How much does Half Moon Foundation give?

Half Moon Foundation reported 41 grants totaling $315,500 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 36 and 42 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does Half Moon Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Education (53%), International (12%), Health (11%).

Who are Half Moon Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: The New Canaan Library Inc ($618k), Millbrook School ($503k), Americares Foundation Inc ($344k).

Does Half Moon Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 3% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Half Moon 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 Half Moon Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Hobbs Family Charitable Trust, New Canaan Community Foundation Inc, MLE Foundation Inc.

Where is Half Moon Foundation based?

Half Moon Foundation is based in CT.

Half Moon Foundation

Half Moon Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

Half Moon 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.

$316k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$102k

Largest

01What it funds

0195% classified

What it funded, over time

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

Education$1.5MInternational$344kHealth$300kEnvironment$261kArts & Culture$86kReligion$65kHuman Services$56kYouth Development$53kOther$0

02FY2025 · 41 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k32 grants · $78k
$10k–50k8 grants · $136k
$50k–250k1 grant · $102k

$3,000

Median grant

States reached

$1.1M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
NEW CANAAN LIBRARY	$102,000
STEPPING STONES MUSEUM	$36,000
STAMFORD HOSPITAL FOUNDATION	$20,000
MCLEAN HOSPITAL	$20,000
WILLIAMS COLLEGE	$15,000
AMERICARES	$15,000
NATURE CONSERVANCY	$10,000
CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH OF NEW CANAAN	$10,000
SquashBridge	$10,000
NEW CANAAN MOUNTED TROOP INC	$7,000
NEW CANAAN COUNTRY SCHOOL	$6,000
FRIENDS OF ACADIA	$6,000
NATIONAL FOREST FOUNDATION	$5,000
DANA-FARBER CANER INSTITUTE	$5,000
Individual grant recipient	$5,000

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 (FY17–24, $6k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 0% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants skew toward lower-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.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

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

99%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$2.6M · 50 repeat orgs$22k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +49% since the first grant, against +44% for those funded once.

50 repeat relationships: 36 still active in FY2025, 14 since wound down; 2 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$2.6M

$12k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+49%

+44%

Still filing today

64%

63%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 97% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $10k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

EducationHealthEnvironmentArts & CultureRecreation & SportsYouth DevelopmentOther

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

TN
THE NEW CANAAN LIBRARY INC
9× · 2017–2025 · $618k · revenue +27%
MS
MILLBROOK SCHOOL
9× · 2017–2025 · $503k · revenue +46%
Williams College
9× · 2017–2025 · $197k · revenue +87%

Funded once

VE
Veterans Expeditions Inc
one grant, 2021 · $5k · revenue +2%
TS
The Stamford Hospitalgraduated
one grant, 2020 · $3k · revenue +38%
DL
DUNCAN LOUIS STEWART FELLOWSHIP
one grant, 2018 · $1k

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.

University of New Haven

The University of New Haven is a student-centered comprehensive university with an emphasis on excellence in liberal arts and professional education. Our mission is to prepare our students to lead purposeful and fulfilling lives in a…

Education

Northeast College of Health Sciences

Northeast college of health sciences (the college) is committed to academic excellence, leadership, and professional best practices in the health sciences.

Education

United States Naval Institute

Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.

—

Boston Architectural College

The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.

—

Neurology Associates of Stony Brook University Faculty Practice Corp

Provide clinical instruction to and supervision of medical school students, interns and residents and, incident thereto, rendering professional services.

Health

Stony Brook Internists University Faculty Practice Corporation

Provide clinical instruction to and supervision of medical school students, interns and residents and, incident thereto, rendering professional services.

Health

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

Stony Brook Surgical Associates University Faculty Practice Corporation

Provide clinical instruction to and supervision of medical school students, interns and residents and, incident thereto, rendering professional services.

Health

Stony Brook Urology University Faculty Practice Corporation

Provide clinical instruction to and supervision of medical school students, interns and residents and, incident thereto, rendering professional services.

Health

Saint Anselm College

Saint anselm is a catholic, benedictine college providing all of its students a distinctive liberal arts education that incorporates opportunities for professional and career preparation. it does so in a learning community that encourages…

Education

Northfield Mount Hermon School

Northfield mount hermon educates the head, heart and hands of our students. we engage their intellect, compassion, and talents, empowering them to act with humanity and purpose.

Education

Eastern National

Eastern national promotes the public's understanding and support of america's national parks and other public trust partners by providing quality educational experiences, products and services.

Recreation & Sports

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is New Canaan Land Conservation Trust Inc; the most unlike its peers is Duncan Louis Stewart Foundation Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

04the grantee network

42 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

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 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 42 of the 63 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)

42/42

Grantees still filing

35/42

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Education$1,459,800Other$795,150International$344,120Environment$97,250Health$60,500Philanthropy$21,650Animals$16,000

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.

Hobbs Family Charitable TrustCT24.2× affinity9 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Hobbs Family Charitable Trust · New Canaan Community Foundation Inc · MLE Foundation Inc · Jim and Dede Bartlett Foundation · The Queenan Fdn Acct · The Rein Family Foundation Inc · Squier Family Foundation · The Morris Family Foundation · Jeniam Foundation · Fairfield County's Community Foundation Inc · The Kontulis Fund · The Ward 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 Half Moon Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Half Moon Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

11get no government money at all

7report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely 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.

Play a game based on Half Moon’s 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