· Private foundation
Balakian Family Foundation
Its FY2020 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Read this first · the figures below need context
92% of Balakian Family Foundation’s FY2020 grant dollars went to Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2020 names 3 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2019, the last year Balakian Family Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 5 organizations, $46k. It is dated, not current.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2020.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2019
- Under $10k4 grants · $6k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $40k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| DWIGHT ENGLEWOOD SCHOOL ANNUAL | $10,000 |
| ST THOMAS ARMENIAN CHURCH | $10,000 |
| GEORGE & RAYMOND FRANK FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| ENGLEWOOD HEALTH FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $3,492 |
| BUCKNELL UNIVERSITY | $1,000 |
| ST NERSESS ARMENIAN SEMINARY | $1,000 |
| MARCH OF DIMES | $1,000 |
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 (FY17–20) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 7%. 86% 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.
6 repeat relationships — 3 still active in FY2019, 3 since wound down; 8 grantees were first funded in FY2019 (too recent to call). Read against FY2019, the last year this funder named its own grantees directly; its giving has since run through a sponsor, which reports no donor behind each grant.
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 FY2020, 6% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $46k 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
Bucknell University3× · 2017–2019 · $16k · revenue +45%- TNTENAFLY NATURE CENTER ASSOCIATION3× · 2017–2020 · $8k · revenue +92%
- COCHILDREN OF ARMENIA FUND INC DBA CHILDREN OF ARMENIA FUND COAF2× · 2017–2018 · $6k · revenue +248%
Funded once
- EHENGLEWOOD HOSPITAL FOUNDATIONone grant, 2017 · $25k
- THTENAFLY HIGH SCHOOLone grant, 2018 · $5k
- NYNew York Universitygraduatedone grant, 2018 · $1k · revenue +59%
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.
Western new england university, a comprehensive private institution with a tradition of excellence in teaching and scholarship and a commitment to service, awards undergraduate, master's, and doctoral degrees in various departments from…
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.
Fordham university, the jesuit university of new york, is committed to the discovery of wisdom and the transmission of learning, through research and through education of the highest quality. for more information, see schedule o.
Fairleigh dickinson university is a center of academic excellence dedicated to the preparation of world citizens through global education. the university strives to provide students with the multi-disciplinary, intercultural, and ethical…
Seton hall university is a catholic institution of higher education
To educate students to be ethical and socially responsible leaders in a global community.
The institute for advanced study (the institute) is one of the world's leading centers for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. see schedule o.
The University of New Haven is a student-centered comprehensive university with an emphasis on excellence in liberal arts and professional education. Our mission is to prepare our students to lead purposeful and fulfilling lives in a…
The corporation of saint mary's college, notre dame (saint mary's) is a catholic, residential, women's, liberal arts college offering undergraduate degrees and co-educational graduate programs. (continued in schedule o)
St. francis college is an independent, coeducational institution of higher education chartered by an act of the regents of the university of the state of new york on april 10, 1957.
Mission strengthened by more than a century and a half of dedication to academic excellence, boston college commits itself to the highest standards of teaching and research in undergraduate, graduate and professional programs and to the…
Dickinson college provides a useful, innovative and interdisciplinary education in the liberal arts and sciences to prepare students to lead rich and fulfilling lives of engaged global citizenship
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Dwight-Englewood School and the most unlike its peers is New York University. 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 20 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 FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ↗
- Who funds Bucknell University ↗
- Who funds George & Raymond Frank Foundation ↗
- Who funds University of Notre Dame du Lac ↗
- Who funds TENAFLY NATURE CENTER ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN OF ARMENIA FUND INC DBA CHILDREN OF ARMENIA FUND COAF ↗
- Who funds DWIGHT-ENGLEWOOD SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds ST NERSESS ARMENIAN SEMINARY INC ↗
- Who funds MARCH OF DIMES INC ↗
- Who funds New York University ↗
- Who funds THE SOUTHAMPTON FRESH AIR HOME ↗
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: Nazareth & Nila Festekjian Family Foundation · National Philanthropic Trust · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · 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 Balakian 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 or a single department — and drag the year to watch it move.
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 Balakian Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Balakian Family 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.