· Private foundation
Downey-Farnsworth Family 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 FY2017–2020.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| FIRST UNITARIAN SOCIETY IN NEWTON | $14,500 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–20) land where the poverty rate runs at 8%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 100% of your 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 +137% since the first grant, against +45% for the ones you funded once.
5 repeat relationships — 1 still active in FY2020, 4 since wound down.
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 FY2020, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
- NCNEWTON CULTURAL ALLIANCE INC3× · 2017–2019 · $450k · revenue -61% · 35% of their budget
- FUFIRST UNITARIAN SOCIETY IN NEWTON4× · 2017–2020 · $56k
- BFBENEVOLENT FRATERNITY OF UNITARIAN CHURCHES2× · 2017–2019 · $8k · revenue +137%
Funded once
- POPROPRIETORS OF THE BOSTON ATHENAEUMone grant, 2017 · $336 · revenue -29%
- MOMUSEUM OF FINE ARTS BOSTONone grant, 2017 · $275
PEABODY ESSEX MUSEUM INCone grant, 2017 · $210 · revenue -65%
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.
Organization's mission statement true to the ambitious vision of its founder and her spirit of creative risk-taking, the mission of the isabella stewart gardner museum is: - to bring to life and preserve the rich historic collection; - to…
Mission strengthened by more than a century and a half of dedication to academic excellence, boston college commits itself to the highest standards of teaching and research in undergraduate, graduate and professional programs and to the…
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…
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
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…
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.
To promote understanding of the history of massachusetts and the nation by collecting and communicating materials and resources that foster historical knowledge.
New england museum association's mission is to connect a community engaged in learning, collaboration, and action to cultivate a better museum world.
The mission of the brooklyn institute of arts and sciences, d/b/a brooklyn museum (the "museum") is to bring people together through art and experiences that inspire celebration, compassion, courage, and the will to act. (see schedule o).
The museum's mission statement is: "to discover, interpret, and disseminate - through scientific research and education - knowledge about human cultures, the natural world, and the universe."
New england historic genealogical society's mission is to advance the study of family history in america and beyond. we educate, inspire, and connect people through our scholarship, collections, and expertise. we conduct business under the…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Trustees of Boston University and the most unlike its peers is Green Newton Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
9 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. 9 of the 17 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 NEWTON CULTURAL ALLIANCE INC ↗
- Who funds BENEVOLENT FRATERNITY OF UNITARIAN CHURCHES ↗
- Who funds PROPRIETORS OF THE BOSTON ATHENAEUM ↗
- Who funds PEABODY ESSEX MUSEUM INC ↗
- Who funds PAN-MASSACHUSETTS CHALLENGE INC ↗
- Who funds TRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds SOCIETY FOR THE PRESERVATION OF NEW ENGL ↗
- Who funds Green Newton Inc ↗
- Who funds THE TRUSTEES OF THE SMITH COLLEGE ↗
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: Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile 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 Downey-Farnsworth Family 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.
- Trustees of Boston University — 12% of income from government
- Newton Cultural Alliance Inc — 6% of income from government
- Peabody Essex Museum Inc — 3% of income from government
- Society for the Preservation of New Engl — 2% of income from government
- The Trustees of the Smith College — 1% of income from government
- Proprietors of the Boston Athenaeum — 0% of income from government
- Pan-Massachusetts Challenge 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.