· Private foundation
Cornelia and Michael Bessie 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 FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k13 grants · $88k
- $10k–50k7 grants · $80k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CLASSICAL UPRISING | $20,000 |
| THE BLUE DOOR FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| DROPLETS OF MERCY USA INC | $10,000 |
| RED BULL THEATER | $10,000 |
| CARE | $10,000 |
| DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS USA INC | $10,000 |
| HEAL PALESTINE INC | $10,000 |
| PETERBOROUGH UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST CONGREGATION (MUUSIC 4 UU) | $9,000 |
| PAT MACS PACK INC | $8,000 |
| PETERBOROUGH FOOD PANTRY (PETERBOROUGH AREA COMMUNITY AID) | $7,500 |
| HARRIS CENTER FOR CONSERVATION EDUCATION INC | $7,500 |
| HOUSE OF BREAD INC | $7,500 |
| COVENANT SOUP KITCHEN | $7,500 |
| LITERACY VOLUNTEERS OF GREATER HARTFORD | $7,500 |
| FLYING GRAVITY CIRCUS | $7,500 |
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 (FY17–25, $173k) land where the poverty rate runs at 8%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 12% 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.
25 repeat relationships — 9 still active in FY2025, 16 since wound down; 11 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, 47% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $90k 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
- FGFlying Gravity Circus Inc6× · 2020–2025 · $89k · revenue +211%
- CUCLASSICAL UPRISING5× · 2020–2025 · $81k · revenue +300%
- RORAY OF LIGHT FARM INC5× · 2017–2022 · $60k · revenue +19%
Funded once
- CSCITY SEED INCgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $25k · revenue +349%
DANCEWORKS INCone grant, 2019 · $20k · revenue -25%- SFSTART FRESH INCone grant, 2017 · $20k
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.
The mission of the connecticut foodshare is to deliver an informed and equitable response to hunger by mobilizing community partners, volunteers, and supporters.
To produce bold theatre experiences that reach across artistic, physical and social boundries. We aim to increase empathy and open-mindedness by illuminating nuanced perspectives and unspoken truths behind the salient issues of our time.…
Pangea World Theater strives to build a just world by creating multi-disciplinary theater that embodies decolonizing practices of solidarity, sustainability and equity.
Willing hands delivers fresh food to more than 80 social service organizations throughout the upper valley of new hampshire and vermont that serve as food access points to our community. fresh food is recovered from local farms, grocery…
The mission of new york city center is to be new york city's leading center for dance and musical theater. dedicated to making the arts accessible to the broadest possible audience, city center seeks to create a welcoming environment and…
A center for exhibitions, information, and documentation about living artists since 1977, which continues to be a place of experimentation and a hub of new art and new ideas.
Theaterworks' mission is to share intimate stories that engage all audiences. it creates exceptional contemporary theater that entertains, celebrates new voices, and invites meaningful conversations. its vision is to inspire a more…
To serve people experiencing homelessness or living in poverty by providing food assistance and services that promote health, community, and equity. the organization serves hot evening meals, packs free bag lunches, stocks food pantry…
Grounded in the belief that excellent opera making should build community and radiate beauty, Heartbeat Opera creates incisive adaptations, revelatory arrangements of classics, and interdisciplinary collaboration. We reckon with the…
Spoonfuls is an organization that facilitates the recovery and distribution of healthy, perishable food that would otherwise be discarded. spoonfuls works efficiently to deliver this food directly to the community organizations and…
Wholesome wave, inc. inspires underserved consumers to make healthier food choices by increasing affordable access to fresh, local and regional food.
Vermont public informs, educates, and entertains through public service journalism and enlightening content rooted in vermont. our storytelling enriches lives and fosters community connection and understanding.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Covenant Soup Kitchen Inc and the most unlike its peers is Pat Mac's Pack Inc. 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 26 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) — 5% of your grantees by number, and just 3% 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.
64 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. 64 of the 86 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 Flying Gravity Circus Inc ↗
- Who funds CLASSICAL UPRISING ↗
- Who funds HARRIS CENTER FOR CONSERVATION EDUCATION INC ↗
- Who funds RAY OF LIGHT FARM INC ↗
- Who funds GRAND MONADNOCK YOUTH CHOIRS ↗
- Who funds Pat Mac's Pack Inc ↗
- Who funds NEW YORK SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL ↗
- Who funds NUDAY ↗
- Who funds THE RILEY FARM RESCUE INC ↗
- Who funds CITY SEED INC ↗
- Who funds PETERBOROUGH AREA COMMUNITY AID INC ↗
- Who funds DANCEWORKS INC ↗
- Who funds Hartbeat Ensemble Inc ↗
- Who funds THE FRONT DOOR AGENCY INC ↗
- Who funds COOPERATIVE FOR ASSISTANCE AND RELIEF EVERYWHERE INC ↗
- Who funds Keeping Track Inc ↗
- Who funds ST VINCENT DEPAUL MIDDLETOWN ↗
- Who funds BIKES FOR KIDS INC ↗
- Who funds GREEN MOUNTAIN HORSE ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds CATTAILS INC ↗
- Who funds ROCHESTER COMMUNITY CARE HOME INC ↗
- Who funds A LITTLE COMPASSION ↗
- Who funds Words Without Borders Inc ↗
- Who funds POETS HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds ARCHIPELAGO BOOKS INC ↗
- Who funds VISITING NURSE ASSOCIATION OF SOUTHEASTERN CONNECTICUT INC ↗
- Who funds UGLY DUCKLING PRESSE LTD ↗
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: Cornelia Bessie Memorial Foundation · Liberty Bank Foundation Inc · Chelsea Groton Foundation · Peoples United Community Foundation · Hartford Foundation for Public Giving · Dominion Energy Charitable Foundation · Connecticut Foodshare Inc · Kitchings Family Foundation · The Community Foundation of Eastern Connecticut Inc · Aetna Foundation Inc · Bobs Discount Furniture Charitable Foundation Inc · New Hampshire Charitable 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 Cornelia and Michael Bessie 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.
- City Seed Inc — 87% of income from government
- New London Homeless Hospitality Center — 47% of income from government
- The New London Community Meal Center Inc — 44% of income from government
- Leeway Inc — 9% of income from government
- St Vincent Depaul Middletown — 6% of income from government
- United Way of Southeastern Connecticut Inc — 2% of income from government
- Pentacle Theatre Inc — 2% of income from government
- Literacy Volunteers of Greater Hartford 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Cornelia and Michael Bessie Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Cornelia and Michael Bessie 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.