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Plinth

· Private foundation

Bangor Theological Seminary

The BTS Center is a think tank that sponsors educational events, projects, and research inquiries in the fields of religion, practical theology, and ministry.

$11k
Granted FY2025still arriving
3
Grants FY2025still arriving
2
States reached
$5k
Largest
01What you fund
01100% classified

What you funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY20172025.

Arts & Culture$80kReligion$58kCommunity Improvement$20kEducation$20kScience & Tech$20kEnvironment$1kCrime & Legal$400Civil Rights$100Other$0
02FY2025 · 3 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

$5,000
Median grant
2
States reached
$22M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
Cornerstone Fund Mission Giving- ME Conference UCC Maine School of Ministry$5,000
Cornerstone Fund Mission Giving - Maine Conference UCC Pilgrim Lodge$5,000
MountainTrue$1,000
02The need
03

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.

show:

Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 33% of your dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.

area typical 10%The Society for Arts Religion and Contemporary Culture: $60k → 8%Boston University Center for Antiracist Research: $100 → 16%Tides Foundation: $100 → 10%Equal Justice Initiative: $100 → 18%MountainTrue: $1k → 12%Deborah Jian Lee LLC: $20k → 14%Franklin Alliance for Rural Ministries: $7k → 9%Maine Inside Out: $100 → 7%The Alcyon Center: $20k → 11%Cornerstone Fund Mission Giving- ME Conference UCC Maine School of Ministry: $5k → 12%Maine Prisoner Advocacy Coalition: $200 → 13%Bangor High School: $100 → 15%The Society for Arts Religion and Contemporary Culture: $20k → 8%Cornerstone Fund Mission Giving - Maine Conference UCC Pilgrim Lodge: $5k → 12%Maine-Wabanaki REACH: $200 → 15%Massachusetts Bible Society: $20k → 8%Worcester Fellowship: $500 → 8%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

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.

Which US states your grants reach

ME
VT
IL
NY
MA
CA
NC
DC
AL

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.

03Your field

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.

1
Restorative Justice Institute of Maine

To promote a widespread cultural and systemic shift to how people in maine approach wrongdoing by advancing the use of restorative justice in communities, schools and correctional settings.

Crime & Legal
2
Mit Free Speech Alliance

To promote free expression, academic freedom, viewpoint diversity, and open scientific inquiry in the MIT community

Civil Rights
3
Boston Architectural College

The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.

4
Center of Theological Inquiry

The Center of Theological Inquiry is an independent research institution with an international visiting scholar program which convenes researchers in an ideal setting for interdisciplinary inquiries where theology casts light on global…

Religion
5
Boston Theological Interreligious Consortium Inc

Boston theological interreligious consortium is a consortium of major theological schools in the boston area. through the consortium, theology students can cross-register for courses and share the library resources of all member…

Education
6
Bangor Theological Seminary
Religion
7
President and Trustees of Bates College

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…

Education
8
Maine Media College

Maine Media Workshops & College educates and inspires visual artists and storytellers to achieve their creative potential. We provide lifelong learning opportunities for those pursuing the fine arts and media-related professions. We are…

9
Next River

Next River is an institute for practicing the future. We cultivate the research, narratives, practices, and connections that transform our cultural landscape toward collective liberation.

Social Science
10
Wheaton College

Wheaton college provides a transformative liberal arts education, combining theory and practice, for intellectually curious students within a collaborative and vibrant extended community and network that values and strives to create an…

Education
11
Arc Research Institute

Our mission is to accelerate scientific progress, understand the root causes of disease, and narrow the gap between discoveries and impact on patients.

Health
12
Maine Afl-Cio

To promote and ensure workers' rights

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Faith in Public Life Inc and the most unlike its peers is The Alcyon Center Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

04the grantee network

13 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 20172025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 13 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.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
2
Early backer (in before they grew)
12/13
Grantees still filing
5/13
Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

SOCIETY FOR THE ARTS RELIGION AND CONTEMPORARY CULTURE INC — $79,998 · OtherSOCIETY FOR THE ARTS RELIGION AND CONTEMPORARY CULTURE INCDeborah Jian Lee LLC — $20,426 · OtherDeborah Jian Lee LLCTRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY — $20,000 · OtherTRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITYMASSACHUSETTS BIBLE SOCIETY — $20,000 · OtherMASSACHUSETTS BIBLE SOCIETYFRANKLIN ALLIANCE FOR RURAL MINISTRIES — $7,082 · Other+5 more — $10,700 · Other+5 moreThe Alcyon Center Inc — $19,986 · ReligionThe Alcyon …+1 more — $100 · ReligionBRANDEIS UNIVERSITY — $20,000 · EducationBRANDEIS UN…MountainTrue — $1,000 · EnvironmentMAINE PRISONER ADVOCACY COALITION — $200 · Crime & LegalIMMIGRANT LEGAL ADVOCACY PROJECT — $100 · Crime & LegalMAINE-WABANAKI REACH — $200 · Arts & CultureMAINE INSIDE OUT — $100 · Arts & CultureEQUAL JUSTICE INITIATIVE — $100 · Civil RightsTIDES FOUNDATION — $100 · Philanthropy
Other$158,206Religion$20,086Education$20,000Environment$1,000Crime & Legal$300Arts & Culture$300Civil Rights$100Philanthropy$100

Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ your share of their budgetTRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY — $20,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetMASSACHUSETTS BIBLE SOCIETY — $20,000 over 1y, 5.1% of budgetBRANDEIS UNIVERSITY — $20,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetThe Alcyon Center Inc — $19,986 over 1y, 12% of budgetMAINE PRISONER ADVOCACY COALITION — $200 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetMAINE-WABANAKI REACH — $200 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetMAINE INSIDE OUT — $100 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetEQUAL JUSTICE INITIATIVE — $100 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetFAITH IN PUBLIC LIFE INC — $100 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetIMMIGRANT LEGAL ADVOCACY PROJECT — $100 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetTIDES FOUNDATION — $100 over 1y, 0.0% of budget
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.

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.

Onion FoundationME13.5× affinity4 shared granteesties to 6 of 6Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Onion Foundation · Elmina B Sewall Foundation · Maine Community Foundation Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · 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 Bangor Theological Seminary 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.

2024
202122232425
no gov · 00%0%1%3%5%your share of their income ↑0%4%8%11%15%share of the org’s income from governmentmedian 12%
  • Trustees of Boston University12% of income from government
  • Brandeis University9% of income from government
no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
0get no government money at all
2report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
0rely on government for over half their income
⤢ axis zoomed · 0–15%
typical government reliance, FY2025

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.

On method. Every financial figure here is read directly from IRS e-file XML — your own 990/990-PF and the multi-year returns of the 20 grantees we resolved across every year we hold, several hundred filings in all (a different count from the grant rows on the cover, which are one fiscal year)— each linked to its source. Grantee achievements and outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III); we read these as association with sustained funding — the foundation is one of several forces — suppress low-confidence name matches rather than guess, and say so where a figure rests on a single grant or filing. Not everything on this page is a filed figure, and the difference matters. Filed is what you reported on your return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears. How we build these →

Generated from your IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2025, released 2025. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Source object · view filing

More from the funding graph