· Private foundation
Helene & Bertram Bernhardt Foundation
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).
A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 65% of HELENE & BERTRAM BERNHARDT FOUNDATION’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 $10k8 grants · $13k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $72k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $169k
- $250k+1 grant · $255k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| TEMPLE BETH EL | $254,675 |
| JEWISH ALLIANCE OF GREATER RI | $85,000 |
| JEWISH COLLABORATIVE SERVICES | $84,459 |
| CAMP JORI | $25,000 |
| MIRIAM HOSPITAL | $20,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $15,000 |
| JEWISH COMMUNITY DAY SCHOOL | $12,000 |
| JEWISH COMMITTEE ON SCOUTING | $4,500 |
| INSIGHT RI | $3,500 |
| RI JEWISH HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION | $2,000 |
| PROVIDENCE PUBLIC LIBRARY | $500 |
| JUSTICE ASSISTANCE | $500 |
| CITY YEAR PROVIDENCE | $500 |
| INSPIRING MINDS | $500 |
| PROVIDENCE COMMUNITY LIBRARIES | $500 |
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, $1.1M) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 14%. 83% 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 +21% since the first grant, against +8% for the ones you funded once.
30 repeat relationships — 11 still active in FY2025, 19 since wound down; 4 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, 96% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $21k 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
- JAJEWISH ALLIANCE OF GREATER RHODE ISLAND6× · 2019–2025 · $450k · revenue +1%
- JCJewish Childrens Home of RI Inc6× · 2017–2025 · $226k · revenue +253%
The Miriam Hospital3× · 2023–2025 · $82k · revenue +17%
Funded once
- HAHILLEL AT UNIVERSITY OF RHODE ISLANDone grant, 2023 · $24k
- CBCOMMUNITY BEIT MIDRASH OF RIone grant, 2024 · $5k
- TTHRIVEgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $4k · revenue +623%
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 only law school in Rhode Island, Roger Williams University School of Law offers future attorneys a rigorous, hands-on legal education in a supportive, personalized environment. Preparing students for success in the public and private…
The organization's mission is to eliminate health disparities in rhode island and beyond. the organization develops innovative public health programs, conducts translational and policy research, provides clinical services, and trains…
Mjhs health system is a charitable not-for-profit established to support the activities of affiliated organizations. mjhs is built on the core values of compassion, dignity and respect, first established by the four brooklyn ladies in…
The mission of uri hillel is to enrich the lives of jewish students at the university of rhode island so that they may enrich the jewish people and the world.
The organization's mission is to manage a continuum of senior care business lines that consistently provide high-quality compassionate care while focusing on the development of innovative programs and services that enable individuals to…
To represent every constituency of healthcare leadership, as well as health insurance, consumer and public interest. to work collaboratively, come up with innovative solutions, champion changes throughout our organizations, and dedicate…
To empower individuals from diverse communities to find employment and build careers, while partnering with employers to hire, develop, and retain productive workforces.
To be a proactive advocate for the hospitals in rhode island that is capable of working for and with the hospitals to positively influence public opinion, legislative outcomes and regulatory policy. the purpose of such advocacy is to…
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…
Delivering health with care.
The jewish agency binds jews across ideologies and civilizations together in a worldwide jewish family with israel at its center. it provides the global framework for aliyah, ensures global jewish safety, strengthens jewish identity and…
Rippowam Cisqua School creates independent thinkers, confident communicators, and engaged leaders who respect and contribute meaningfully to a diverse and increasingly complex global society.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Jewish Alliance of Greater Rhode Island and the most unlike its peers is Providence Public Library. 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 38 years old; the field is 20. 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.
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 44 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 JEWISH ALLIANCE OF GREATER RHODE ISLAND ↗
- Who funds JEWISH COLLABORATIVE SERVICES ↗
- Who funds Jewish Childrens Home of RI Inc ↗
- Who funds The Miriam Hospital ↗
- Who funds The Miriam Hospital Foundation ↗
- Who funds THE JEWISH SENIORS AGENCY OF RHODE ISLAND ↗
- Who funds JEWISH FAMILY SERVICE INC ↗
- Who funds BROWN HILLEL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds IN-SIGHT ↗
- Who funds THE RHODE ISLAND COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE SANDRA BORNSTEIN HOLOCAUST EDUCATION CENTER ↗
- Who funds ROGER WILLIAMS UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds THRIVE ↗
- Who funds PROVIDENCE PUBLIC LIBRARY ↗
- Who funds AMOS HOUSE ↗
- Who funds Community Libraries of Providence ↗
- Who funds INSPIRING MINDS ↗
- Who funds The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Inc ↗
- Who funds GREENLOCK THERAPEUTIC RIDING CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds GOTTA HAVE SOLE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds CITY YEAR INC ↗
- Who funds JUSTICE ASSISTANCE CORP ↗
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: The Rhode Island Community Foundation · Gertrude N & Seebert J Goldowsky Foundation · The Champlin Foundation · Citizens Charitable Foundation · Amica Companies Foundation · Winstead Charitable Foundation Tr · The Pearle W & Martin M Silverstein Foundation · Ress Family Foundation · Ira S& Anna Galkin Charitable Tr · The Sand Foundation · Forman Family Charitable Trust · The Norman and Rosalie Fain Family 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 Helene & Bertram Bernhardt 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 or a single department — and drag the year to watch it move.
- City Year Inc — 11% 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 Helene & Bertram Bernhardt Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Helene & Bertram Bernhardt 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.