· Private foundation
Bright Horizon Foundation
Its FY2024 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
99% of Bright Horizon Foundation’s FY2024 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. FY2024 names 1 organization directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2018, the last year Bright Horizon Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 9 organizations, $4M. 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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2018
- $10k–50k2 grants · $20k
- $50k–250k4 grants · $450k
- $250k+5 grants · $3.2M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS INC | $1,300,000 |
| PARTNERS IN HEALTH | $500,000 |
| INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP | $500,000 |
| CARTER CENTER ONE COPENHILL | $500,000 |
| ROBIN HOOD FOUNDATION | $400,000 |
| COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF SANTA CRUZ COUNTY | $200,000 |
| THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION | $100,000 |
| THE CONSERVATION FUND | $100,000 |
| DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS | $50,000 |
| THE TRUST FOR PUBLIC LAND | $10,000 |
| AMERICAN INDIAN COLLEGE FUND | $10,000 |
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 (FY17–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 79% 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.
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 9% of Bright Horizon 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 +52% since the first grant, against +35% for the ones you funded once.
17 repeat relationships — 10 still active in FY2018, 7 since wound down; 13 grantees were first funded in FY2018 (too recent to call). Read against FY2018, 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 FY2024, 23% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $50k 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 UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS INC3× · 2017–2019 · $4.0M · revenue +12%
PARTNERS IN HEALTH A NONPROFIT CORPORATION4× · 2017–2023 · $3.5M · revenue +120%- WCWildlife Conservation Society5× · 2019–2023 · $2.5M · revenue +52%
Funded once
PLOUGHSHARES FUND INCone grant, 2022 · $1.0M · revenue -18%- NRNATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL FOR WILDLIFE AND LAND CONSERVATIONone grant, 2022 · $1.0M
- TCTHE CARTER CENTER INCone grant, 2022 · $600k · revenue +24%
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.
Ci works to spotlight and secure the critical benefits that nature provides to humanity.
Nrgi envisions a world where natural resources enable fair, prosperous and sustainable societies, instead of undermining them. nrgi exists because decisions about how natural resources are governed determine the well-being of people in…
The open markets institute works to help people relearn how to use competition policy to build stronger democracies, more just and equitable societies, more innovative and sustainable economies, and a more secure and peaceful world.
The purpose of rainforest foundation us is to support indigenous peoples and forest communities in their efforts to secure their lands, protect their environment, and uphold their rights.
Friends of the earth strives for a more healthy and just world by defendng the environment and human health while advancing social and economic justice by conducting research and education, transforming the economy so it protects the…
To research and develop centrist policy ideas.
The climate institute is organized for the purpose of educating the general public and policy makers as to the gravity of potential climate change, exploring the policy implications of the latest scientific findings on climate modelling…
The foreign policy research institute (frpi) is dedicated to producing the highest quality scholarship and nonpartisan policy analysis focused on crucial foreign policy and national security challenges facing the united states. we educate…
Organization mission the observer research foundation america orf america is an independent, non-partisan, and nonprofit organization in washington dc dedicated to addressing policy challenges facing the united states, india, and their…
Building bridges across diverse sectors, and developing innovative technologies and tools for policy makers. a leader in the conflict assessment and early warning field, the fund for peace focuses on the problems of weak and failing…
Project drawdown's mission is to drive meaningful climate action by advancing science-based solutions and strategies. project drawdown's work is focused on three pillars: science - advancing science-based climate solutions and strategies;…
Wri is committed to creating change that improves people's lives and ensures the natural world can thrive. (see schedule o)wri's bold vision requires a formula for success we call "count it. change it. scale it.":- count it: our work is…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Ploughshares Fund Inc and the most unlike its peers is Wildlife Conservation Society. 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 42 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.
21 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. 21 of the 32 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 THE UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS INC ↗
- Who funds PARTNERS IN HEALTH A NONPROFIT CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds Wildlife Conservation Society ↗
- Who funds NUCLEAR THREAT INITIATIVE INC ↗
- Who funds NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL INC ↗
- Who funds INTERNATIONAL CRISIS GROUP ↗
- Who funds ROBIN HOOD FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds PLOUGHSHARES FUND INC ↗
- Who funds THE CARTER CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FOUNDATION SANTA CRUZ COUNTY ↗
- Who funds THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION ↗
- Who funds THE CONSERVATION FUND A NONPROFIT CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds THE TRUST FOR PUBLIC LAND ↗
- Who funds WILLIAM J BRENNAN CENTER FOR JUSTICE INC ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICARES FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds NEO Philanthropy Inc ↗
- Who funds AMERICANS FOR OXFORD INC ↗
- Who funds Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN INDIAN COLLEGE FUND ↗
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: Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · American Online Giving Foundation 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 Bright Horizon 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.
- Americares Foundation Inc — 0% of income from government
- Partners in Health a Nonprofit Corporation — 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.