· Private foundation
Highstead Foundation Inc
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 FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k2 grants · $10k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $20k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $184k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| UNIVERSITY SYSTEM OF NEW HAMPSHIRE | $114,485 |
| Individual grant recipient | $69,455 |
| POLLINATOR PATHWAY INC | $20,000 |
| ECOLOGICAL HEALTH NETWORK | $8,890 |
| THE NORTHEAST ORGANIC FARMING ASSOCIATION OF CONNECTICUT | $1,040 |
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 (FY20–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 87% 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.
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 71% of Highstead Foundation Inc’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. Read by recipient address, 88% of the giving stays in CT; read by stated purpose it is 17% — less of the work is directed home than the recipients' locations suggest.
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 +98% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
4 repeat relationships — 2 still active in FY2025, 2 since wound down; 3 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, 86% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $30k 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
- IGIndividual grant recipient6× · 2020–2025 · $1.3M
- USUNIVERSITY SYSTEM OF NEW HAMPSHIRE3× · 2023–2025 · $236k
- LILINCOLN INSTITUTE OF LAND POLICY4× · 2020–2023 · $226k · revenue +98%
Funded once
- UOUNIVERSTIY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERSTone grant, 2023 · $30k
- COCITY OF NORWALK DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKSone grant, 2022 · $10k
- NLNORWALK LAND TRUST INCone grant, 2024 · $2k · revenue -82%
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 primary mission of Redding Land Trust is to preserve the natural resources of the Town of Redding, CT and to promote the scientific and educational study of local and natural resources, and to acquire, by gift or purchase, land or…
TO ENCOURAGE THE PRESERVATION OF OPEN SPACE IN NORFOLK, CT AND surrounding communities FOR THE PUBLIC BENEFIT AND TO SERVE AS A VEHICLE FOR managing and maintaining LAND THAT HAS BEEN SET ASIDE FOR OPEN SPACE PURPOSES: (1) Land easements,…
Kestrel land trust conserves and cares for forests, farms, and riverways in the connecticut river valley of western massachusetts while nurturing an enduring love of the land
Nod Road Preservation, Inc. aims to protect the natural beauty, country peacefulness, and authentic charm associated with Nod Road and the greater Farmington Valley through
The purpose of the association is to provide for the protection and general welfare of the residents and owners of real property in the northeastern section of greenwich, connecticut, including the preservation of the residential character…
The Candlewood Valley Regional Land Trust protects open spaces that contribute to the Candlewood Valley iconic rural New England character.
To obtain property by gift or purchase and to provide for the benefit of the general public the preservation of the land and its natural resources.
Preserve the natural resources on the northern CT region including agricultural land and other ecologically significant open space.
To provide leadership and take initiatives for locally led conservation with the goal to protect soil, water and other natural resources of north central connecticut.
Help ensure protection of open space land in the town of Litchfield CT by acquiring conservation easements and properties to be held in fee simple in their natural state in perpetuity and by informing and educating the public of the…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Northeast Organic Farming Assoc of Connecticut Inc and the most unlike its peers is Lincoln Institute of Land Policy. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
8 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. 8 of the 12 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 LINCOLN INSTITUTE OF LAND POLICY ↗
- Who funds Norwalk River Watershed Association Inc ↗
- Who funds POLLINATOR PATHWAY INC ↗
- Who funds Yale University ↗
- Who funds ECOLOGICAL HEALTH NETWORK INC ↗
- Who funds NORWALK LAND TRUST INC ↗
- Who funds NORTHEAST ORGANIC FARMING ASSOC OF CONNECTICUT INC ↗
- Who funds NORWALK TREE ALLIANCE ↗
Government reliance of your grantees
Every dot is one organization Highstead 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 or a single department — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Northeast Organic Farming Assoc of Connecticut Inc — 13% of income from government
- Yale University — 13% 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 Highstead Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to Highstead Foundation Inc 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.