· Private foundation
Foundation M
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 FY2019–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k53 grants · $341k
- $10k–50k39 grants · $531k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $50k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Appalachian Mountain Club | $50,000 |
| Union of Concerned Scientists | $40,000 |
| Audubon Vermont | $35,000 |
| Solihten Institute | $25,000 |
| NAACP | $20,000 |
| Planned Parenthood Federation of America | $20,000 |
| ACLU | $20,000 |
| WGBH | $18,000 |
| National Public Radio | $18,000 |
| Doctors Without Borders | $15,000 |
| Equine Advocates | $15,000 |
| New England Aquarium | $15,000 |
| MSPCA Nevins Farm | $15,000 |
| Farm Sanctuary | $12,000 |
| Boys & Girls Club of Lawrence | $12,000 |
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 (FY19–25, $599k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 53% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants spread fairly evenly across need levels.
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 6% of Foundation M’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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +23% since the first grant, against +7% for the ones you funded once.
116 repeat relationships — 78 still active in FY2025, 38 since wound down; 13 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, 90% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $92k 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
Appalachian Mountain Club6× · 2019–2025 · $350k · revenue +23%
THE UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS INC7× · 2019–2025 · $290k · revenue +6%
MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC7× · 2019–2025 · $170k · revenue +79%
Funded once
AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION FOUNDATION INCgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $50k · revenue +49%- VCVERMONT COLLEGE OF FINE ARTS INCone grant, 2019 · $25k · revenue -43%
- PPPLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION OF AMERICAone grant, 2022 · $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.
Our mission is to ensure that the people of greater boston benefit from a vibrant, resilient, and inclusive waterfront, harbor, and islands; these spaces are equitable, accessible, and adapted to climate change; and to ensure our public,…
Animal outlook is a national animal protection organization working to end the abuse of farmed animals using a variety of strategies, including investigations, legal advocacy, corporate and food system reform, and vegan outreach.
To advance the interests of the human services sector and providers through advocacy, education, and engagement of diverse stakeholders for collective impact.
Aclu foundation of ma was established to defend freedoms guaranteed in the constitution and bill of rights through public education and litigation.
The organization's mission is to conserve and promote new england's native plants to ensure healthy, biologically diverse landscapes.
Mercy for animals' mission is to construct a compassionate food system that is not just kind to animals but essential for the future of our planet and all who share it. our vision of a world where animals are respected, protected, and free…
Maha breaks down barriers facing first-time and first-generation home buyers and owners through education, counseling, advocacy, and grassroots organizing.
Marin humane transforms lives through exceptional animal care, humane education, and advocacy. every day, marin humane inspires compassion and positive relationships between people and animals.
The mission of the massachusetts nonprofit network is to unite and strengthen the nonprofit sector in the commonwealth through public policy, public awareness, and capacity building services.
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
Ceres is a nonprofit advocacy organization working to accelerate the transition to a cleaner, more just, and resilient world. through education and research, we make the business case for action on the most pressing sustainability…
The mission of the volunteer lawyers project of the boston bar association is to increase access to justice by delivering high quality pro bono civil legal services to eligible clients in the greater boston area.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Healing Abuse Working for Change Inc and the most unlike its peers is Partners in Health a Nonprofit Corporation. 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 40 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) — 2% 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.
127 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. 127 of the 185 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 Appalachian Mountain Club ↗
- Who funds THE UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS INC ↗
- Who funds SAMARITAN INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds ROSIE'S PLACE INC ↗
- Who funds NEW ENGLAND WILDLIFE CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL BRAILLE PRESS INC ↗
- Who funds NEW ENGLAND AQUARIUM CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds EQUINE ADVOCATES INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds DISMAS HOUSE OF MASSACHUSETTS INC ↗
- Who funds American Civil Liberties Union Foundation ↗
- Who funds PATHWAYS FOR CHILDRENINC ↗
- Who funds WOMEN'S LUNCH PLACE INC ↗
- Who funds RAR-MA INC ↗
- Who funds THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS ↗
- Who funds INTERFAITH SOCIAL SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds LAZARUS HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds NAACP EMPOWERMENT PROGRAMS INC ↗
- Who funds FARM SANCTUARY INC ↗
- Who funds MERRIMACK VALLEY YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds ELLIS EARLY LEARNING INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds FAMILIES FIRST PARENTING PROGRAM INC ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY INROADS INC ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF LYNN INC ↗
- Who funds INTERNATIONAL FUND FOR ANIMAL WELFARE INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICARES FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds ESSEX COUNTY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Mercy Corps ↗
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: Cummings Foundation Grants Inc (Fka Oneworld Boston Inc) · Eastern Bank Foundation · Boston Foundation Inc · Essex County Community Foundation Inc · United Way Of Massachusetts Bay Inc · Rogers Family Foundation · Rockland Trust Charitable Foundation Inc · Highland Street Connection and Subsidiaries · Salem Five Charitable Foundation Inc · Cambridge Savings Charitable Foundation Inc · Arbella Insurance Foundation · Agnes M Lindsay Trust
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 M 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.
- Pathways for Childreninc — 86% of income from government
- Respond Inc — 80% of income from government
- Mab Community Services Inc — 69% of income from government
- Mercy Corps — 47% of income from government
- Jeanne Geiger Crisis Center Inc — 40% of income from government
- On the Rise Inc — 39% of income from government
- La Colaborativa Inc — 34% of income from government
- Girls Inc of the Valley — 30% of income from government
- Roxbury Stone House Inc — 29% of income from government
- Fine Arts Work Center in Provincetown Inc — 27% of income from government
- International Institute of New England Inc — 24% of income from government
- Xerces Society Inc — 22% of income from government
- Greater Boston Food Bank Inc — 22% of income from government
- Ellis Early Learning Inc — 20% of income from government
- Boston Area Gleaners Inc — 20% of income from government
- Community Farms Outreach Inc — 20% of income from government
- Citizens Inn Inc — 18% of income from government
- Greater Lowell Community Foundation Inc — 18% of income from government
- Community Art Center Inc — 14% of income from government
- Trustees of Boston University — 12% of income from government
- New England Aquarium Corporation — 12% of income from government
- Community Servings Inc — 12% of income from government
- Pine Street Inn Inc — 11% of income from government
- Family Services of the Merrimack Valley Inc — 11% of income from government
- Families First Parenting Program Inc — 10% of income from government
- Lawrence Communityworks Inc — 9% of income from government
- Massachusetts Immigrant and Refugee Advocacy Coalition Inc — 8% of income from government
- Women's Lunch Place Inc — 8% of income from government
- Project Learn Inc — 5% of income from government
- Merrimack Valley Food Bank Inc — 3% of income from government
- Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts Inc — 3% of income from government
- Neighbors in Need Inc — 3% of income from government
- Food for Free Committee Inc — 3% of income from government
- Essex Art Center Inc — 3% of income from government
- Northeast Wilderness Trust Corporation — 2% of income from government
- Essex County Community Foundation Inc — 2% of income from government
- Boys & Girls Club of Greater Haverhill Inc — 1% of income from government
- Appalachian Mountain Club — 1% of income from government
- National Aquarium Inc — 1% of income from government
- Lazarus House Inc — 1% of income from government
- Worcester County Food Bank Inc — 1% of income from government
- New England Wildlife Center Inc — 1% of income from government
- Boys & Girls Club of Lynn Inc — 0% of income from government
- Americares Foundation Inc — 0% of income from government
- Rosie's Place Inc — 0% of income from government
- Animal Rescue League of Boston — 0% of income from government
- National Braille Press Inc — 0% of income from government
- Partners in Health a Nonprofit Corporation — 0% of income from government
- Vermont College of Fine Arts Inc — 0% of income from government
- Boston Foundation Inc — 0% of income from government
- Oxfam-America Inc — 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 Foundation M?
Find your warmest path to Foundation M 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.