· Private foundation
Firebird Foundation for Anthropological Research
Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2018–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k35 grants · $190k
- $10k–50k6 grants · $127k
- $50k–250k4 grants · $476k
- $250k+1 grant · $333k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Rangeley Lakes Heritage Trust | $333,333 |
| Northeast Wilderness Trust | $195,000 |
| Maine Coast Heritage Trust | $125,000 |
| University of Sydney | $105,644 |
| Maine Media Workshops College | $50,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $35,892 |
| Individual grant recipient | $26,100 |
| Fidelity Charitable | $24,291 |
| Oceanarium & Education Center | $20,902 |
| Individual grant recipient | $10,000 |
| Phillips Public Library | $10,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $9,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $9,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $9,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $9,000 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY18–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 92% 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.
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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 75% of Firebird Foundation for Anthropological Research’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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 — 19 still active in FY2024, 10 since wound down; 26 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, 72% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $308k 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
- RLRANGELEY LAKES HERITAGE TRUST INC4× · 2021–2024 · $1.4M · revenue +63%
- NMNEIGHBORHOOD MUSIC SCHOOL INC3× · 2021–2023 · $1.4M · revenue +38%
NORTHEAST WILDERNESS TRUST CORPORATION4× · 2021–2024 · $720k · revenue +136%
Funded once
- CFChewonki Foundation Incone grant, 2022 · $300k · revenue -17%
- CSCOLD SPRING SCHOOL INCone grant, 2022 · $200k · revenue -3%
- BCBLACKFOOT CHALLENGE INCgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $150k · revenue +43%
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 Land Conservancy of Ridgefield, Inc. ("the Land Conservancy"), founded in 1967, preserves and protects, for the general benefit of the public, Ridgefield, Connecticut's natural resources including land and water resources, the plant…
We conserve land permanently to benefit the natural and human communities of western the Penobscot Bay region.
We engage with communities to conserve, steward, and provide access to local lands and clean water for current and future generations to enjoy.
Rainforest trust saves endangered wildlife and protects our planet by creating rainforest reserves through partnerships, community engagement, and donor support.
Natural History Institute is organized to provide leadership and resources for a revitalized practice of natural history that integrates art, science, and humanities to promote the health and well-being of humans and the rest of the…
The mission of Islesboro Islands Trust is to enhance the quality of residents' lives through the preservation of open space, educate all residents as to the value of the island's natural ecosystems, and act as an environmental advocate on…
Conservation and preservation of land.
The mission of Midcoast Conservancy is to protect vital lands and waters on a scale that matters and to inspire wonder and action on behalf of all species and the Earth.
Our mission is to permanently conserve and steward natural resources across our island and mainland communities for the benefit of current and future generations.
The royal river conservation trust (rrct) is a regional land trust working primarily in seven maine municipalities. the trust owns,cares for, and stewards land and conservation easements to protect land and water resources for the general…
Nature and culture international conserves biologically diverse landscapes in latin america, in concert with local cultures, for the well-being of the planet.
Frenchman Bay Conservancy protects and cares for our local lands and waters for the benefit of communities and nature.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Native Conservancy and the most unlike its peers is Phillips Public Library. 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 24 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) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 4% 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.
23 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. 23 of the 142 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 FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ↗
- Who funds RANGELEY LAKES HERITAGE TRUST INC ↗
- Who funds NEIGHBORHOOD MUSIC SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds NORTHEAST WILDERNESS TRUST CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds Maine Coast Heritage Trust ↗
- Who funds Maine Mountain Collaborative ↗
- Who funds Chewonki Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds Treasure Caretaker Training ↗
- Who funds COLD SPRING SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds Forest Society of Maine ↗
- Who funds BLACKFOOT CHALLENGE INC ↗
- Who funds KERES CHILDREN'S LEARNING CENTER ↗
- Who funds INTEGRATED REFUGEE AND IMMIGRANT SERVICES ↗
- Who funds PHILLIPS PUBLIC LIBRARY ↗
- Who funds OCEANARIUM AND EDUCATION CENTER ↗
- Who funds Borneo Research Council ↗
- Who funds Earth Island Institute 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: Maine Community Foundation Inc · Ibm International Foundation · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · National Philanthropic Trust · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · 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 Firebird Foundation for Anthropological Research 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.
- Living Tongues Institute for Endangered Languages — 43% of income from government
- Integrated Refugee and Immigrant Services — 37% of income from government
- Neighborhood Music School Inc — 4% of income from government
- Northeast Wilderness Trust Corporation — 2% 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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