· Private foundation
Harris J and Geraldine S Nelson 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.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2018–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k16 grants · $32k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $40k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| UNSCA FOUNDATION | $27,000 |
| THE CULTURAL LANDSCAPE FOUNDATION | $12,550 |
| WILDLIFE CONSERVATION NETWORK | $4,000 |
| KERES CHILDRENS LEARNING CENTER | $4,000 |
| SUNRISE CLINICS | $3,500 |
| PARTNERSHIP FOR PROVIDENCE PARKS | $3,000 |
| AMIGOS BRAVOS INC | $3,000 |
| CANCER FOUNDATION FOR NEW MEXICO | $3,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $3,000 |
| BREATH OF MY HEART BIRTHPLACE | $2,000 |
| AMERICAN HUMANE ASSOCIATION | $2,000 |
| COMMONWEALTH FOUNDATION | $1,000 |
| HARVARD LAMPOON TRUST | $1,000 |
| BRONXVILLE BEAUTIFICATION COUNCIL INC | $1,000 |
| BRONXVILLE HISTROCIAL CONSRVANCY | $1,000 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY18–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 82% of your 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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 5% of Harris J and Geraldine S Nelson Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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 +28% since the first grant, against +27% for the ones you funded once.
19 repeat relationships — 11 still active in FY2025, 8 since wound down; 7 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, 73% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $20k 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
- HLHARVARD LAMPOON TRUST6× · 2020–2025 · $55k · revenue +92%
- LCLAWRENCE COMMUNITY HEALTH SERVICES4× · 2019–2022 · $15k · revenue +34%
- CCCOMMONWEALTH CORPORATION FOUNDATION4× · 2022–2025 · $7k · revenue +721%
Funded once
- SFSANTA FE ART INSTITUTE INCgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $8k · revenue +141%
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2019 · $5k
- PPPLANNED PARENTHOOD OF THEone grant, 2024 · $5k
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.
The new york botanical garden is a museum of plants and a scientific research center devoted to the study of plants and their uses. it is the garden's mission to improve public understanding of the natural world, horticulture, and the…
The museum's mission statement is: "to discover, interpret, and disseminate - through scientific research and education - knowledge about human cultures, the natural world, and the universe."
The mission of the brooklyn institute of arts and sciences, d/b/a brooklyn museum (the "museum") is to bring people together through art and experiences that inspire celebration, compassion, courage, and the will to act. (see schedule o).
Brooklyn bridge park corporation's mission, d/b/a brooklyn bridge park ("bbp") mission is to provide an exceptional public space that connects people, nature, and the waterfront, through inclusive, innovative, and sustainable management…
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
To preserve the unique character and natural resources of harvard.
Organization's mission statement true to the ambitious vision of its founder and her spirit of creative risk-taking, the mission of the isabella stewart gardner museum is: - to bring to life and preserve the rich historic collection; - to…
The conservancy preserves and revitalizes new york's architecture. by doing so, it contributes to new york's economy, tourism and quality of life.
The mission of the alliance for flushing meadows corona park is to support nyc parks to preserve, maintain, and improve flushing meadows corona park for the benefit and use of the surrounding communities and all new yorkers.
See attached schedule othe conservancy has sole responsibility for managing all aspects of the rose kennedy greenway, including horticulture, programming, public art, maintenance, and capital improvements. we envision a vibrant, inclusive,…
To cultivate and develop an expansive collection of trees, gardens, and plants for all to explore, enjoy and study; and to provide through education and stewardship, a greener, healthier, more beautiful environment.
The governors island corporation, doing business as the trust for governors island, is the 501(c)(3) not-for-profit organization created by the city of new york and charged with the planning, redevelopment and ongoing operations of 150…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Cultural Landscape Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Bronxville Beautification Council. 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 29 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
23 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. 23 of the 35 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 HARVARD LAMPOON TRUST ↗
- Who funds THE CULTURAL LANDSCAPE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds LAWRENCE COMMUNITY HEALTH SERVICES ↗
- Who funds PARTNERSHIP FOR PROVIDENCE PARKS ↗
- Who funds SANTA FE ART INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds COMMONWEALTH CORPORATION FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CANCER FOUNDATION FOR NEW MEXICO ↗
- Who funds WILDLIFE CONSERVATION NETWORK INC ↗
- Who funds KERES CHILDREN'S LEARNING CENTER ↗
- Who funds SUNRISE CLINICS ↗
- Who funds Amigos Bravos Inc ↗
- Who funds THE BRONXVILLE SCHOOL FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE HORSE SHELTER ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE PUBLIC GARDEN INC ↗
- Who funds THE CHILDREN'S MUSEUM OF MEMPHIS INC ↗
- Who funds BRONXVILLE BEAUTIFICATION COUNCIL ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN HUMANE ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds BREATH OF MY HEART BIRTH PLACE ↗
- Who funds Bronxville Historical Conservancy Inc ↗
- Who funds PROPRIETORS OF THE BOSTON ATHENAEUM ↗
- Who funds GRAMATAN VILLAGE INC ↗
- Who funds ETHEL WALKER SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY LIBRARY FOUNDATION INCORPORATED ↗
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: Santa Fe Community Foundation · Marilynn and John Hill Foundation Inc · Tracy Flanigan McVey Family Foundation · The Nagle Family Foundation · The Joan C and David L Henle Foundation · Esmond Nissim Foundation Inc Co Bosworth Gray & Fuller Esq · Marshall L and Perrine D McCune Charitable Foundation Inc · Amg Charitable Gift Foundation · The Chicago Community Trust · Jewish Communal Fund · National Philanthropic Trust · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program
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 Harris J and Geraldine S Nelson 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.
- Friends of the Public Garden Inc — 1% of income from government
- Proprietors of the Boston Athenaeum — 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.
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Find your warmest path to Harris J and Geraldine S Nelson 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.