· Private foundation
Ellen and Samuel Phelan Family Foundation Inc
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 FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| WINNAKEE LAND TRUST | $9,459 |
| TABOR ACADEMY | $5,100 |
| SUMMER SEARCH BOSTON | $5,000 |
| NANTUCKET PRESERVATION TRUST | $5,000 |
| NANTUCKET CONSERVATION FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| HISTORIC RED HOOK | $5,000 |
| DAMIANO CENTER | $4,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA DULUTH | $4,000 |
| NATIVITY CATHOLIC CHURCH | $3,500 |
| FAIRFAX COUNTY PARK FOUNDATION | $3,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $3,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $3,000 |
| HUDSON RIVER ICE YACHT PRESERVATION TRUST | $2,500 |
| SMITH COLLEGE ALUMNI FUND | $2,100 |
| PCOM ALUMNI RELATIONS AND DEVELOPMENT | $2,100 |
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 (FY23–25, $11k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 82% 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 +43% since the first grant, against +25% for the ones you funded once.
64 repeat relationships — 50 still active in FY2025, 14 since wound down; 7 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, 94% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $5k 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
- WLWINNAKEE LAND TRUST INC9× · 2017–2025 · $64k · revenue +699%
- NCNANTUCKET CONSERVATION FOUNDATION INC9× · 2017–2025 · $45k · revenue +405%
- SSSUMMER SEARCH7× · 2019–2025 · $27k · revenue +43%
Funded once
Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Incgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $4k · revenue +30%- UOUNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA DELUTHone grant, 2022 · $3k
- CCCATHOLIC CHARITIES OF ARLINGTONone grant, 2020 · $2k
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.
To preserve the unique character and natural resources of harvard.
Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.
The american astronomical society (aas), established in 1899, is the major organization of professional astronomers in north america. the basic objective of the aas is to promote the advancement of astronomy and closely related branches of…
The mission of the hudson river foundation is to inspire and inform action through science and engaging people to enhance the hudson river, estuary, and watershed (see schedule o).
Advance science, engineering, and innovation throughout the world for the benefit of all. the world's largest multidisciplinary scientific society and a leading publisher of cutting-edge research through its science family of journals,…
Northeast college of health sciences (the college) is committed to academic excellence, leadership, and professional best practices in the health sciences.
The new england air museum's mission is to preserve and present the story of aviation and aerospace, with an emphasis on new england's role, and the genius and inspiration that made it possible. the museum also seeks to inspire young…
The adirondack council ensures the ecological integrity (clean water and air, wildlife habitat, etc.), wild character (solitude, scenic beauty, etc.), and vibrant communities of new york's six-million-acre adirondack park. the adirondack…
Overview - founded in boston by pioneering landscape architect and open space visionary charles eliot in 1891, the trustees is the nation's first and the commonwealth's largest conservation and preservation nonprofit.
The northeastern regional association of coastal and ocean observing systems' (neracoos) mission is to produce, integrate and communicate high- quality information that helps ensure safety, economic and environmental resilience, and…
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…
To preserve and steward aquidneck island's open spaces for the lasting benefit of the community while connecting people with the land that defines the island's natural character.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Wikimedia Foundation Inc and the most unlike its peers is The Ascienzo Family Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
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) — 6% of your grantees by number, and just 2% 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.
62 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. 62 of the 106 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 WINNAKEE LAND TRUST INC ↗
- Who funds NANTUCKET CONSERVATION FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds SUMMER SEARCH ↗
- Who funds HUDSON RIVER MARITIME MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds Community Foundation for Nantucket Inc ↗
- Who funds NANTUCKET PRESERVATION TRUST INC ↗
- Who funds HISTORIC RED HOOK ↗
- Who funds TABOR ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds Flint Hill School ↗
- Who funds TRUSTEES OF DEERFIELD ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds DAMIANO OF DULUTH INC ↗
- Who funds WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN INC ↗
- Who funds THE FAIRFAX COUNTY PARK FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Inc ↗
- Who funds ARTISTS ASSOCIATION OF NANTUCKET INC ↗
- Who funds NANTUCKET HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds WALTER REED SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds NANTUCKET LAND & WATER COUNCIL INC ↗
- Who funds NANTUCKET MARIA MITCHELL ASSOCIATION IN ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF CLERMONT 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: The Sally S and Robert K Phelan Legacy Foundation Inc · The Jm Kaplan Fund Inc · Ibm International Foundation · The Alexander and Marjorie Hover Foundation · Community Foundations of the Hudson Valley Inc · Hudson Valley Foundation for Youth Health · Thomas Thompson Trust · The Ascienzo Family Foundation · Community Foundation for Nantucket Inc · Charina Foundation Inc Richard Menschel · The Thendara Foundation · Henry L Kimelman Family 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 Ellen and Samuel Phelan Family 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.
- Center for Coastal Studies Inc — 26% of income from government
- Community Foundation for Nantucket Inc — 10% of income from government
- Nantucket Maria Mitchell Association in — 9% of income from government
- Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Inc — 7% of income from government
- Nantucket Conservation Foundation Inc — 4% of income from government
- Nantucket Historical Association — 1% of income from government
- Artists Association of Nantucket Inc — 0% of income from government
- Partners in Health a Nonprofit 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 Ellen and Samuel Phelan Family Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to Ellen and Samuel Phelan Family Foundation Inc 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.