June 2025 Update & Giving Allocations
Our 2024-2025 giving cycle is quickly coming to a close, and we are writing to share the Giving Committee's recommended charity giving allocations.
For those participating in the Giving Pledge, expect an email from Harvey Powers and Ariel Johnson with specific instructions on completing your giving and directing your personal allocations.
We recognize that there are many areas of need that merit our attention, resources, and political participation. As a reminder, the USIT Foundation supports apolitical, domestic charities with which we have had repeated points of contact for at least one year. These are locally-led, high-quality organizations that we believe are generating high impact (gauged by dollar of social good created for every dollar donated).
This year, the Giving Committee’s recommended allocations are as follows:
Providence House (20%, economic mobility, family reunification)
Puget Sound Restoration Fund (15%, environment, ocean health)
Common Ground Relief (15%, environment, coastline restoration)
Rehabilitation Enables Dreams (10%, recidivism, pre-trial diversion)
Prison Entrepreneurship Program (10%, recidivism, entrepreneurship)
The Televerde Foundation (10%, recidivism, workforce readiness)
Home Again LA (10%, economic mobility, homelessness)
Well Done Foundation (5%, environment, abandoned well plugging)
ACE (5%, economic mobility, homelessness)
More details, including links to PIT’s work product, on these charities are included below.
An important criterion in our framework is “additionality” (i.e., our specific donation should make a direct impact on the world instead of offsetting other sources of impact), which means our grantees often have great leaders and missions but small budgets (with low government funding).
We believe that our donations can catalyze growth in underserved, underpublicized, but highly valuable areas.
Please reach out with any questions and refer here for a catalog of the updates from the past year: usitfoundation.org/updates.
Best,
Angela Yang | Chairperson of the 2024-2025 Giving Committee
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2024-2025 Cycle Giving Committee Allocation Recommendations
Providence House [Work Product Link]
Economic Mobility, Family Reunification – 20% of donation
Key KPIs (2023): $4M annual inflows; ~1,100 participants with ~690 children waitlisted; 99% five-year family reunification rate; 16% one-year parental employment increase (across a 5-year period, there is a 73% employment increase, as found in a Case Western longitudinal study); 33% one-year housing stability increase
Background: In 2019, 75% of child maltreatment cases were categorized as neglect, which are in the vast majority of cases associated with economic instability or poverty rather than intentional abuse. When poverty-driven neglect is treated the same as abuse, it leads to an overreliance on reactive solutions like foster care, which intervenes after harm occurs and represents an onerous liability to the state, rather than preventive services that address underlying needs before a crisis escalates. The U.S. government spends $30+ billion on foster care annually, yet a growing body of research shows that preventing foster care is more cost-effective and produces healthier outcomes.
Overview: Providence House (PH) is an Ohio-based crisis nursery and parent rehabilitation service committed to child abuse prevention and famility preservation. PH provides free (i) emergency shelter to children who are actively living in crisis situations and (ii) support services to their families to help them stay together. Over the past five years, PH has achieved a reunification rate of 99% (meaning that 99% of families in crisis stay together, instead of being separated by the child welfare system), compared to the national average reunification rate of 50% after foster care. Children stay in PH’s crisis nursery for an average of 33 days and are provided with a safe, home-like environment. During this period and for 12 months after the crisis is resolved, guardians participate in a Family Preservation Plan to establish longer-term family stability.
Puget Sound Restoration Fund [Work Product Link]
Environment, Ocean Health – 15% of donation
Previous engagement: We donated $17,961 to PSRF in 2024
Background: Puget Sound Restoration Fund (PSRF) is a $3M revenue, Washington-based charity that takes a research-oriented, holistic approach towards ocean restoration to serve the Puget Sound and broader West Coast, which has witnessed a decline in marine life and increased hypoxia levels since 2018 due to ocean acidification. PSRF’s programs are focused on Olympia oysters, Pinto abalones, bull kelp, and community shellfish farms, and the charity runs its own conservation hatchery. These organisms regulate algae growth, filter acids out of ocean water, and act as carbon sinks.
Update: PSRF scaled its key kelp and pinto abalone programs in 2024 (+33% and +266%, respectively), despite lower revenues, and launched a new Sea Land program to remove harmful seaweed from the Puget Sound. Outcomes exceeded our expectations, and we continue to like PSRF’s focus on holistic restoration approaches in cooperation with natives.
Common Ground Relief [Work Product Link]
Environment, Coastline Restoration – 15% of donation
Key KPIs (2023): $230K annual inflows; $5.86 unit cost per organism planted (primarily wetland ecosystems, such as marsh grasses); 43-mile shoreline and 8-acre forest restoration
Overview: Louisiana represents 40% of all US wetlands but accounts for 80% of the nation’s coastal loss. Wetlands are critical to protecting cities and saving vulnerable coastal communities, especially in the face of natural disasters. CGR restores native plants to support ecosystem growth, emission capture, and coastal stability in Southeast Louisiana. Wetlands store 5x more CO2 than traditional forests and 500x more than oceans. Marsh grass also stabilizes soil composition and provides storm surge buffers.
Rehabilitation Enables Dreams [Work Product Link]
Recidivism, Diversion – 10% of donation
Previous engagement: We have donated $99,969 to RED cumulatively (2021 - 2023)
Background: Founded in 2016, RED is a $500K revenue, Atlanta-based charity that runs a Restorative Justice diversion program for first-time felony offenders in cohorts of 20-25 young adults (aged 17-28). Instead of going to prison, participants participate in a 12-month program to develop their social, civic, and financial literacy. Upon graduation, participants’ records are expunged, and they are provided with opportunities for higher education and employment. In 2024, RED achieved a 0% three-year recidivism rate, a >90% graduation rate, and a ~70% post-program employment rate.
Update: RED’s recidivism rates, costs per participant, and record restriction impact continue to be in line with those of prior years. However, as mentioned in last year’s update, the pace of expansion remains slow, primarily attributed to unpredictable and disappointing interactions with county officials (i.e., “bureaucracy”). RED has invested in its Pre-Trial Diversion program (an accredited digital curriculum, to be licensed for revenue) over the last several years and is intending to launch the program this summer to help fund its in-person Restorative Justice. The USIT Foundation is vigilant of performance indicators for RED’s upcoming Pre-Trial Diversion launch as a proxy for the continual investment into and expansion of the Restorative Justice program, which we view as RED’s flagship program.
Prison Entrepreneurship Project [Work Product Link]
Recidivism, Entrepreneurship – 10% of donation
Previous engagement: We have donated $66,007 to PEP cumulatively (2021 - 2023)
Background: PEP is a $5M, Texas-based prison entrepreneurship program, with 18% of graduates successfully starting their own businesses. Outcomes in 2024 remained consistent with USIT Foundation expectations, including 1,376 participants (+12% YoY), $11K in unit costs per individual served, continued growth in average wages, and high single-digit recidivism rates.
Update: PEP is launching a digital curriculum, which will educate 115,000 individuals this year and provide a funnel of participants for its in-person programming, with the goal of increasing in-person business education participants from 300 to 1,200 over the next three years. While we remain excited about PEP’s momentum and outcomes generated, we and management are conscious of a potential supply-side constraint wherein participant demand may outpace governmentally provisioned bed capacity this year (more information to come later this year).
The Televerde Foundation [Work Product Link]
Recidivism, Workforce Readiness – 10% of donation
Previous engagement: We donated $16,209 to Televerde in 2024
Background: Televerde is a ~$3M annual revenue charity that serves incarcerated women in Maricopa County, Arizona, and offers workforce development, employment (across four career tracks), and educational (in partnership with Arizona State University) programs. In 2024, Televerde participants experienced a 1% recidivism rate and 94% post-incarceration employment rate at an average starting salary double the poverty threshold.
Update: Televerde is focused on operational expansion into Florida (imminent) and Idaho (first site to be independent of funding from Televerde B2B). 2024 results are in line with the USIT Foundation’s expectations.
Home Again LA [Work Product Link]
Economic Mobility, Housing and Homelessness – 10% of donation
Key KPIs (2023): $1.9M annual inflows; 153 families placed into permanent housing (of which 100% successfully took over leases after program support); 72 additional families received emergency shelter; provision of $700,000 in eviction prevention funds
Overview: Home Again LA (HALA) is a Los Angeles-based nonprofit that provides short-term housing assistance, including emergency shelter, rapid rehousing, transitional housing, and homelessness prevention services. Our donation will be primarily used to fund HALA’s 90-Day Shelter program, which provides immediate shelter for homeless families and case manager support. The average turnaround per family from shelter to permanent housing is 54 days, with 97% of households maintaining permanent housing after one year. HALA’s other flagship program is Rapid Rehousing, which provides advocacy and subsidies to families over six months. Since 2017, 100% of families enrolled in this program have successfully taken over their apartment leases upon the culmination of the program.
Well Done Foundation [Work Product Link]
Environment, Abandoned Well Plugging – 5% of donation
Previous engagement: We have donated $38,236 to WDF cumulatively (2023 - 2024)
Background: WDF is a $3M annual revenue charity that reduces CO2E emissions by plugging abandoned oil wells across the US. Since 2019, WDF has plugged 58 orphaned wells, permanently reducing methane gas emissions (80x more harmful than carbon dioxide) by 2 million metric tons of CO2E through its 5-step process, which includes long-term restoration and monitoring.
Update: WDF doubled its well plugging efforts in 2024 and built a Well Intel program to track every well plugging operation completed. WDF is continuing to develop its licensed well plugging specialist training program and build a carbon credit program to draw investor interest. Operational results have been highly favorable, and the USIT Foundation believes our funds have diminishing additionality given the rapid scaling of the organization, hence the lower year-over-year recommended allocation amount.
ACE Programs for the Homeless [Work Product Link]
Economic Mobility, Homelessness – 5% of donation
Previous engagement: We donated $11,133 to ACE in 2024
Background: ACE is a $10M annual revenue charity that serves NYC’s homeless community and graduates 600-700 individuals from its workforce development and vocational rehabilitation program each year. ACE’s program maintains a schedule of two days per week of paid work experience and two days of education for the unhoused population. Participants graduate upon securing full-time, permanent employment and transition to ACE’s post-graduation programming, which seeks to help graduates retain employment, increase their earning power, and transition to self-sufficiency. ACE also provides full-time employment through beautification services around NYC, leading to 250K+ annual beautification hours from ACE participants.
Update: ACE has continued to grow since our initial investment and has maintained or improved KPIs, including individuals served (+9% YoY), average starting wages, independent housing rate, and employment retention. The USIT Foundation believes our funds have diminishing additionality given ACE’s size and sponsor profile (large recent donations from Bank of America and Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation), and we are concerned about a new trash containerization mandate from the New York Department of Sanitation that could add up to $5M in fixed expenses over the next few years.