· Public charity
Foundation for a Strong Maine Economy
Focusmaine propels the growth of maine's most promising industries and transforms maine into a hub for top talent.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 7 grants below total $1,921,580 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $2,145,984 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $224,404 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2024
- $10k–50k1 grant · $28k
- $50k–250k3 grants · $403k
- $250k+3 grants · $1.5M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MAINE CENTER FOR ENTREPRENEURS | $762,947 |
| EDUCATE MAINE | $375,846 |
| COASTAL ENTERPRISES INC | $351,121 |
| MAINE AQUACULTURE ASSOCIATION | $215,870 |
| NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY | $123,848 |
| NEW ENGLAND OCEAN CLUSTER LLC | $63,768 |
| THIRD SECTOR NEW ENGLAND INC | $28,180 |
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 (FY17–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 8%, against an area that typically sits at 7%. 35% of your dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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 +57% since the first grant, against -30% for the ones you funded once.
14 repeat relationships — 7 still active in FY2024, 7 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 FY2024, 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
- MCMAINE CENTER FOR ENTERPRISE DEVELOPMENT DBA MAINE CENTER FOR ENTREPRENEURS8× · 2017–2024 · $4.2M · revenue +412% · 84% of their budget
- CECOASTAL ENTERPRISES INC7× · 2017–2024 · $2.2M · revenue +220%
- EMEducate Maine7× · 2018–2024 · $1.6M · revenue +200%
Funded once
- ASAVIGO SOLUTIONSone grant, 2020 · $108k
- LWLIVE WORK MAINE INCone grant, 2023 · $100k · revenue -30%
- LCLINKEDIN CORPORATIONone grant, 2018 · $25k
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 mission of the Maine Development Foundation is to foster sustainable, long-term economic growth for Maine. Its programs stimulate new ideas, help develop Maine's leaders, and provide common ground for solving problems and advancing…
The manufacturers association of maine is dedicated to promoting and strengthening manufacturing in maine as an informative voice for the state's manufacturing community.
Maine MEP's mission is to facilitate economic development by providing the necessary services to Maine's small and medium sized manufacturing enterprises (SMES) to enable them to be resilient and thrive in the ever-changing market…
To strengthen the competitive position on the development and commercialization of new marketable species of finfish, shellfish, and sea vegetables by developing technology to lower industry cost and provide education.
Connecting people, training and employment
Enhance the business climate, the quality of life, and economic wellbeing of the businesses and people of maine
Maine Media Workshops & College educates and inspires visual artists and storytellers to achieve their creative potential. We provide lifelong learning opportunities for those pursuing the fine arts and media-related professions. We are…
The maine environmental education association enhances and amplifies the efforts of individuals and organizations building environmental awareness, appreciation, understanding and action in maine.
The Eastern Maine Conservation Initiative (EMCI) is a non-profit organization with broad conservation interests that seeks to: 1) Foster environmentally sustainable communities of the eastern Maine coast; 2) Encourage an appreciation of…
To support maine physicians, advance the quality of medicine in maine, and promote the health of all maine people.
To serve the northern Maine region with effective regional community planning and economic development.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Coastal Enterprises Inc and the most unlike its peers is Biotechnology Association of Maine Bioscience Association of Maine. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
10 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. 10 of the 29 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 MAINE CENTER FOR ENTERPRISE DEVELOPMENT DBA MAINE CENTER FOR ENTREPRENEURS ↗
- Who funds COASTAL ENTERPRISES INC ↗
- Who funds Educate Maine ↗
- Who funds MAINE AQUACULTURE ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds GULF OF MAINE RESEARCH INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds Maine & Company ↗
- Who funds NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds LIVE WORK MAINE INC ↗
- Who funds Biotechnology Association of Maine Bioscience Association of Maine ↗
- Who funds THIRD SECTOR NEW ENGLAND 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 set of overlaps that mostly run through you, not between each other.
Open a dossier: Maine Technology Institute
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 Foundation for a Strong Maine Economy 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.
- Northeastern University — 7% of income from government
- Third Sector New England Inc — 3% 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.