· Private foundation
Cornelia Bessie Memorial 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 FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k7 grants · $37k
- $10k–50k22 grants · $303k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CLASSICAL UPRISING | $27,000 |
| KEEPING TRACK INC | $24,100 |
| 240 STRINGS | $20,000 |
| EUGENE ONEILL MEMORIAL THEATER CENTER INC | $15,000 |
| HOUSE OF BREAD | $15,000 |
| THE PUBLIC THEATER | $15,000 |
| BLUE DOOR FOUNDATION INC | $15,000 |
| WORDS WITHOUT BORDERS | $15,000 |
| FOOD BANK FOR NEW YORK CITY | $15,000 |
| HUMAN APPEAL INC | $15,000 |
| NEW ENGLAND MUSICIANS RESOURCE FUND | $15,000 |
| RED BULL THEATER | $12,000 |
| RAY OF LIGHT FARM INC | $10,000 |
| HOMEWARD BOUND ADOPTIONS CT INC | $10,000 |
| HUNTS POINT ALLIANCE FOR CHILDREN | $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.
Your human-services grants (FY20–25, $130k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 15% 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 +16% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
24 repeat relationships — 19 still active in FY2025, 5 since wound down; 10 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, 69% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $104k 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
- CUCLASSICAL UPRISING5× · 2021–2025 · $110k · revenue +300%
- WWWords Without Borders Inc4× · 2021–2025 · $60k · revenue +33%
- 2S240 STRINGS4× · 2022–2025 · $55k · revenue +36%
Funded once
MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INCone grant, 2024 · $30k · revenue 0%- RCROCHESTER COMMUNITY CARE HOME INCone grant, 2023 · $20k · revenue -32%
- SPSEYMOUR PINKINCone grant, 2023 · $20k · revenue -5%
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.
NYFOS is dedicated to creating intimate song concerts of great beauty and originality, weaving music, poetry, history and humor into unforgettable evenings of compelling theater, entertaining, educating and creating community among…
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…
New york classical players (nycp) is an ensemble dedicated to the highest standards of artistry, collaboration, and virtuosity. inspired by the belief that access to musical excellence is an essential human right, nycp presents all…
For 45 years bargemusic continues to be dedicted to enhancing the cultural life of new york city by presenting concerts year round making the entire canon of chamber music accessible to everyone in a unique floating concert hall.
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…
World music institute is committed to presenting the best in traditional and contemporary music and dance from around the world to enrich lives through the arts, promote awareness and appreciation of the worlds rich cultural traditions and…
To be philadelphia's professional producer of quality grand opera, producing a diverse range of repertoire featuring international artists alongside rising young singers, and to produce educational programs which nurture the future and…
Pangea World Theater strives to build a just world by creating multi-disciplinary theater that embodies decolonizing practices of solidarity, sustainability and equity.
To commission and perform new music
The florentine opera company is driven to produce the full range of operatic works reflecting the highest musical and theatrical standards, and to support community and education programs that foster the current and next generation of…
The organization operates america's first permanent period orchestra and chorus which reach local, national, and international audiences through a subscription series, touring engagements, recordings, and broadcasts.
New york city opera was famously dubbed "the people's opera" by mayor fiorello laguardia at its founding in 1943. more than 80 years later, city opera continues its historic mission to inspire audiences with innovative and theatrically…
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 23 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) — 7% 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.
45 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. 45 of the 52 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 CLASSICAL UPRISING ↗
- Who funds FOOD BANK FOR NEW YORK CITY ↗
- Who funds Words Without Borders Inc ↗
- Who funds Keeping Track Inc ↗
- Who funds 240 STRINGS ↗
- Who funds NEW ENGLAND MUSICIANS RESOURCE FUND INC ↗
- Who funds COVENANT SOUP KITCHEN INC ↗
- Who funds HOUSE OF BREAD ↗
- Who funds HUNTS POINT ALLIANCE FOR CHILDREN ↗
- Who funds NEW YORK SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL ↗
- Who funds HARRIS CENTER FOR CONSERVATION EDUCATION INC ↗
- Who funds CITY SEED INC ↗
- Who funds INTEGRATED REFUGEE AND IMMIGRANT SERVICES ↗
- Who funds RAY OF LIGHT FARM INC ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds ARCHIPELAGO BOOKS INC ↗
- Who funds NUDAY ↗
- Who funds Pat Mac's Pack Inc ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN NEAR EAST REFUGEE AID ↗
- Who funds JUSTICE ARTS COALITION INC ↗
- Who funds ROCHESTER COMMUNITY CARE HOME INC ↗
- Who funds SEYMOUR PINKINC ↗
- Who funds GRAND MONADNOCK YOUTH CHOIRS ↗
- Who funds NEW LONDON HOMELESS HOSPITALITY CENTER ↗
- Who funds A LEG TO STAND ON INC ↗
- Who funds PETERBOROUGH FOLK MUSIC SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds KEENE CHAMBER ORCHESTRA INC ↗
- Who funds OXFAM-AMERICA INC ↗
- Who funds EUGENE O'NEILL MEMORIAL THEATER CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds HUMAN APPEAL ↗
- Who funds THE BLUE DOOR FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE SHORELINE SOUP KITCHENS & PANTRIES INC ↗
- Who funds NORTH BRANCH NATURE CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds RED BULL THEATER INC ↗
- Who funds FRACTURED ATLAS 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: Cornelia and Michael Bessie Foundation · The Community Foundation of Eastern Connecticut Inc · Chelsea Groton Foundation · Liberty Bank Foundation Inc · The Pfizer Foundation Inc · Dominion Energy Charitable Foundation · Aetna Foundation Inc · The Ford Foundation · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Network for Good · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program
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 Bessie Memorial 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
- Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services — 37% of income from government
- North Branch Nature Center Inc — 4% of income from government
- Eugene O'neill Memorial Theater Center Inc — 1% of income from government
- Oxfam-America 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 Bessie Memorial Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Cornelia Bessie Memorial 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.