Halifax, NS · Private foundation
J and W Murphy Foundation
Gifts to qualified donees primarily but not exclusively in Nova Scotia in the areas of - •Animal Welfare •Arts & Culture •Camps •Community Arts (theatre and film) Community support services •DEI •Education •Food Insecurity •Healthcare - patient services •Hospitals (equipment acquisitions & building capital) •Housing •Literacy •Mental…
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under C$10k16 grants · C$77k
- C$10k–50k31 grants · C$662k
- C$50k–250k26 grants · C$2.4M
- C$250k+7 grants · C$6.4M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| SHELTER NOVA SCOTIA | C$4,160,000 |
| DARTMOUTH GENERAL HOSPITAL | C$650,000 |
| IWK FOUNDATION | C$400,000 |
| MENTAL HEALTH FOUNDATION OF NS | C$345,235 |
| ISANS | C$302,530 |
| MI'KMAWEY DEBERT CULTURAL CENTRE | C$250,000 |
| KIDS HELP PHONE | C$250,000 |
| FRONTIER COLLEGE (UNITED FOR LITERACY) | C$220,000 |
| NORTH END COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTRE | C$150,000 |
| PATHWAYS TO EDUCATION | C$150,000 |
| REGION OF QUEENS MUNICIPALITY | C$149,927 |
| SOLDIERS MEMORIAL HOSPITAL FOUNDATION | C$125,000 |
| PALLIUM CANADA | C$118,000 |
| NORTH GROVE | C$105,000 |
| DIABETES CANADA | C$100,000 |
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 +47% since the first grant, against +31% for the ones you funded once.
116 repeat relationships — 60 still active in FY2024, 56 since wound down; 18 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, 92% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; C$718k went to new ones.
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.”
Backed again, and grew
- SNSHELTER NOVA SCOTIA5× · 2018–2024 · C$5.2M · revenue +98% · 50% of their budget
- QFQEII Foundation3× · 2018–2020 · C$4.1M · revenue +42%
- DUDalhousie University6× · 2018–2024 · C$3.9M · revenue +36%
Funded once
- DCdiscovery Centreone grant, 2018 · C$3.0M · revenue -38% · 37% of their budget
- ROREGION OF QUEENS MUNICIPALITYone grant, 2021 · C$409k
- CBCape Breton Hospice Palliative Careone grant, 2020 · C$260k · revenue -32%
Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent CRA 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 matches that aren’t grantees — a resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.
The nova scotia talent trust offers scholarships to nova scotians studying in the arts
The nova scotia community college provides post-secondary education to approximately 20 000 students. covering academic programs across various ares such as: business hospitality health & human services trades & technology applied arts &…
The nova scotia health authority delivers inpatient and outpatient health care services to nova scotians at various hosptals clinics and health centres throughout the province of nova scotia. services provided include acute care mental…
Provides support of seamanship education through providing scholarships to training programs.
Endowments faculty fellowships bursaries scholarships and cash prizes awarded to qualifying students and teachers in Nova Scotia.
The Halifax Humanities program provides opportunities and engagement with the arts to those who otherwise would lack such access. The program supports the students and the learning environment with transportation childcare books and…
Coordinate conferences for post-secondary students to present research - coordinate lecture tours of scientists in atlantic canada - present award for outstanding science communication and research to students - facilitate meetings of…
Coastal Action established in December 1993 is a charitable organization that addresses environmental concerns throughout the South Shore region of Nova Scotia and beyond. Our goal is to promote the restoration enhancement and conservation…
Provincial access awareness disability student scholarships provincial disability partnership poverty reduction strategy women with disabilities disability information sharing sessions public and member disability education disability…
Programs designed to: (1) educate and encourage landowners to preserve land in Nova Scotia and to build awareness of land conservation and (2) provide permanent conservation and stewardship of ecologically significant natural landscape.
to foster the development awareness and understanding of the visual arts in Nova Scotia to encourage the production exhibition and appreciation of works by nova scotia's visual artists; and to speak for visual artists in areas of common…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Mental Health Foundation of Nova Scotia and the most unlike its peers is Creamery Square Association. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
157 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2024.
Each one resolved to its own CRA 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 2017–2024, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 157 of the 169 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.
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 SHELTER NOVA SCOTIA ↗
- Who funds QEII Foundation ↗
- Who funds Dalhousie University ↗
- Who funds discovery Centre ↗
- Who funds DARTMOUTH GENERAL HOSPITAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ISANS ↗
- Who funds HEALTH SERVICES FDN SOUTH SHORE ↗
- Who funds MENTAL HEALTH FOUNDATION OF NS ↗
- Who funds Pathways to Education ↗
- Who funds MI'KMAWEY DEBERT CULTURAL CENTRE ↗
- Who funds FRONTIER COLLEGE (UNITED FOR LITERACY) ↗
- Who funds NORTH END COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTRE ↗
- Who funds Phoenix Youth Programs ↗
- Who funds IWK FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL YOUTH ORCHESTRA CANADA ↗
- Who funds KIDS HELP PHONE ↗
- Who funds HOSPICE HALIFAX ↗
- Who funds BONNY LEA FARM ↗
- Who funds NSCC FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds DIABETES CANADA ↗
- Who funds Cape Breton Hospice Palliative Care ↗
- Who funds RONALD MDCONALD HOUSE CHARITIES ATLANTIC ↗
- Who funds DEVOUR FOOD FILM FEST ↗
- Who funds Big Brothers Big Sisters ↗
- Who funds Room 217 Foundation ↗
- Who funds FEED Nova Scotia ↗
- Who funds CANADIAN CANCER SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds ATLANTIC FILM FESTIVAL ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds QUEENS DAY CARE ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds WESTERN REGIONAL HOSPITAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Hope Blooms ↗
- Who funds SOLDIERS MEMORIAL HOSPITAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SALVATION ARMY MARITIME COMMAND ↗
- Who funds ACTORS FUND OF CANADA ↗
- Who funds PALLIUM CANADA ↗
- Who funds STRONGEST FAMILIES INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds South Shore Regional School Board ↗
- Who funds HINCHINBROOK FARM SOCIETY ↗
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: The Community Foundation of Nova Scotia Society · United Way Maritimes/Centraide des Maritimes · River Philip Foundation · The Windsor Foundation · Black Family Foundation · Mental Health Foundation of Nova Scotia · Craig Foundation · Sisters of Charity Mount Saint Vincent · Halifax Youth Foundation · Colin and Belle MacDonald Charitable Foundation · Halifax Association for Improving the Conditions of the Poor · Walker Wood 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.