· Private foundation
Berkshire Life Charitable Foundation % Berkshire Life Insurance
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2019–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k2 grants · $11k
- $10k–50k10 grants · $136k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| BERKSHIRE SOUTH REGIONAL COMMUNITY CENTER | $15,000 |
| UCP OF WESTERN MA | $15,000 |
| COMMUNITY ACCESS TO THE ARTS | $15,000 |
| UPSIDE413 | $15,000 |
| BLUE RIDER STABLES | $15,000 |
| BERKSHIRE COUNTY ARC | $15,000 |
| PEDIATRIC DEVELOPMENT CENTER | $12,000 |
| LIFE NEEDS COOP INC DBA STANTON HOME | $12,000 |
| BERKSHIRE MUSIC SCHOOL | $12,000 |
| COMMUNITY LEGAL AID INC | $10,000 |
| GLADYS ALLEN BRIGHAM COMMUNITY CENTER INC | $6,000 |
| CAMP WORDS UNSPOKEN | $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.
Your human-services grants (FY19–25, $348k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 7%. 100% of those 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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 6% of Berkshire Life Charitable Foundation % Berkshire Life Insurance’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another. Read by recipient address, 100% of the giving stays in MA; read by stated purpose it is 89% — less of the work is directed home than the recipients' locations suggest.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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 +69% since the first grant, against +37% for the ones you funded once.
25 repeat relationships — 11 still active in FY2025, 14 since wound down; 1 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; $15k 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
- BCBERKSHIRE COUNTY ARC INC7× · 2019–2025 · $93k · revenue +54%
- UOUCP OF WESTERN MASS INC6× · 2019–2025 · $81k · revenue +172%
COMMUNITY ACCESS TO THE ARTS INC6× · 2020–2025 · $75k · revenue +21%
Funded once
- CHCOMMUNITY HEALTH PROGRAMS INCORPORATEDgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $12k · revenue +71%
- TBTHE BRIEN CENTER FOR MENTAL HEALTH AND SUBSTANCE ABUSE SERVICESone grant, 2021 · $12k · revenue +25%
- GIGOODWILL INDUSTRIES OF THE BERKSHIRES AND SOUTHERN VERMONT INCone grant, 2023 · $7k · revenue +10%
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.
To provide day and residential treatment programs for adults diagnosed with autism or behavioral disorders.
To provide policy guidance, selection and oversight and to organize programs for the purpose of work force development in berkshire county, massachusetts.
The organization provides child care services to families through child care centers and a network of family child care homes. child care of the berkshires also strengthens families through support services and home visiting focused on…
Advance access to high quality healthcare and healthy lifestyles through academic and community partnerships.
Boston community pediatrics (bcp) provides ambulatory pediatric and related health care services to the residents of boston, massachusetts, and surrounding communities. bcp is a new model of innovative pediatric healthcare that addresses…
To own and operate a carousel for public use in Pittsfield, Massachusetts.
Provides community employment and awareness, vocational and developmental skills, to young adults and adults with autism and other developmental disabilities in central and eastern massachusetts. transportation services are also provided.…
The brookline center for community mental health provides groundbreaking mental health services rooted in meaningful innovation and compassionate care. in response to today's mental health landscape and the ongoing mental health crisis,…
To provide services and residential support to individuals with disabilities
To foster community partnerships, promote individual advocacy and create a pathway for growth and innovation by offering exceptional support and services to people with all abilities through the attraction, development and retention of…
The mission of berkshire health systems is to advance health & wellness for everyone in our community in a welcoming,inclusive & personalized environment.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Berkshire South Regional Community Center Inc and the most unlike its peers is Southern Berkshire Elderly Transportation Corporation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 41 years old; the field is 18. 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 9% 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.
33 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. 33 of the 42 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 BERKSHIRE COUNTY ARC INC ↗
- Who funds UCP OF WESTERN MASS INC ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY ACCESS TO THE ARTS INC ↗
- Who funds BLUE RIDER STABLES INC ↗
- Who funds Life Needs Coop Inc ↗
- Who funds ELIZABETH FREEMAN CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds BERKSHIRE MUSIC SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY LEGAL AID INC ↗
- Who funds BERKSHIRE SOUTH REGIONAL COMMUNITY CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds ELDER SERVICES OF BERKSHIRE COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds GLADYS ALLEN BRIGHAM COMMUNITY CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds PEDIATRIC DEVELOPMENT CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds EXTRASPECIALTEAS INC ↗
- Who funds BOYS AND GIRLS' CLUB OF THE BERKSHIRES INC ↗
- Who funds BRANCHES SCHOOL OF THE BERKSHIRES INC ↗
- Who funds BERKSHIRE HORSEWORKS INC ↗
- Who funds GUIDEWIRE INC ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY HEALTH PROGRAMS INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds THE BRIEN CENTER FOR MENTAL HEALTH AND SUBSTANCE ABUSE SERVICES ↗
- Who funds CAMP WORDS UNSPOKEN CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds SOUTHERN BERKSHIRE ELDERLY TRANSPORTATION CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds GOODWILL INDUSTRIES OF THE BERKSHIRES AND SOUTHERN VERMONT INC ↗
- Who funds HILLCREST EDUCATIONAL CENTERS INC ↗
- Who funds LOUISON HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds Hancock Shaker Village Inc ↗
- Who funds BERKSHIRE CENTER FOR JUSTICE INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL ALLIANCE ON MENTAL ILLNESS OF BERKSHIRE COUNTY ↗
- Who funds BERKSHIRE PULSE INC ↗
- Who funds Berkshire Community College Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds TRUSTEES OF THE BERKSHIRE MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds BERKSHIRE NATURAL RESOURCES COUNCIL INC ↗
- Who funds PATHLIGHT 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: Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation Inc · The Feigenbaum Foundation Inc · Berkshire United Way Inc · Berkshire Bank Foundation Inc · Lee Bank Foundation Inc · Jane and Jack Fitzpatrick Trust · Donald C McGraw Foundation Inc · Josephine and Louise Crane Foundation · Price Chopper's Golub Foundation · Coolidge Hill Foundation · Northern Berkshire United Way Inc · Gilson Family Foundation Inc
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 Berkshire Life Charitable Foundation % Berkshire Life Insurance 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.
- Guidewire Inc — 94% of income from government
- Berkshire County Arc Inc — 90% of income from government
- Extraspecialteas Inc — 83% of income from government
- Ucp of Western Mass Inc — 80% of income from government
- Elizabeth Freeman Center Inc — 76% of income from government
- Gladys Allen Brigham Community Center Inc — 40% of income from government
- Life Needs Coop Inc — 38% of income from government
- Pediatric Development Center Inc — 37% of income from government
- Hillcrest Educational Centers Inc — 21% of income from government
- Community Health Programs Incorporated — 13% of income from government
- Community Legal Aid Inc — 5% of income from government
- Community Access to the Arts Inc — 2% of income from government
- Special Olympics Massachusetts Inc — 1% of income from government
- Berkshire Natural Resources Council Inc — 1% of income from government
- Hancock Shaker Village Inc — 1% of income from government
- Berkshire Pulse Inc — 1% of income from government
- Louison House Inc — 1% 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.
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Find your warmest path to Berkshire Life Charitable Foundation % Berkshire Life Insurance 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.