· Community foundation
Greater Lowell Community Foundation Inc
The mission of the greater lowell community foundation is to improve the quality of life in the area.
What you funded, over time
Every grant clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 110 grants below total $3,867,270 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $4,554,821 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $687,551 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 · FY2025
- Under $10k15 grants · $108k
- $10k–50k74 grants · $1.3M
- $50k–250k19 grants · $1.9M
- $250k+2 grants · $552k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Merrimack Valley Food Bank Inc | $277,348 |
| Merrimack Valley Housing Partnership | $275,086 |
| UMass Lowell | $212,900 |
| Girls Incorporated of Greater Lowell Inc | $188,749 |
| New England Quilt Museum | $182,116 |
| Merrimack Repertory Theatre Inc (MRT) | $171,940 |
| Hidden Battles Foundation | $146,214 |
| Lowell Cemetery | $100,000 |
| Boys & Girls Club of Greater Lowell Inc | $92,341 |
| Coalition for a Better Acre Inc | $91,679 |
| Dwelling House of Hope | $83,500 |
| Lowell Art Association Inc dba Whistler House Museum of Art | $81,785 |
| Lowell Catholic High School | $78,282 |
| Individual grant recipient | $75,000 |
| University of Massachusetts Lowell | $64,878 |
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, $4.1M) land where the poverty rate runs at 8%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 98% 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.
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.
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 +68% since the first grant, against +22% for the ones you funded once.
143 repeat relationships — 80 still active in FY2025, 63 since wound down; 26 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, 88% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $454k 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
Community Teamwork Inc9× · 2017–2025 · $1.3M · revenue +158%- NENEW ENGLAND QUILT MUSEUM INC9× · 2017–2025 · $720k · revenue +57% · 39% of their budget
- CFCOALITION FOR A BETTER ACRE INC9× · 2017–2025 · $715k · revenue +141%
Funded once
AGESPAN INCgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $145k · revenue +46%
HEALTH RESOURCES IN ACTION INCgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $75k · revenue +175%- MSMINUTEMAN SENIOR SERVICES INCgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $65k · revenue +90%
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.
We create opportunities for the people of massachusetts to transform their lives and build a more equitable commonwealth through the humanities.
Mfhc is committed to ending systemic housing discrimination and creating inclusive communities through education, outreach, advocacy, housing counseling and enforcement.
Maha breaks down barriers facing first-time and first-generation home buyers and owners through education, counseling, advocacy, and grassroots organizing.
To advance the interests of the human services sector and providers through advocacy, education, and engagement of diverse stakeholders for collective impact.
Massachusetts education and career opportunities, inc. (massedco, inc.) is a statewide network of service sites that provides education and career advising to over 12,000 low-income, first generation individuals each year. massedco…
Assist people with disabilities
The massachusetts legal assistance corporation provides leadership and support to improve civil legal services to low-income people in massachusetts through collaboration with the legal services community, the legislature, the public, the…
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.
Our costs consist of acquiring, sorting and distributing food to 617 member agencies, transportation and logistics, and community outreach to 69 direct distribution sites such as gbfb mobile markets, and federal distributions for low…
To strengthen and connect the statewide network of community action agencies and collectively advocate for an end to poverty.
Mhic's mission is to be an innovative private financier of afforable housing and community development throughout new england, providing financing that would not otherwise be available, and extending the impact of that financing to ensure…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Philanthropy Massachusetts Inc and the most unlike its peers is Boston Portuguese Festival. 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 33 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) — 5% of your grantees by number, and just 2% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 1% 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.
203 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. 203 of the 260 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
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
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 Community Teamwork Inc ↗
- Who funds Merrimack Repertory Theatre Inc ↗
- Who funds NEW ENGLAND QUILT MUSEUM INC ↗
- Who funds COALITION FOR A BETTER ACRE INC ↗
- Who funds LOWELL COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds UTEC Inc ↗
- Who funds MERRIMACK VALLEY FOOD BANK INC ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF GREATER LOWELL INC ↗
- Who funds Lowell Art Association DBA Whistler House Musuem of Art ↗
- Who funds INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF NEW ENGLAND INC ↗
- Who funds Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association of Greater Lowell Inc ↗
- Who funds Catie's Closet Inc ↗
- Who funds Merrimack Valley Housing Partnership Inc ↗
- Who funds RECREATIONAL ADULT RESOURCE ASSOCIATION OF GREATER LOWELL INC ↗
- Who funds GIRLS INCORPORATED OF GREATER LOWELL ↗
- Who funds MILL CITY GROWS INC ↗
- Who funds DWELLING HOUSE OF HOPE INC ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds LOWELL TRANSITIONAL LIVING CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds LOWELL PARKS & CONSERVATION TRUST ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR HOPE & HEALING INC ↗
- Who funds WOMEN IN TRANSITION INC ↗
- Who funds GAINING GROUND INC ↗
- Who funds LIFE CONNECTION CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds THE LOWELL FESTIVAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds OPEN TABLE INC ↗
- Who funds MASSACHUSETTS ALLIANCE OF PORTUGUESE SPEAKERS INC ↗
- Who funds Greater Lowell Community Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds AGESPAN INC ↗
- Who funds YOUNG WOMEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF L ↗
- Who funds CATHOLIC SCHOOLS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds HOUSE OF HOPE 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: Cummings Foundation Grants Inc (Fka Oneworld Boston Inc) · We Share A Common Thread Foundation Inc · Eastern Bank Foundation · Theodore Edson Parker Foundation · The Saab Family Foundation · Salem Five Charitable Foundation Inc · Community Foundation of North Central Ma · Middlesex Savings Charitable Foundation Inc · Community Foundation for MetroWest Inc · Richard K & Nancy L Donahue Charitable Foundation · DCU for Kids · Essex County Community Foundation Inc
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 Lowell Community 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.
- Oars Inc — 100% of income from government
- Troubled Waters Inc — 98% of income from government
- Luk Crisis Center Inc — 95% of income from government
- Incompass Human Services Inc — 94% of income from government
- New England Forestry Foundation Inc — 88% of income from government
- Women in Transition Inc — 76% of income from government
- Center for Hope & Healing Inc — 73% of income from government
- Minuteman Senior Services Inc — 73% of income from government
- Advocates Inc — 66% of income from government
- Clear Path for Veterans New England Inc — 62% of income from government
- Casa Esperanza Inc — 59% of income from government
- Agespan Inc — 57% of income from government
- Nashua River Watershed Assoc Inc — 54% of income from government
- Young Women's Christian Association of L — 53% of income from government
- Senior Connections Inc — 52% of income from government
- Cultural Organization of Lowell Inc — 52% of income from government
- Health Law Advocates Inc — 52% of income from government
- Lowell Association for the Blind Inc — 49% of income from government
- Utec Inc — 46% of income from government
- Acre Family Child Care Inc — 45% of income from government
- Robert F Kennedy Community Alliance Inc — 41% of income from government
- Bagly Inc — 39% of income from government
- Health Resources in Action Inc — 39% of income from government
- Douglas a Thom Clinic Inc — 37% of income from government
- Lowell Community Health Center Inc — 34% of income from government
- Asian Task Force Against Domestic Violence Inc — 32% of income from government
- Boys & Girls Club of Greater Lowell Inc — 27% of income from government
- Clarendon Early Education Services Inc — 25% of income from government
- Building Audacity — 24% of income from government
- Townsend Ecumenical Outreach Inc — 24% of income from government
- International Institute of New England Inc — 24% of income from government
- Community Teamwork Inc — 23% of income from government
- United Way of Massachusetts Bay Inc — 23% of income from government
- Greater Lowell Community Foundation Inc — 18% of income from government
- Kids in Tech Inc — 15% of income from government
- Ellie Fund Inc — 15% of income from government
- The Megan House Foundation Inc — 15% of income from government
- Rise Above Foundation Inc — 14% of income from government
- The Lowell Festival Foundation — 12% of income from government
- North Star Family Services Inc — 12% of income from government
- Community Day Care Center of Lawrence Inc — 11% of income from government
- Sudbury Valley Trustees Inc — 11% of income from government
- Project Citizenship Inc — 10% of income from government
- Sibling Connections Inc — 10% of income from government
- Angkor Dance Troupe Inc — 10% of income from government
- Arts & Business Council of Greater Boston Inc — 8% of income from government
- Communities for Restorative Justice Inc — 8% of income from government
- One Can Help Inc — 8% of income from government
- Mill City Grows Inc — 7% of income from government
- Northeast Legal Aid Inc — 7% of income from government
- Open Table Inc — 7% of income from government
- Dwelling House of Hope Inc — 7% of income from government
- Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Inc — 7% of income from government
- Billerica Community Pantry Inc — 6% of income from government
- The Nature Connection Inc — 5% of income from government
- The Lowell General Hospital — 5% of income from government
- Gaining Ground Inc — 5% of income from government
- Project Learn Inc — 5% of income from government
- Massachusetts Alliance of Portuguese Speakers Inc — 4% of income from government
- Catie's Closet Inc — 4% of income from government
- The Drew Farmhouse Inc — 4% of income from government
- Merrimack Valley Food Bank Inc — 3% of income from government
- Discovery Museum Inc — 3% of income from government
- History Unerased Inc — 3% of income from government
- Girls Incorporated of Greater Lowell — 3% of income from government
- New England Quilt Museum Inc — 3% of income from government
- New England Dairy and Food Council — 2% of income from government
- Lowell Plan Inc — 2% of income from government
- Merrimack Repertory Theatre Inc — 2% of income from government
- Wayside Youth and Family Support Network Inc — 1% of income from government
- Massachusetts Audubon Society Inc — 1% of income from government
- Emerson Umbrella Inc — 1% of income from government
- House of Hope Inc — 1% of income from government
- Women's Money Matters Inc — 1% of income from government
- Minute Man Arc for Human Services Inc — 1% of income from government
- Groton Hill Music Inc — 0% of income from government
- Greater Lowell Chamber of Commerce Inc — 0% of income from government
- Philanthropy Massachusetts 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.