· Private foundation
David E Retik and Christopher D Mello Charitable Foundation Inc
Its FY2025 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 FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k15 grants · $64k
- $10k–50k14 grants · $240k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MERCY LEARNING CENTER OF BRIDGEPORT INC | $35,000 |
| HOPE FOR FAMILIES CENTER | $25,000 |
| CHILD CARE RESOURCES OF INDIAN RIVER | $25,000 |
| REDLANDS CHRISTIAN MIGRANT ASSOCIATION | $20,000 |
| BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATER | $20,000 |
| BOSTON BULLPEN PROJECT INC | $20,000 |
| TYPE MEDIA CENTER | $20,000 |
| ROSIE'S PLACE | $15,000 |
| PINE STREET INN | $10,000 |
| HORIZONS BRIDGEPORT | $10,000 |
| WOMENS LUNCH PLACE | $10,000 |
| THE FOOD PROJECT | $10,000 |
| FOOD FOR FREE COMMITTEE INC | $10,000 |
| PARENTCHILD | $10,000 |
| THE CHILDREN'S ROOM | $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 (FY20–25, $455k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 100% 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.
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 +34% for the ones you funded once.
34 repeat relationships — 24 still active in FY2025, 10 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, 88% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $38k 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
- CRCHILDCARE RESOURCES OF INDIAN RIVER INC6× · 2020–2025 · $150k · revenue +197%
REDLANDS CHRISTIAN MIGRANT ASSOCIATION INC6× · 2020–2025 · $120k · revenue +70%- MLMERCY LEARNING CENTER OF BRIDGEPORT INC6× · 2020–2025 · $114k · revenue +31%
Funded once
- GBGREATER BOSTON FOOD BANK INCone grant, 2021 · $15k · revenue -5%
Massachusetts Bail Fundone grant, 2021 · $13k · revenue -67%- CGCHILD GUIDANCE CENTER OF SOUTHERN CONNECTICUT INCone grant, 2024 · $10k · revenue -87%
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 brookline center for community mental health provides groundbreaking mental health services rooted in meaningful innovation and compassionate care. in response to today's mental health landscape and the ongoing mental health crisis,…
Massachusetts education and career opportunities, inc. (massedco, inc.) is a statewide network of service sites that provides education and career advising to over 12,000 low-income, first generation individuals each year. massedco…
The Boston Higher Education Resource Center equips first generation youth to obtain a higher education, break the cycle of poverty, and become agents of change in their communities.
Boston community pediatrics (bcp) provides ambulatory pediatric and related health care services to the residents of boston, massachusetts, and surrounding communities. bcp is a new model of innovative pediatric healthcare that addresses…
Brookview's mission is to help homeless and at risk families learn the skills necessary to break the cycle of homelessness and poverty.
The organization's primary exempt purpose is to provide access to and conduct activities in furtherance of higher education.
Metro housing boston mobilizes wide-ranging resources to provide innovative and personalized services that lead families and individuals to housing stability, economic security, and an improved quality of life.
Boston after school & beyond, inc. is a public private partnership that pursues a unified after-school and summer learning system that promotes stakeholder alignment, a focus on results, and access to learning opportunities, particularly…
Through support, challenge and opportunity, triangle empowers people with disabilities and their families to enjoy rich, fulfilling lives. we are committed to helping the world recognize that we are all people with ability.
Maha breaks down barriers facing first-time and first-generation home buyers and owners through education, counseling, advocacy, and grassroots organizing.
Provider of pediatric healthcare, education, research & community service
Project hope is a multi service agency that moves families up and out of poverty.project hope works in partnership with women and families in the dorchester and roxbury neighborhoods of boston on their journeys up and out of poverty. we do…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Mercy Learning Center of Bridgeport Inc and the most unlike its peers is Boston Bullpen Project 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 36 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.
37 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.
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 2017–2026, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 37 of the 50 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 CHILDCARE RESOURCES OF INDIAN RIVER INC ↗
- Who funds REDLANDS CHRISTIAN MIGRANT ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds MERCY LEARNING CENTER OF BRIDGEPORT INC ↗
- Who funds ROSIE'S PLACE INC ↗
- Who funds BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATERS INC ↗
- Who funds The Food Project Inc ↗
- Who funds The Childrens Room Center for Grieving Children ↗
- Who funds THE HOPE FOR FAMILIES CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds Boston Bullpen Project Inc ↗
- Who funds FOOD FOR FREE COMMITTEE INC ↗
- Who funds YEAR UP INC ↗
- Who funds WOMEN'S LUNCH PLACE INC ↗
- Who funds COLGATE UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds BIG BROTHERS BIG SISTERS OF EASTERN MASSACHUSETTS INC ↗
- Who funds YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF RYE NEW YORK ↗
- Who funds PINE STREET INN INC ↗
- Who funds TYPE MEDIA CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds HORIZONS BRIDGEPORT ↗
- Who funds HORIZONS FOR HOMELESS CHILDREN ↗
- Who funds GREATER BOSTON FOOD BANK INC ↗
- Who funds Massachusetts Bail Fund ↗
- Who funds CHILD GUIDANCE CENTER OF SOUTHERN CONNECTICUT INC ↗
- Who funds ACTION FOR BOSTON COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT INC ↗
- Who funds THE SARA'S SMILES FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY SERVINGS INC ↗
- Who funds NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE & EDUC FUND INC ↗
- Who funds THE MAVEN PROJECT ↗
- Who funds HARLEM LACROSSE AND LEADERSHIP CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds SIBLING CONNECTIONS INC ↗
- Who funds GREENLIGHT FUND 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: Boston Foundation Inc · Eastern Bank Foundation · Lissy Family Foundation · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc · The Pfizer Foundation Inc · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc
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 David E Retik and Christopher D Mello Charitable Foundation Inc 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.
- Redlands Christian Migrant Association Inc — 51% of income from government
- Bridge Over Troubled Waters Inc — 32% of income from government
- Greater Boston Food Bank Inc — 22% of income from government
- Horizons for Homeless Children — 21% of income from government
- Balletrox Inc — 15% of income from government
- Community Servings Inc — 12% of income from government
- Pine Street Inn Inc — 11% of income from government
- Action for Boston Community Development Inc — 11% of income from government
- Sibling Connections Inc — 10% of income from government
- Women's Lunch Place Inc — 8% of income from government
- Higher Edge Inc — 4% of income from government
- Mercy Learning Center of Bridgeport Inc — 4% of income from government
- Food for Free Committee Inc — 3% of income from government
- Year Up 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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