How much does Frank and Brinna Sands Foundation give?

Frank and Brinna Sands Foundation reported 23 grants totaling $91,200 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 11 and 63 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does Frank and Brinna Sands Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Education (21%), Arts & Culture (18%), Health (15%).

Who are Frank and Brinna Sands Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: Village Health Works ($105k), Thetford Academy ($105k), Vermont Public Radio ($68k).

Does Frank and Brinna Sands Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 20% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Frank and Brinna Sands Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

Which funders back the same organizations as Frank and Brinna Sands Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include The Vermont Community Foundation, New Hampshire Charitable Foundation, The Couch Family Foundation.

Where is Frank and Brinna Sands Foundation based?

Frank and Brinna Sands Foundation is based in VT.

Frank and Brinna Sands Foundation

Frank and Brinna Sands Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

Frank and Brinna Sands Foundation

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.

$91k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$25k

Largest

01What it funds

0198% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.

Education$210kArts & Culture$179kHealth$145kEnvironment$110kFood & Nutrition$93kHuman Services$57kRecreation & Sports$53kAnimals$47kOther$0

02FY2025 · 23 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k21 grants · $56k
$10k–50k2 grants · $35k

$2,500

Median grant

States reached

$2.1M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
Upper Valley Agricultural Association	$25,000
Village Health Works	$10,000
Dartmouth College	$5,800
Darmouth-Hitchcock Health	$5,500
Individual grant recipient	$5,000
Upper Valley Trails Alliance	$5,000
Upper Valley Haven	$5,000
Wildlands Network	$5,000
Vermont Public	$5,000
Middlebury College	$4,000
Mountain Lake PBS	$3,500
University of Vermont Foundation	$2,500
Upper Valley Music Center	$2,500
Maynard House	$1,500
Vermont Institute of Natural Science	$1,000

02The need

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Its human-services grants (FY18–25, $26k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 84% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

How this is measured

Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.

Which US states its grants reach

How this is measured

US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.

Where the work is directed

The same grants placed two ways: where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose sends the money.

About 6% of Frank and Brinna Sands Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked for a different county than the recipient’s own address. By recipient address, 81% of the giving stays in VT; by stated purpose, 72%.

Frank and Brinna Sands Foundationlessmore of its giving

Placed by recipient address · 9.0% directed abroad (not shown)

How this is measured

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 funder’s own 990 grant descriptions.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

85%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$840k · 51 repeat orgs$148k to everyone else

51 repeat relationships: 16 still active in FY2025, 35 since wound down; 7 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$840k

$104k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+40%

+41%

Still filing today

76%

56%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 52% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $44k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

EnvironmentEducationArts & CultureAnimalsHealthInternationalOther

How this is measured

First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

VH
VILLAGE HEALTH WORKS
6× · 2017–2025 · $105k · revenue +10%
TA
THETFORD ACADEMY
5× · 2017–2021 · $105k · revenue +26%
UV
UPPER VALLEY HAVEN
7× · 2018–2025 · $55k · revenue +72%

Funded once

SR
STUDENT RESCUE PROJECT INC
one grant, 2019 · $25k
SP
SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER INC
one grant, 2018 · $10k · revenue +23%
AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION FOUNDATION INCgraduated
one grant, 2018 · $9k · revenue +110%

How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

The Vermont River Conservancy Inc

Protect land along rivers, lakes and wetlands of vt; protect public access, wildlife habitat, scenic natural beauty, and ecological integrity.

Human Services

Native Plant Trust Inc

The organization's mission is to conserve and promote new england's native plants to ensure healthy, biologically diverse landscapes.

Environment

Vermont Electric Cooperative Inc

Vermont electric cooperative is a member owned not-for-profit whose mission is to provide safe, affordable, and reliable energy services to its members.

—

Upper Saco Valley Land Trust

The Organization works with local landowners to permanently protect natural land and waters that define its community and enrich the quality of life by purchasing, managing, negotiating and developing conservations easements in the Upper…

Food & Nutrition

Vermont Energy Investment Corporation

Veic is a sustainable energy company on a mission to generate the energy solutions the world needs (continues in schedule o). (continued), working to combat the climate crisis, boost community resilience, and lower energy costs. for nearly…

Environment

The Vermont Community Foundation

The vermont community foundation helps to build philanthropic resources to sustain healthy and vital vermont communities. the foundation connects and mobilizes people through giving to multiply the impact of philanthropy.

Philanthropy

The University of Vermont Health Network Medical Group Inc

Serve as the governing organization for physicians who are employed to provide clinical services to affiliated member hospitals (the "affiliated hospitals") of the university of vermont health network ("uvm health network").

Health

Champlain Valley Physicians Hospital Medical Center

Cvph medical center's mission is to provide quality health care for the north country region in upstate new york.

Health

The Vermont Center for Ecostudies Inc

The vermont center for ecostudies advances the conservation of wildlife across the americas through research, monitoring, and citizen engagement.

Environment

Maine Appalachian Trail Land Trust

To preserve and protect land surrounding the appalachian trail in maine for public benefit.

Environment

Sudbury Valley Trustees Inc

Sudbury valley trustees, inc. ("the organization") works to protect natural areas and farmland for wildlife and people in the 36 communities that surround the sudbury, assabet, and concord rivers. the organization cares for some of the…

Environment

Kennebunk Land Trust

Kennebunk Land Trust's mission is to permanently conserve and steward land to benefit natural and human communities.

Environment

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Vermont Natural Resources Council Inc; the most unlike its peers is CraftStudies Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

05the grantee network

75 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2026, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 75 of the 103 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

71/75

Grantees still filing

54/75

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$433,435Education$211,650International$108,000Arts & Culture$90,400Environment$71,550Food & Nutrition$49,000Health$28,450

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

The Vermont Community FoundationVT54.2× affinity27 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: The Vermont Community Foundation · New Hampshire Charitable Foundation · The Couch Family Foundation · Mascoma Bank Foundation · Emily Landecker Foundation Inc · Hypertherm Hope Foundation Inc · Claremont Savings Bank Foundation · Ben & Jerry's Foundation Inc · Lane & Elizabeth C Dwinell Fdn · The Help for People Foundation · The Stannard & Dorothy Dunn Charitable Trust · Lintilhac Foundation Inc

How this is measured

Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Frank and Brinna Sands Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Frank and Brinna Sands Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

4get no government money at all

12report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

2rely on government for over half their income

typical government reliance, FY20–25

How this is measured

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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to Frank and Brinna Sands Foundation?

Find your warmest path to Frank and Brinna Sands Foundation 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.

Play a game based on Frank and Brinna Sands’ filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions

grants reported with no recipient in the public record

The regranting layer

51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer

The DAF merry-go-round

$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds

The endowment market

who holds foundation money, and what just moved

The camps

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

By state

where grant money is based, and what stays home