· Private foundation
Elizabeth T Fessenden Charitable Fdn
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 $10k8 grants · $40k
- $10k–50k10 grants · $115k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| COMMUNITY SERVINGS | $15,000 |
| GORE PLACE SOCIETY | $15,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $15,000 |
| 152 COMMONWEALTH FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL | $10,000 |
| WGBH | $10,000 |
| BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC | $10,000 |
| THE TRUSTEES OF RESERVATIONS | $10,000 |
| SPAULDING REHABILITATION HOSPITAL | $10,000 |
| BETH ISRAEL DEACONESS MEDICAL CENTER | $10,000 |
| MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS | $5,000 |
| EMERALD NECKLACE CONSERVANCY | $5,000 |
| NORTH BENNET STREET SCHOOL | $5,000 |
| PLANNED PARENTHOOD LEAGUE OF MASSACHUSETTS | $5,000 |
| ARNOLD ARBORETUM OF HARVARD UNIVERSITY | $5,000 |
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, $120k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, 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.
31 repeat relationships — 18 still active in FY2025, 13 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 FY2025, 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
- BSBOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC9× · 2017–2025 · $310k · revenue +38%
THE TRUSTEES OF RESERVATIONS9× · 2017–2025 · $290k · revenue +50%
152 COMMONWEALTH FOUNDATION INC8× · 2018–2025 · $210k · revenue +107% · 40% of their budget
Funded once
- SRSPAULDING REHABILITATION HOSPITAL - FELLOWS TRAINING DR JOANNE BORG-STEINone grant, 2019 · $50k
- DSDEXTER SOUTHFIELD INCgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $15k · revenue +78%
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…
See attached schedule othe conservancy has sole responsibility for managing all aspects of the rose kennedy greenway, including horticulture, programming, public art, maintenance, and capital improvements. we envision a vibrant, inclusive,…
Mass general brigham incorporated is developing an integrated health care delivery system throughout the region that offers patients a continuum of coordinated, high-quality care.
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
The Boston Public Library provides educational and cultural enrichment free to all by engaging the public through programming and active spaces, restoring and preserving our history, providing access to borrow from our vast collection of…
To promote understanding of the history of massachusetts and the nation by collecting and communicating materials and resources that foster historical knowledge.
WGBH enriches people's lives through programs and services that educate, inspire, and entertain, fostering citizenship and culture, the joy of learning, and the power of diverse perspectives.
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."
Tudor place historic house & garden preserves the stories of six generations of descendants of martha washington and the enslaved and free people who lived and worked at this georgetown landmark for nearly two centuries. by examining their…
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…
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…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Trustees of Reservations 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 61 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% 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 11% 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.
21 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. 21 of the 33 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 BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC ↗
- Who funds THE TRUSTEES OF RESERVATIONS ↗
- Who funds 152 COMMONWEALTH FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL TRUST FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION IN THE UNITED STATES ↗
- Who funds EMERALD NECKLACE CONSERVANCY INC ↗
- Who funds BETH ISRAEL DEACONESS MEDICAL CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF BOSTON INC ↗
- Who funds MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS ↗
- Who funds North Bennet Street School ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE BOSTON PARK RANGERS MOUNTED UNIT INC ↗
- Who funds PLANNED PARENTHOOD LEAGUE OF MASSACHUSETTS INC ↗
- Who funds GORE PLACE SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds PERKINS SCHOOL FOR THE BLIND ↗
- Who funds Westwood Land Trust Inc ↗
- Who funds BOSTON PUBLIC LIBRARY FUND INC ↗
- Who funds ACCESSPORTSAMERICA INC ↗
- Who funds Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Inc ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY SERVINGS INC ↗
- Who funds THE GARDEN CONSERVANCY INC ↗
- Who funds CHARLES RIVER CONSERVANCY INC ↗
- Who funds DEXTER SOUTHFIELD 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: Middlecott Foundation · Eastern Bank Foundation · Boston Foundation Inc · The Pfizer Foundation Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Charities Aid Foundation America · American Endowment Foundation · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · 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 Elizabeth T Fessenden Charitable Fdn 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.
- Community Servings Inc — 12% of income from government
- Perkins School for the Blind — 7% of income from government
- Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Inc — 7% of income from government
- Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Inc — 6% of income from government
- Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts Inc — 3% of income from government
- Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston Inc — 2% of income from government
- The Trustees of Reservations — 2% of income from government
- Gore Place Society — 2% of income from government
- Boston Symphony Orchestra Inc — 0% of income from government
- Emerald Necklace Conservancy Inc — 0% of income from government
- Museum of Fine Arts — 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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How do I get to Elizabeth T Fessenden Charitable Fdn?
Find your warmest path to Elizabeth T Fessenden Charitable Fdn 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.