· Private foundation
Fred R & Hazel W Carstensen Memorial Foundation Inc
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
By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).
A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 54% of FRED R & HAZEL W CARSTENSEN MEMORIAL FOUNDATION INC’s grantee dollars fall outside its nine largest cause areas, whether because the recipient carries no IRS cause code or because its cause sits in the long tail. A chart would be mostly one residual band and misrepresent the portfolio.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k20 grants · $60k
- $10k–50k5 grants · $72k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Greater Bridgeport Symphony | $32,000 |
| Mikey's Way Foundation | $10,000 |
| Homes for the Brave | $10,000 |
| Greater Connecticut Youth Orchestra | $10,000 |
| The Klein Memorial Auditorium Foundation | $10,000 |
| Brady's Smile | $5,000 |
| The Connecticut Zoological Society | $5,000 |
| Charlotte Helen Bacon Foundation | $5,000 |
| Bridgeport Rescue Mission | $4,000 |
| Neighborhood Studios of Fairfield County | $4,000 |
| Wakeman Boys and Girls | $4,000 |
| American Red Cross Connecticut Chapter | $4,000 |
| Easton Senior Citizen's Center Inc | $4,000 |
| Mercy Learning Center | $3,000 |
| Life Bridge Community Services | $3,000 |
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 (FY17–25, $115k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, 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.
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 +38% since the first grant, against +0% for the ones you funded once.
44 repeat relationships — 23 still active in FY2025, 21 since wound down; 2 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, 95% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $6k 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
- ABAPPLIED BEHAVIORAL REHABILITATION INSTIT9× · 2017–2025 · $60k · revenue +55%
- KMKLEIN MEMORIAL AUDITORIUM FOUNDATIONINC8× · 2018–2025 · $55k · revenue +126%
- CZCONNECTICUT ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETYINC9× · 2017–2025 · $37k · revenue +50%
Funded once
- NFNorma F Pfriem Urban Outreach Initiativesone grant, 2017 · $5k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2020 · $4k
- RYRegional YouthAdult Substance Abuseone grant, 2023 · $2k
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.
Annual summer festival held in Branford, CT.
To provide funds to benefit families affected by cancer and to support cancer research and education.
To provide a compassionate community where loving care enables aged and indigent individuals from meriden and connecticut to live with dignity in a secure, homelike environment.
To operate an acute care hospital in bridgeport, connecticut for the care and treatment of persons suffering from disease or other physical or mental conditions without regard to race, color, creed, sex, age or ability to pay.
Barrington stage company is a theatre company in the berkshires with a mission to produce top-notch compelling work; to develop new plays and musicals; and to find fresh, bold ways of bringing new audiences into the theatre, especially…
The connecticut humane society is the leading resource in the state for companion animal welfare, enriching the lives of families and communities through adoption services, medical care, education, and prevention of cruelty.
To provide exceptional healthcare services in a safe and trustfulenvironment through the expertise, commitment, and compassion ofour family of caregivers.
The bridge academy, inc. was granted a charter to operate the bridge academy, a public school located in the city of bridgeport, ct. the school was founded in 1997 to provide college preparatory curriculum designed to overcome the…
Connecticut public broadcasting, inc. will inform, educate and inspire the people of connecticut, connecting and empowering the people of ct through outstanding journalism, storytelling, education and experiences, to make our state a more…
The purpose of the organization is to provide quality childcare for children living in the state of connecticut.
Founded in 1986, building neighborhoods together's (bnt) mission is to end housing insecurity, income inequality, and homelessness by creating safe, affordable housing, and providing comprehensive housing and financial counseling services…
To support bridgeport hospital by, in large part, fundraising, and further, to fund and promote activities of the yale new haven health system, the integrated health care delivery system of which it is a part.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Bridgeport Rescue Mission Inc and the most unlike its peers is Easton Senior Center Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 39 years old; the field is 19. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 19% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 4% lost their exemption, against 10% 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.
26 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. 26 of the 51 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 MIKEY'S WAY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds APPLIED BEHAVIORAL REHABILITATION INSTIT ↗
- Who funds KLEIN MEMORIAL AUDITORIUM FOUNDATIONINC ↗
- Who funds CONNECTICUT ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETYINC ↗
- Who funds American National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches ↗
- Who funds EASTON SENIOR CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT OF GREATER FAIRFIELD COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds BRADYS SMILE ↗
- Who funds BRIDGEPORT PUBLIC EDUCATION FUND INC ↗
- Who funds Neighborhood Studios of Fairfield County Inc ↗
- Who funds The Charlotte Helen Bacon Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds BURROUGHS COMMUNITY CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds THE BARNUM MUSEUM FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds MERCY LEARNING CENTER OF BRIDGEPORT INC ↗
- Who funds BRIDGEPORT RESCUE MISSION INC ↗
- Who funds LIFEBRIDGE COMMUNITY SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds EASTON COMMUNITY CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds CONNECTICUT INSTITUTE FOR REFUGEES AND IMMIGRANTS INC ↗
- Who funds FAIRFIELD COUNTY CHORALE INC ↗
- Who funds HOLE IN THE WALL GANG FUND INC ↗
- Who funds Camp Rising Sun Charitable Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds CHRISTIAN CAMPS & CONFERENCE 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: Fairfield County's Community Foundation Inc · Cyrus W & Amy F Jones & Bessie D Phelps Foundation Inc · The Pitney Bowes Foundation · Peoples United Community Foundation · The Inner-City Foundation for Charity & Education Inc · Connecticut Humanities Council Inc · Synchrony Foundation · The Bridgeport Rotary Club Foundation Inc · Young Mens Christian Association of Westport/Weston Ct Inc · Ernest and Joan Trefz Foundation · Newman's Own Foundation · David and Eunice Bigelow 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 Fred R & Hazel W Carstensen Memorial Foundation Inc 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.
- The Barnum Museum Foundation Inc — 100% of income from government
- Connecticut Institute for Refugees and Immigrants Inc — 37% of income from government
- Applied Behavioral Rehabilitation Instit — 35% of income from government
- Lifebridge Community Services Inc — 32% of income from government
- Emerge Inc — 30% of income from government
- Central Connecticut Coast Young Men's Christian Association Inc — 14% of income from government
- Mercy Learning Center of Bridgeport Inc — 4% of income from government
- Neighborhood Studios of Fairfield County Inc — 3% of income from government
- Fairfield County Chorale Inc — 3% of income from government
- Klein Memorial Auditorium Foundationinc — 1% 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 Fred R & Hazel W Carstensen Memorial Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to Fred R & Hazel W Carstensen Memorial Foundation Inc 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.