· Private foundation
Cecile Higginson Murphy Charitable 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 clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k5 grants · $22k
- $10k–50k7 grants · $140k
- $50k–250k16 grants · $1.5M
- $250k+2 grants · $750k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Boston Symphony Orchestra | $500,000 |
| Women's Lunch Place | $250,000 |
| Cradles To Crayons Inc | $225,000 |
| TargetCancer | $200,000 |
| Massachusetts General Hospital | $200,000 |
| Gary Sinise Foundation | $100,000 |
| Vital CxNs | $100,000 |
| Fisher House of Boston | $100,000 |
| Read to a Child | $75,000 |
| Community Harvest Project | $75,000 |
| Literations Corp | $75,000 |
| Project Place Gatehouse | $50,000 |
| Spoonfuls Inc | $50,000 |
| Direct Relief | $50,000 |
| PADI Aware Foundation | $50,000 |
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 (FY20–25, $818k) land where the poverty rate runs at 8%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 1% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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.
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 +39% since the first grant, against +16% for the ones you funded once.
32 repeat relationships — 25 still active in FY2025, 7 since wound down; 5 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, 93% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $160k 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
- BSBOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC5× · 2020–2025 · $1.6M · revenue +27%
- CTCRADLES TO CRAYONS INC6× · 2020–2025 · $678k · revenue +81%
- WLWOMEN'S LUNCH PLACE INC4× · 2022–2025 · $675k · revenue +64%
Funded once
- GGGAINING GROUND INCgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $100k · revenue +31%
CHARLES RIVER WATERSHED ASSOCIATION INCgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $50k · revenue +41%- TCThe Childrens Room Center for Grieving Childrenone grant, 2023 · $50k · revenue +7%
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.
Our mission is to ensure that the people of greater boston benefit from a vibrant, resilient, and inclusive waterfront, harbor, and islands; these spaces are equitable, accessible, and adapted to climate change; and to ensure our public,…
Our costs consist of acquiring, sorting and distributing food to 617 member agencies, transportation and logistics, and community outreach to 69 direct distribution sites such as gbfb mobile markets, and federal distributions for low…
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
Brighton marine, inc. provides military and veteran families with comprehensive campus-based quality health care, as well as affordable and supportive housing for at-risk veterans and their families.
Bridgespan's mission is to build a better world by strengthening the ability of mission-driven organizations and philanthropists to achieve breakthrough results in addressing society's most important challenges and opportunities.
The mission of the roundtable is to make massachusetts the most desirable place to live, work and do business by engaging private sector executives and public leaders to ensure access to a robust, diverse and talented workforce that…
The purpose of the water research foundation (wrf) is a definitive research organization to advance the science of all things water to better meet the evolving needs of its subscribers and the water sector. to engage exclusively in…
The mission of mit is to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century.
Actionaid is an international network building a just, equitable, and sustainable world in solidarity with communities on the frontlines of poverty and injustice. actionaid usa is the u.s. branch of actionaid international, which works in…
Maha breaks down barriers facing first-time and first-generation home buyers and owners through education, counseling, advocacy, and grassroots organizing.
Earthenable works to solve the housing crisis in africa by revolutionizing the rural housing industry through innovative, affordable, and sustainable home-building solutions. its mission is to create healthier, safer, and climate-resilient…
We Dont Waste increases food access and protects the planet by rescuing and repurposing food, while educating and advocating to increase food security and decrease food waste.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is One Can Help Inc and the most unlike its peers is Kettering Children's Choir. 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 33 years old; the field is 14. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 23% 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 14% 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.
50 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. 50 of the 59 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 BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC ↗
- Who funds CRADLES TO CRAYONS INC ↗
- Who funds WOMEN'S LUNCH PLACE INC ↗
- Who funds LITERATIONS CORP ↗
- Who funds HABITAT FOR HUMANITY GREATER BOSTON INC ↗
- Who funds VITAL CXNS INC ↗
- Who funds FISHER HOUSE OF BOSTON INC ↗
- Who funds GARY SINISE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SPOONFULS ↗
- Who funds FOOD LINK INC ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY HARVEST PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds PADI AWARE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds PROJECT NEW HOPE INC ↗
- Who funds READ TO A CHILD INC ↗
- Who funds THE BOOK TRUCK INC ↗
- Who funds GAINING GROUND INC ↗
- Who funds PROJECT BREAD-THE WALK FOR HUNGER INC ↗
- Who funds DIRECT RELIEF ↗
- Who funds ONE CAN HELP INC ↗
- Who funds BREAKTIME UNITED INC ↗
- Who funds PROJECT PLACE GATEHOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds CHARLES RIVER WATERSHED ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds The Childrens Room Center for Grieving Children ↗
- Who funds ELIZABETH PEABODY HOUSE ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds MV CENTER FOR EDUCATION AND TRAINING (MV ↗
- Who funds South Shore Young Men's Christian Association ↗
- Who funds ROSIE'S PLACE INC ↗
- Who funds THE WALDEN WOODS PROJECT ↗
- Who funds COOPERATIVE FOR ASSISTANCE AND RELIEF EVERYWHERE INC ↗
- Who funds REHEARSAL FOR LIFE INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO INC ↗
- Who funds MERRIMACK VALLEY FOOD BANK INC ↗
- Who funds Appalachian Mountain Club ↗
- Who funds SYRIAN AMERICAN MEDICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds AMERICARES FOUNDATION 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: Eastern Bank Foundation · Boston Foundation Inc · Cummings Foundation Grants Inc (Fka Oneworld Boston Inc) · Rockland Trust - Blue Hills Charitable Foundation · American Tower Corporation Foundation Inc · Analog Devices Foundation · Liberty Mutual Foundation Inc · Eversource Energy Foundation Inc · The Cabot Family Charitable Trust · Bushrod H Campbell & Adah F Hall Charity Fund · Rockland Trust Charitable Foundation Inc · The Frederick E Weber Charities Corp
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 Cecile Higginson Murphy Charitable 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.
- Community Harvest Project Inc — 18% of income from government
- The Megan House Foundation Inc — 15% of income from government
- Rehearsal for Life Inc — 11% of income from government
- Food Link Inc — 9% of income from government
- Youthbuild Boston Inc — 9% of income from government
- Women's Lunch Place Inc — 8% of income from government
- Charles River Watershed Association Inc — 8% of income from government
- One Can Help Inc — 8% of income from government
- The Walden Woods Project — 6% of income from government
- Gaining Ground Inc — 5% of income from government
- Project Learn Inc — 5% of income from government
- Merrimack Valley Food Bank Inc — 3% of income from government
- Cradles to Crayons Inc — 2% of income from government
- Appalachian Mountain Club — 1% of income from government
- Breaktime United Inc — 1% of income from government
- New England Wildlife Center Inc — 1% of income from government
- Boston Symphony Orchestra Inc — 0% of income from government
- Americares Foundation Inc — 0% of income from government
- Rosie's Place 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.
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Find your warmest path to Cecile Higginson Murphy Charitable 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.