· Private foundation
Elizabeth Ferry Speer 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 $10k7 grants · $35k
- $10k–50k9 grants · $235k
- $50k–250k7 grants · $400k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| AVON OLD FARMS SCHOOL | $100,000 |
| HEALING MEALS COMMUNITY PROJECT | $50,000 |
| JOURNEY HOME | $50,000 |
| OUR COMPANIONS ANIMAL RESCUE | $50,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF SAINT JOSEPH | $50,000 |
| THE FRICK COLLECTION | $50,000 |
| THE OPEN HEARTH | $50,000 |
| HIBISCUS CHILDREN'S CENTER | $40,000 |
| ATLANTIC CLASSICAL ORCHESTRA | $40,000 |
| UPPER VALLEY LAND TRUST | $25,000 |
| HOUSE OF BREAD | $25,000 |
| JESUS HOUSE OF HOPE | $25,000 |
| HARTFORD YOUTH SCHOLARS | $25,000 |
| INTERVAL HOUSE | $25,000 |
| THE BUSHNELL CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS | $20,000 |
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 (FY17–25, $290k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 81% 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.
29 repeat relationships — 22 still active in FY2025, 7 since wound down; 1 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, 99% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $10k 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
- AOAVON OLD FARMS SCHOOL INC9× · 2017–2025 · $918k · revenue +61%
- UOUNIVERSITY OF SAINT JOSEPH6× · 2019–2025 · $350k · revenue +20%
- OCOUR COMPANIONS DOMESTIC ANIMAL SANCTUARY INC9× · 2017–2025 · $210k · revenue +235%
Funded once
- SSST SEBASTIAN CATHOLIC ACADEMYone grant, 2021 · $30k
- HMHILL-STEAD MUSEUMgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $14k · revenue +49%
- WFWindsor Food and Fuel Bank Incone grant, 2021 · $10k · revenue +9%
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 connecticut humane society is the leading resource in the state for companion animal welfare, enriching the lives of families and communities through adoption services, medical care, education, and prevention of cruelty.
The humane society of harford county's mission is to promote the humane treatment of homeless, stray and abandoned animals by providing shelter, care, adoptions and community education.
THE ANIMAL RESCUE FUND OF THE HAMPTONS ACTIVELY RESCUES CATS AND DOGS, PROVIDES QUALITY CARE AND OFFERS SANCTUARY UNTIL LOVING HOMES CAN BE FOUND. ARF's work with animals, within our community and throughout the organization is guided by…
Founded in 2023, humane animal partners is a nonprofit no-kill animal care and adoption center. we are committed to providing for the needs of homeless and owned dogs and cats in our community. we make "friends for life" by connecting…
Operation of Animal Shelter
The mission of the connecticut foodshare is to deliver an informed and equitable response to hunger by mobilizing community partners, volunteers, and supporters.
UVHS improves quality of life for people and pets through an innovative animal shelter and adoption center and through services that reduce suffering, support wellness, and foster compassion.
The washington humane society protects animals, supports families, and advocates for positive change to create a world where all animals can thrive. we enrich the humanity of our communities by promoting compassion and encouraging people…
Dedicated to saving homeless dogs and cats, foha provides rescue, medical care, and adoption services in the washington dc metropolitan region. more than 17,500 cats and dogs have found a safe haven with friends of homeless animals for…
Is a volunteer-based non profit organization that saves dogs and cats from death (high kill shelters) and adopts them to loving families.
To rescue and shelter abandoned and unwanted animals until they can be found permanent safe and caring homes.
Hands on hartford, in partnership with others, strengthens community in hartford by responding faithfully to people in need through programs that change lives and renew human possibility.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Covenant Soup Kitchen Inc and the most unlike its peers is University of Saint Joseph. 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 34 years old; the field is 18. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 19% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% lost their exemption, against 10% 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.
27 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. 27 of the 41 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 AVON OLD FARMS SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF SAINT JOSEPH ↗
- Who funds HOUSE OF BREAD INC ↗
- Who funds ATLANTIC CLASSICAL ORCHESTRA INC ↗
- Who funds OUR COMPANIONS DOMESTIC ANIMAL SANCTUARY INC ↗
- Who funds The Frick Collection ↗
- Who funds HEALING MEALS FOUNDATION CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds JOURNEY HOME INC ↗
- Who funds HARTFORD INTERVAL HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds GIFTS OF LOVE INC ↗
- Who funds UPPER VALLEY LAND TRUST INC ↗
- Who funds JESUS HOUSE OF HOPE INC ↗
- Who funds LABS4RESCUE INC ↗
- Who funds THE OPEN HEARTH ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds HARTFORD YOUTH SCHOLARS INC ↗
- Who funds FORGOTTEN FELINES INC ↗
- Who funds PROTECTORS OF ANIMALS INC ↗
- Who funds POODLE RESCUE CONNECTICUT INC ↗
- Who funds ANIMALS FOR LIFE INC ↗
- Who funds FOODSHARE INC ↗
- Who funds MAYOR'S ALLIANCE FOR NYC'S ANIMALS INC ↗
- Who funds HILL-STEAD MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds Windsor Food and Fuel Bank Inc ↗
- Who funds COVENANT SOUP KITCHEN INC ↗
- Who funds GUILFORD INTERFAITH MINISTRIES INC DBA GUILFORD INTERFAITH VOLUNTEERS ↗
- Who funds INTERFAITH AIDS MINISTRY OF GREATER DANBURY INC ↗
- Who funds WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION 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: Aetna Foundation Inc · Hartford Foundation for Public Giving · Lincoln Financial Foundation Inc · Farmington Bank Community Foundation Inc · United Way Inc United Way of Cent & Ne Connecticut · The Ahearn Family Foundation · The John G Martin Foundation · The Robert & Margaret Patricelli Family Foundation · The William and Alice Mortensen Foundation · Sbm Charitable Foundation Inc · Liberty Bank Foundation Inc · John and Kelly Hartman 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 Elizabeth Ferry Speer 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.
- Journey Home Inc — 59% of income from government
- The Open Hearth Association — 59% of income from government
- Hill-Stead Museum — 7% of income from government
- Jesus House of Hope Inc — 3% of income from government
- University of Saint Joseph — 2% of income from government
- Healing Meals Foundation Corporation — 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 Elizabeth Ferry Speer Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Elizabeth Ferry Speer 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.