· Private foundation
Ace & Lillian Fessenden Family Foundation
Its FY2025 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 clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2018–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k8 grants · $38k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $10k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| WOODY FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| MONTGOMERY BOTANICAL CENTER | $7,500 |
| FAIRCHILD TROPICAL BOTANIC GARDEN | $7,500 |
| SOUTH FL SPCA HORSE RESCUE | $5,000 |
| MAURICE A FERRE FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| MARIE SELBY BOTANICAL GARDEN | $4,000 |
| INTERNATIONAL PALM SOCIETY | $4,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $3,000 |
| LEMUR CONSERVATION FOUNDATION | $2,000 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY18–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 88% of your 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.
13 repeat relationships — 7 still active in FY2025, 6 since wound down; 2 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (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 FY2025, 85% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $7k 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
- TWThe Woody Foundation Inc dba The Way Forward Foundation6× · 2019–2025 · $79k · revenue +43%
- MBMONTGOMERY BOTANICAL CENTER8× · 2018–2025 · $62k · revenue +73%
- FTFAIRCHILD TROPICAL BOTANIC GARDEN INC7× · 2018–2025 · $52k · revenue +71%
Funded once
- GMGIVE MIAMI DAY-THE MIAMI FOUNDATIONone grant, 2023 · $12k
- MSMARJORIE STONEMAN DOUGLAS BISCAYNEone grant, 2022 · $5k
- FIFLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITYone grant, 2024 · $3k
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.
Exhibits to educate the public on glass art
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Marie Selby Botanical Gardens Inc and the most unlike its peers is Montgomery Botanical Center. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
11 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. 11 of the 22 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 The Woody Foundation Inc dba The Way Forward Foundation ↗
- Who funds MONTGOMERY BOTANICAL CENTER ↗
- Who funds FAIRCHILD TROPICAL BOTANIC GARDEN INC ↗
- Who funds The Blues Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds The Marie Selby Botanical Gardens Inc ↗
- Who funds International Palm Society Inc ↗
- Who funds FERRE FAMILY FOUNDATION DBA MAURICE A FERRE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds EVERGLADES OUTPOST INC ↗
- Who funds THE TOMORROW FUND ↗
- Who funds Lemur Conservation Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds THE CLASSICAL ACADEMY OF SARASOTA ↗
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: Paypal Charitable Giving Fund · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile 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 Ace & Lillian Fessenden 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, a single department, or state — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden Inc — 4% of income from government
- The Marie Selby Botanical Gardens Inc — 0% of income from government
- Montgomery Botanical Center — 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.