· Private foundation
Franklin G Berlin Foundation
Its FY2020 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
Read this first · the figures below need context
95% of Franklin G Berlin Foundation’s FY2020 grant dollars went to The Community Foundation Of Sarasota Co Inc, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2020 names 2 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2019–2020.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2020
- $10k–50k2 grants · $40k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $50k
- $250k+1 grant · $1.9M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF SARASOTA | $1,880,541 |
| THE BAY PARK CONSERVANCY | $50,000 |
| MOTE MARINE LABORATORY | $30,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $10,000 |
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 (FY19–19, $32k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 100% 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.
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.
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.
Discovering, preserving, and learning from our region's past to inform our common future.
Sarasota memorial healthcare foundation, inc. is an independent fundraising organization working with sarasota memorial health care system and others to ensure the highest quality healthcare is accessible and meets the needs of our…
Manatee protection and preservation.
The society's primary focus is to stimulate public appreciation for the rich history and cultural heritage of palm beach county, to operate the richard and pat johnson palm beach county history museum, to perform research, and to discover,…
To establish, develop and maintain a botanical garden that celebrates the immense beauty and diversity of the earths flora.
Provide housing, healthcare, promote health & wellness as well as related services to seniors.
Wedu is a public media resource that uses storytelling and community (see schedule o, page 40)engagement to create a more informed public.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Safe Children Coalition Inc and the most unlike its peers is Mote Marine Laboratory Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
7 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. 7 of the 10 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.
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: 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 Franklin G Berlin Foundation 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.
- Pines of Sarasota Inc — 18% of income from government
- Southwest Florida Council Inc — 6% of income from government
- Mote Marine Laboratory Inc — 4% of income from government
- Safe Children Coalition Inc — 0% of income from government
- Harvest House 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 Franklin G Berlin Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Franklin G Berlin 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.