· Private foundation
Bill and Joan Alfond Family Foundation
Its FY2024 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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k17 grants · $55k
- $10k–50k13 grants · $240k
- $50k–250k6 grants · $752k
- $250k+5 grants · $2.4M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| COLBY COLLEGE | $600,173 |
| KENNEBEC VALLEY COMMUNITY ACTION PROGRAM | $500,000 |
| MASS GENERAL BRIGHAM INCORPORATED | $500,000 |
| BNY MELLON CHARITABLE GIFT FUND | $398,225 |
| MASS GENERAL BRIGHAM INCORPORATED | $395,000 |
| MAINE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION INC | $248,038 |
| CHILDRENS DISCOVERY MUSEUM | $200,000 |
| 10TH MOUNTAIN SKI CLUB | $100,000 |
| MAINE SCHOOL ADMINISTRATIVE DISTRICT #46 | $93,750 |
| THOMAS COLLEGE | $60,346 |
| KENNEBEC VALLEY COMMUNITY COLLEGE FOUNDATION | $50,000 |
| CENTRAL MAINE COMMUNITY BETTERMENT COLLABORATIVE | $31,600 |
| Individual grant recipient | $25,697 |
| FRIENDS OF QUARRY ROAD | $25,000 |
| KENNEBEC VALLEY COMMUNITY COLLEGE FOUNDATION | $25,000 |
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 (FY17–24, $1.1M) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 76% 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.
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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 7% of Bill and Joan Alfond Family Foundation’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.
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 +49% since the first grant, against +44% for the ones you funded once.
66 repeat relationships — 21 still active in FY2024, 45 since wound down; 7 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 56% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $1.2M 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
The President and Trustees of Colby College7× · 2017–2024 · $8.5M · revenue +37%
GOVERNOR DUMMER ACADEMY THE GOVERNOR'S ACADEMY8× · 2017–2024 · $3.2M · revenue +51%- KVKENNEBEC VALLEY COMMUNITY ACTION PROGRAM4× · 2017–2024 · $801k · revenue +75%
Funded once
- MHMAINEGENERAL HEALTHone grant, 2020 · $151k
- BCBOYS&GIRLS CLUBS OF KENNEBEC VALLEYone grant, 2022 · $150k · revenue -17%
- EPEASTPORT PUBLIC LIBRARYone grant, 2023 · $71k · revenue +3% · 30% of their budget
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.
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…
To connect people to the past, present, and future of Maine's waterways and their global reach.
The mission of Midcoast Conservancy is to protect vital lands and waters on a scale that matters and to inspire wonder and action on behalf of all species and the Earth.
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…
To enhance, every day, the health of our patients, our families and our communities. We do that through a range of health care services for people of all ages, in a variety of care settings.
The mission of the mount desert land & garden preserve is to conserve and share the beauty of our historic lands and gardens.
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…
Secure a sustainable future for fisheries and fishing communities in Eastern Maine and beyond.
To build a permanent and powerful progressive movement in Maine. We will promote a healthy, just, equitable democracy through research, engagement, and education of Maine's citizens. We will engage in democracy expansion, voter engagement,…
The mission of Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens, Inc. is to inspire meaningful connections among people and nature and promote plant conservation through horticulture, education, and plant science.
To illuminate and advance greater understanding of and support for Wabanaki Nations' heritage, living cultures, and homelands.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Maine Community Foundation Inc and the most unlike its peers is Elliotsville Foundation Inc. 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 31 years old; the field is 18. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 19% startups (under 5 years old) — 1% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 11% 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.
103 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. 103 of the 141 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 The President and Trustees of Colby College ↗
- Who funds GOVERNOR DUMMER ACADEMY THE GOVERNOR'S ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds BNY MELLON CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ↗
- Who funds MASS GENERAL BRIGHAM INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds KENNEBEC VALLEY COMMUNITY ACTION PROGRAM ↗
- Who funds THOMAS COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds UNITED STATES BIATHLON ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds Maine Community Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds Good Shepherd Food Bank ↗
- Who funds PROSPERITYME ↗
- Who funds COASTAL ENTERPRISES INC ↗
- Who funds Jobs for Maine's Graduates Inc ↗
- Who funds Piscataquis County Economic Development Council ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN'S DISCOVERY MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds FOUNDATION OF THE MASSACHUSETTS EYE AND EAR INFIRMARY INC ↗
- Who funds BOYS&GIRLS CLUBS OF KENNEBEC VALLEY ↗
- Who funds CENTRAL MAINE COMMUNITY BETTERMENT COLLABORATIVE ↗
- Who funds Friends of Quarry Road ↗
- Who funds MAINE CHILDREN'S HOME FOR LITTLE WANDERERS ↗
- Who funds Kennebec Valley Community College Foundation ↗
- Who funds 10TH MOUNTAIN SKI CLUB d/b/a FORT KENT OUTDOOR CENTER ↗
- Who funds Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston Inc ↗
- Who funds University of Maine Foundation ↗
- Who funds EASTPORT PUBLIC LIBRARY ↗
- Who funds PROJECT HOME DBA QUALITY HOUSING COALITION ↗
- Who funds EDUCARE CENTRAL MAINE ↗
- Who funds NOBLE AND GREENOUGH SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds MAINE GRAIN ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds CIEE Inc ↗
- Who funds RAYE'S MUSTARD MILL MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds HEART OF MAINE RESOURCE CENTER ↗
- Who funds THE WINDOW DRESSERS 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: Maine Community Foundation Inc · Bangor Savings Bank Foundation · Kennebec Savings Bank Foundation · Davis Family Foundation · Harold Alfond Foundation · Lunder Foundation · Elmina B Sewall Foundation · John T Gorman Foundation · Sam L Cohen Foundation · Onion Foundation · Libra Foundation · Franklin Savings Bank Community Development 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 Bill and Joan Alfond 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.
- Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Inc — 7% of income from government
- The Sports Museum of New England Inc — 5% of income from government
- The Red Sox Foundation Inc — 2% of income from government
- Governor Dummer Academy the Governor's Academy — 1% of income from government
- Worcester Art Museum — 1% of income from government
- Pan-Massachusetts Challenge Inc — 0% of income from government
- Williams College — 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 Bill and Joan Alfond Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Bill and Joan Alfond 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.