· Private foundation
Bell 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 placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k8 grants · $32k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $79k
- $50k–250k7 grants · $540k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| COMPUTER HISTORY MUSEUM | $100,000 |
| CARNEGE MELLON UNIVERSITY | $100,000 |
| EARTHWATCH INSTITUTE | $80,000 |
| WOODWELL CLIMATE RESEARCH CENTER | $80,000 |
| THE NATURE CONSERVANCY | $80,000 |
| CLARK UNIVERSITY | $50,000 |
| THE OCEAN CLEANUP NORTH PACIFIC FOUNDATION | $50,000 |
| ASSOCIATION FOR COMPUTER MACHINERY | $40,000 |
| CALGARY ARTS SUMMER SCHOOL CASSA | $17,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO FOUNDATION FOR CS DEPT | $12,000 |
| NATIONAL ACADEMY OF ENGINEERING FUND | $10,000 |
| NEW ENGLAND CONSERVATORY OF MUSIC ANNUAL FUND | $6,000 |
| MASON GROSS SCHOOL OF ARTS | $5,000 |
| CAPE MAY JAZZ FESTIVAL | $5,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO FOUNDATION FOR ATLAS SCHOLARSHIP FUND | $5,000 |
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 (FY20–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 49% of your dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants spread fairly evenly across need levels.
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
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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +22% since the first grant, against +11% for the ones you funded once.
38 repeat relationships — 15 still active in FY2025, 23 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, 90% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $55k 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
- CHCOMPUTER HISTORY MUSEUM6× · 2020–2025 · $425k · revenue +69%
- AFAMERICAN FRIENDS OF THE OCEAN CLEANUP FOUNDATION5× · 2021–2025 · $79k · revenue +47%
- CCCalifornia Council on Science and Techno logy4× · 2020–2023 · $26k · revenue +95%
Funded once
- MLMK LEVEL PLAYING FIELD INSTITUTEone grant, 2023 · $23k · revenue -31%
- UOUNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON FOUNDATIONone grant, 2021 · $13k · revenue +11%
- GRGEEKS RULE INCone grant, 2020 · $10k · revenue -39%
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.
Advance science, engineering, and innovation throughout the world for the benefit of all. the world's largest multidisciplinary scientific society and a leading publisher of cutting-edge research through its science family of journals,…
We are an intl. scientific & educational org. dedicated to advancing art, science & technology.
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 institute for advanced study (the institute) is one of the world's leading centers for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. see schedule o.
The nstmf's mission is to build inclusive stem communities across the united states. fundamental to these communities are the significant, inspirational connections we foster between the individuals who have received national recognition…
Wpi transforms lives, turns knowledge into action to confront global challenges, and revolutionizes stem through distinctive and inclusive education, projects and research. (http://www.wpi.edu/about/mission.html)
The academy is a renowned scientific and educational institution with a mission to regenerate the natural world through science, learning, and collaboration. based in san francisco's golden gate park, it is home to a world-class aquarium,…
Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.
Research, education and general - princeton university is a private not-for-profit, non-sectarian institution of higher learning with approximately 5,700 undergraduate and 3,300 graduate students. 2,500 students graduated in the 2024-2025…
The mission of lowell observatory is to pursue the study of astronomy, especially the study of our solar system and its evolution; to conduct pure research in astronomical phenomena; and to maintain quality public education and outreach…
Undergraduate, graduate, and professional education and research across a broad array of academic domains.
The american astronomical society (aas), established in 1899, is the major organization of professional astronomers in north america. the basic objective of the aas is to promote the advancement of astronomy and closely related branches of…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Exploratorium and the most unlike its peers is Pacific Animal Welfare Society. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 53 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 13% of the field you don’t fund.
Age = years since IRS exemption (a founding proxy). “Closed” = auto-revocation for 3 years of non-filing — a floor on closure, not proof, and bigger established orgs lapse least. Association, not causation.
26 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. 26 of the 49 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 COMPUTER HISTORY MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds Woodwell Climate Research Center Inc ↗
- Who funds EARTHWATCH INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN FRIENDS OF THE OCEAN CLEANUP FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL ACADEMY OF ENGINEERING FUND ↗
- Who funds TRUSTEES OF CLARK UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ↗
- Who funds YEAR UP INC ↗
- Who funds CANCER COMMONS ↗
- Who funds Massachusetts Institute of Technology ↗
- Who funds California Council on Science and Techno logy ↗
- Who funds MK LEVEL PLAYING FIELD INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds THE TECH INTERACTIVE ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES ↗
- Who funds THE EXPLORATORIUM ↗
- Who funds APPLE HILL CENTER FOR CHAMBER MUSIC INC ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds GEEKS RULE INC ↗
- Who funds IEEE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds WESTRICK MUSIC ACADEMY INC ↗
- Who funds Princeton Symphony Orchestra 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: Silicon Valley Community Foundation · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · Charities Aid Foundation America · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · American Online Giving 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 Bell 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.
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology — 35% of income from government
- Woodwell Climate Research Center Inc — 11% of income from government
- Princeton Symphony Orchestra Inc — 4% of income from government
- American Academy of Arts & Sciences — 3% of income from government
- Trustees of Clark University — 2% of income from government
- Year Up Inc — 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.