· Private foundation
Acorn Foundation
Its FY2017 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2017
- Under $10k25 grants · $42k
- $10k–50k3 grants · $55k
- $50k–250k4 grants · $520k
- $250k+1 grant · $3.0M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ROLLINS COLLEGE | $2,950,000 |
| MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS | $200,000 |
| PRESIDENT AND TRUSTEES OF COLBY COLLEGE | $150,000 |
| NEW ENGLAND BAPTIST HOSPITAL | $120,000 |
| MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS | $50,000 |
| COASTAL MAINE BOTANICAL GARDENS | $25,000 |
| HISTORIC NEW ENGLAND | $20,000 |
| SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTE | $10,000 |
| ROLLINS COLLEGE | $6,000 |
| HISTORIC NEW ENGLAND | $6,000 |
| PRESIDENT AND TRUSTEES OF COLBY COLLEGE | $5,000 |
| FLYING KITES INC | $5,000 |
| BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | $4,360 |
| HOLDERNESS SCHOOL | $3,415 |
| TRUSTEES OF TUFTS UNIVERSITY | $1,980 |
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 (FY17–17) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 99% 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.
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.
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
Bates is a college of the liberal arts and sciences, and is a coeducational, nonsectarian, residential college with special commitments to academic rigor, and to assuring in all of its efforts the dignity of each individual, and access to…
Maine Historical Society, founded in 1822, is a private non-profit whose mission is to preserve and share Maine's story. Based in Portland, we work closely with communities and partners throughout the state, and serve a statewide and…
The Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) is a world-renowned center for biological discovery and training that is notably affiliated with more than 60 Nobel Prize winners. Research is conducted by full-time faculty as well as hundreds of the…
Dartmouth College educates the most promising students and prepares them for a lifetime of learning and of responsible leadership, through a faculty dedicated to teaching and the creation of knowledge.
To connect people to the past, present, and future of Maine's waterways and their global reach.
The Morgan Library & Museum celebrates and shares the history and process of human creativity from antiquity to the present day through the preservation, study, and interpretation of a dynamic and growing collection.
Organization's mission bentley university believes good business can impact more than the bottom line - it can change the world. bentley is a community of future business leaders who will deliver value in the marketplace and lasting…
The mission of Reed College is to provide education in the liberal arts and sciences.
At Roger Williams University, students are prepared to be thinkers and doers ready to solve challenging problems with innovative solutions. RWU offers robust offerings of undergraduate, graduate and professional programs across eight…
The museum's mission statement is: "to discover, interpret, and disseminate - through scientific research and education - knowledge about human cultures, the natural world, and the universe."
The Museum of Modern Art is a private, non-profit institution chartered by the State of New York Department of Education in 1929 to foster public awareness of modern and contemporary art. (Continued in Schedule O)
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Society for the Preservation of New Engl and the most unlike its peers is Boston Symphony Orchestra Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
17 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. 17 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 ROLLINS COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS ↗
- Who funds The President and Trustees of Colby College ↗
- Who funds NEW ENGLAND BAPTIST HOSPITAL ↗
- Who funds SOCIETY FOR THE PRESERVATION OF NEW ENGL ↗
- Who funds Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens Inc ↗
- Who funds SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION ↗
- Who funds FLYING KITES INC ↗
- Who funds BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC ↗
- Who funds PIONEER INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds HOLDERNESS SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds BOSTON ARTS ACADEMY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Maine Farmland Trust ↗
- Who funds MAINE LAKES RESOURCE CENTER ↗
- Who funds Maine Public Broadcasting Corporation ↗
- Who funds BELGRADE LAKES ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds The William Breman Jewish Home 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: Boston Foundation Inc · Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston Inc · American Endowment Foundation · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · 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 Acorn 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.
- Society for the Preservation of New Engl — 2% of income from government
- New England Baptist Hospital — 1% of income from government
- Boston Symphony Orchestra Inc — 0% of income from government
- Rollins College — 0% of income from government
- Boston Arts Academy Foundation Inc — 0% of income from government
- Museum of Fine Arts — 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 Acorn Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Acorn Foundation 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.