funder cannot be counted as lapsed in a year most filers have not reached.
Where its funders are
66% of CANCER COMMONS's grant income arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors, whose addresses record where the money is held rather than where the donor is. Of the $1.9M that is directly attributable, 64% of it comes from funders outside California, across 9 states.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $3.7M arriving through sponsors registered in 13 states is excluded from the map and the split above: a sponsor holds money on a donor’s behalf, so its registered address would place those dollars somewhere no donor need ever have been. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
Against its field
CANCER COMMONS runs a healthier operating margin than half of the 4,665 health nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 4,665 health nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Organizations like CANCER COMMONS
Organizations whose mission and program text most resemble this one, by semantic similarity over every organization in the US filings — the closest peers, and often the clearest route to shared or prospective funders.
In California
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
79% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
65%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 1 state
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for CANCER COMMONS: IRS status (Business Master File, Publication 78, auto-revocation), the OFAC sanctions lists, the Internal Revenue Bulletin, and California registration, with the Rev. Proc. 2018-32 §8.01 reliance elements stated element by element. Generated from the current files at the moment you download it.
Screens are triage, not determinations; a source that cannot be read reports not screened, never clear. Screen this nonprofit · How the screen works · on the API as GET /api/screening/{ein}?format=pdf
Questions and answers
- Who funds CANCER COMMONS?
- CANCER COMMONS (California) receives grants from 45 organizations whose IRS filings report $5,504,379 to it, the largest being Silicon Valley Community Foundation ($1,030,200). 24 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 66% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does CANCER COMMONS have?
- IRS filings report 45 organizations giving $5,504,379 in grants to CANCER COMMONS, 24 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of CANCER COMMONS?
- Silicon Valley Community Foundation is the largest funder on record, with $1,030,200 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like CANCER COMMONS find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in California. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2017–2025), and the filings of 45 funders that report grants to it. “On record” means captured in the filings we have parsed — a funder that does not e-file, or whose grant detail is not itemized, will not appear. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind. Trends on this page end at FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving; later years are shown and marked, and move no figure. Data on this page was exported October 14, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing