· Private foundation
Digs 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.
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 · FY2024
- Under $10k20 grants · $51k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $29k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CATHEDRAL HIGH SCHOOL BOSTON | $15,000 |
| CAMPAIGN FOR CATHOLIC SCHOOLS | $14,000 |
| LANDMARK SCHOOL | $6,000 |
| TULANE UNIVERSITY | $5,000 |
| CATHOLIC CHARITIES ARCHDIOCESE BOSTON | $5,000 |
| COLLEGE OF THE HOLY CROSS | $5,000 |
| HOBART AND WILLIAM SMITH COLLEGES | $5,000 |
| NATIVITY PREPARATORY SCHOOL OF BOSTON | $3,000 |
| BOSTON COLLEGE | $2,500 |
| MARYKNOLL SISTERS | $2,500 |
| DOMINICAN SISTERS OF PEACE | $2,500 |
| HABITAT FOR HUMANITY - CAPE COD | $2,500 |
| CARDINAL CUSHING CENTER SCHOOL | $2,500 |
| THAYER ACADEMY | $1,877 |
| NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY | $1,000 |
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 (FY20–20, $250) land where the poverty rate runs at 23%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 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.
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 +53% since the first grant, against +39% for the ones you funded once.
30 repeat relationships — 20 still active in FY2024, 10 since wound down; 2 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 97% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2k 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
- TATHE ADMINISTRATORS OF THE TULANE EDUCATIONAL FUND8× · 2017–2024 · $67k · revenue +72%
- TOTRUSTEES OF THE COLLEGE OF THE HOLY CROSS8× · 2017–2024 · $61k · revenue +44%
- TOTRUSTEES OF THAYER ACADEMY INC8× · 2017–2024 · $26k · revenue +53%
Funded once
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2019 · $10k
- NPNATIVITY PREPARATORY SCHOOL BOSTONone grant, 2021 · $5k
- HYHANOVER YMCA-NEIL TOMPKINS BARNone grant, 2018 · $1k
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 bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
Western new england university, a comprehensive private institution with a tradition of excellence in teaching and scholarship and a commitment to service, awards undergraduate, master's, and doctoral degrees in various departments from…
Dartmouth College educates the most promising students and prepares them for a lifetime of learning and of responsible leadership, through a faculty dedicated to teaching and the creation of knowledge.
Organization's mission bentley university believes good business can impact more than the bottom line - it can change the world. bentley is a community of future business leaders who will deliver value in the marketplace and lasting…
Undergraduate, graduate, and professional education and research across a broad array of academic domains.
Dickinson college provides a useful, innovative and interdisciplinary education in the liberal arts and sciences to prepare students to lead rich and fulfilling lives of engaged global citizenship
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.
Dean college is a private, residential new england college grounded in a culture and tradition that all students deserve the opportunity to discover and exceed their greatest aspirations. a personal and transformative community since 1865,…
The university's goal in the coming decade is to advance learning through the integration of teaching, research and service to others. the core of this goal is to prepare graduates to engage with the world and lead lives of meaning. to do…
The University of New Haven is a student-centered comprehensive university with an emphasis on excellence in liberal arts and professional education. Our mission is to prepare our students to lead purposeful and fulfilling lives in a…
Wentworth institute of technology is a nationally recognized private coeducational and residential university of higher education with a mission to empower, inspire and innovate through experiential learning with a core purpose of career…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Trustees of Thayer Academy Inc and the most unlike its peers is Dana-Farber Cancer Institute 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 58 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 21% startups (under 5 years old) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 4% lost their exemption, against 15% 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.
26 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. 26 of the 56 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 THE ADMINISTRATORS OF THE TULANE EDUCATIONAL FUND ↗
- Who funds HABITAT FOR HUMANITY OF CAPE COD INC ↗
- Who funds TRUSTEES OF THE COLLEGE OF THE HOLY CROSS ↗
- Who funds TRUSTEES OF THAYER ACADEMY INC ↗
- Who funds LANDMARK SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds PINE MANOR COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds HOBART AND WILLIAM SMITH COLLEGES ↗
- Who funds TRUSTEES OF BOSTON COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds Northwestern University ↗
- Who funds RECONCILE NEW ORLEANS INC ↗
- Who funds HINGHAM HISTORICAL SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds American Heart Association Inc ↗
- Who funds GREATER BOSTON FOOD BANK INC ↗
- Who funds THE PINGREE SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds Chicago Youth Centers ↗
- Who funds Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Inc ↗
- Who funds SCHOOL THE WORLD INC ↗
- Who funds DJ HENRY DREAM FUND INC ↗
- Who funds ROSIE'S PLACE INC ↗
- Who funds THE COMPANY THEATRE 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 · American Tower Corporation Foundation Inc · Fidelity Foundation · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Renaissance Charitable Foundation Inc · Charities Aid Foundation America · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · The Pfizer 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 Digs 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.
- Abilis Inc — 74% of income from government
- Greater Boston Food Bank Inc — 22% of income from government
- Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Inc — 7% of income from government
- Trustees of Boston College — 3% of income from government
- Merrimack College — 1% 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.