· Public charity
Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce
To improve the business, social and civic environment of the greater boston area and to become the leading representative in the boston area in the consideration of local, state and national issues.
Read this first · the figures below need context
89% of Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce’s FY2024 grant dollars went to Boston Foundation Inc, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2024 names 2 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2019, the last year Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce named its own grantees at scale: 9 organizations, $85k. It is dated, not current.
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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 9 grants below total $85,000 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $111,748 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $26,748 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 · FY2019
- Under $10k7 grants · $35k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $50k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| SCHOLAR ATHLETES | $25,000 |
| THE BRIGHAM AND WOMEN'S HOSPITAL | $25,000 |
| BLACK ECONOMIC COUNCIL OF MASSACHUSETTS | $5,000 |
| THE LATINA CIRCLE INC | $5,000 |
| COMMUNITY SERVINGS | $5,000 |
| ABEKAM INC | $5,000 |
| THE DIMOCK CENTER | $5,000 |
| HEALTH CARE FOR ALL INC | $5,000 |
| NAACP (NEW ENGLAND CIVIL RIGHTS FUND) | $5,000 |
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 (FY17–19, $15k) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, 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 +127% since the first grant, against +32% for the ones you funded once.
5 repeat relationships — 4 still active in FY2019, 1 since wound down; 10 grantees were first funded in FY2019 (too recent to call). Read against FY2019, the last year this funder named its own grantees directly; its giving has since run through a sponsor, which reports no donor behind each grant.
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, 0% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $33k 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
- BWBOSTON WHILE BLACK4× · 2020–2023 · $100k
- SASCHOLAR ATHLETES INC3× · 2017–2019 · $75k · revenue -91%
COMMUNITY SERVINGS INC3× · 2017–2019 · $15k · revenue +127%
Funded once
- MRMBTA Recruitment and Retention Fundone grant, 2017 · $100k
- JFJOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY LIBRARY FOUNDATION INCORPORATEDone grant, 2017 · $25k · revenue -37%
- CHCAMP HARBOR VIEW FOUNDATION INCgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $15k · revenue +229%
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.
Form 990 - organization's mission or most significant activitiesboston impact initiative (bii) is a nonprofit impact investment fund and certified community development financial institution (cdfi). bii provides small businesses,…
Macp's stated mission is to promote job stabilization and growth across the full spectrum of business, and within all geographic regions of the commonwealth through working in partnership with business and government. macp's main priority…
Necp believes that social change happens when those most impacted by issues of systemic injustice, organize at the block level to address issues within their neighborhoods. through their involvement at a community level, residents engage…
We seek to facilitate a just energy transition by putting black and brown communities first, and enabling systems change at the intersection of social, environmental, and economic justice. we are powering a just energy transition in the…
Bens applies industry experience and best business practices to help address our nation's pressing national security challenges.
The mission of the roundtable is to make massachusetts the most desirable place to live, work and do business by engaging private sector executives and public leaders to ensure access to a robust, diverse and talented workforce that…
Patient care, teaching, research and serving the community.
Mass general brigham incorporated is developing an integrated health care delivery system throughout the region that offers patients a continuum of coordinated, high-quality care.
Mpha promotes a healthy massachusetts through advocacy, education, community organizing and coalition building. we are leaders in the movement to create health equity by addressing the root causes of health and wellness. we promote…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Health Care for All Inc and the most unlike its peers is Freedom for All Massachusetts Inc. 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 34 years old; the field is 20. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 18% startups (under 5 years old) — 5% of your grantees by number, and just 2% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% 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.
24 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. 24 of the 31 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 Boston Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds SCHOLAR ATHLETES INC ↗
- Who funds JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY LIBRARY FOUNDATION INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds CAMP HARBOR VIEW FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY SERVINGS INC ↗
- Who funds THE AMERICAN IRELAND FUND (DBA THE IRELAND FUNDS AMERICA/THE IRELAND FUNDS) ↗
- Who funds COMPASS WORKING CAPITAL INC ↗
- Who funds THE PARTNERSHIP INC ↗
- Who funds DIMOCK COMMUNITY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds NEW ENGLAND CIVIL RIGHTS FUND INC ↗
- Who funds United Way Of Massachusetts Bay Inc ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF CORPORATE DIRECTORS NEW ENGLAND CHAPTER INC ↗
- Who funds WE ARE ALX INC ↗
- Who funds BLK CHIP INC ↗
- Who funds INITIATIVE FOR A COMPETITIVE INNER CITY INC ↗
- Who funds Ron Burton Training Village Inc ↗
- Who funds HEALTH CARE FOR ALL INC ↗
- Who funds BLACK ECONOMIC COUNCIL OF MASSACHUSETTS INC ↗
- Who funds FREEDOM FOR ALL MASSACHUSETTS INC ↗
- Who funds BREAKTHROUGH T1D ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN'S TRUST INC ↗
- Who funds BIG SISTER ASSOCIATION OF GREATER BOSTON INC ↗
- Who funds MARCH OF DIMES 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: Boston Foundation Inc · Eastern Bank Foundation · Cummings Foundation Grants Inc (Fka Oneworld Boston Inc) · Mass General Brigham Incorporated & Affiliates Group Return · Nellie Mae Education Foundation Inc · Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston Inc · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · 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 Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce 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.
- Health Care for All Inc — 29% of income from government
- United Way of Massachusetts Bay Inc — 23% of income from government
- Community Servings Inc — 12% of income from government
- Children's Trust Inc — 3% of income from government
- Camp Harbor View Foundation Inc — 1% of income from government
- Compass Working Capital Inc — 1% of income from government
- Boston Foundation 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.