· Private foundation
Irving Foundation
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k8 grants · $37k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $10k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| PALAVER STRINGS | $10,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $7,800 |
| THE CONNECTICUT INVENTION CONVENTION INC | $5,000 |
| DREAMS FOR SCHOOLS | $5,000 |
| GIVE MUSIC | $5,000 |
| FRIENDS OF BAXTER STATE PARK | $5,000 |
| MAINE GEARSHARE | $5,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $2,500 |
| SKOWHEGAN AREA YOUTH GROUP | $1,400 |
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 (FY17–22, $33k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 62% 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 +46% since the first grant, against +44% for the ones you funded once.
14 repeat relationships — 1 still active in FY2025, 13 since wound down; 8 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, 11% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $42k 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
- ACAngelica Center for Arts and Music3× · 2019–2021 · $23k · revenue +19%
- OMOUT METROWEST INC2× · 2018–2019 · $20k · revenue +149%
- 1R18 Reasons2× · 2019–2021 · $17k · revenue +241%
Funded once
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2017 · $20k
- TMTHE MINGA FOUNDATIONone grant, 2019 · $15k · revenue -82%
- AIAWARE INCgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $15k · revenue +62%
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.
MCAN catalyzes transformative education and action in response to the climate crisis. We seek to honor, unite and amplify the voices of youth, frontline communities, and others historically excluded from the climate conversation and…
The Academy is dedicated to academic excellence, commitment to the performing arts, leadership, integrity, and a virtuous code of conduct, all of which prepare students to meet the demands of a contemporary world through thoughtful…
The purpose of the children's discovery museum is to provide an array of exhibits and activities that promote developmental skills including social, cognitive, problem solving and peer interaction. our environment creates an interactive…
The mission of the ecology learning center is to deeply root students in Maine's ecological & cultural landscapes, foster authentic real-world learning through mentorship & craft, and cultivate compassionate and resilient leaders prepared…
The mission of the Maine Museum of Photographic Arts is to inspire, engage and educate through the exhibition, preservation and collection of photographic works. The Museums programs address contemporary, historical, cultural and…
Maine Media Workshops & College educates and inspires visual artists and storytellers to achieve their creative potential. We provide lifelong learning opportunities for those pursuing the fine arts and media-related professions. We are…
The maine discovery museum helps people of all ages to discover the world around them through creative exploration and science.
To connect Maine students to life-changing outdoor experiences.
The mission of ArtStart, founded in 1988, has remained constant over its 36-year history: to foster artistic creativity and illuminate the connections among people, ideas, and the environment. Our artists engage children, families, and…
To connect people to the past, present, and future of Maine's waterways and their global reach.
Island readers & writers' mission is to inspire a passion for reading and learning. we do this by bringing children's books and the authors and illustrators who created them together with children and providing professional development…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Trekkers Inc and the most unlike its peers is Sanford-Springvale Mousam Way Land Trust. 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 19 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) — 14% of your grantees by number, and just 8% 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.
50 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. 50 of the 67 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 SOLAR YOUTH INC ↗
- Who funds Angelica Center for Arts and Music ↗
- Who funds OUT METROWEST INC ↗
- Who funds 18 Reasons ↗
- Who funds MAINE INSIDE OUT ↗
- Who funds THE MINGA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Robbie Foundation ↗
- Who funds Abbe Museum ↗
- Who funds AWARE INC ↗
- Who funds THE BOOK TRUCK INC ↗
- Who funds FEDERAL HILL HOUSE ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds MIDCOAST LITERACY ↗
- Who funds Foundation for Portland Public Schools ↗
- Who funds AARONS PRESENTS INC ↗
- Who funds THE DISCOVERY MUSEUM INC ↗
- Who funds PALAVER STRINGS INC ↗
- Who funds THE DERRYFIELD SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds Maine GearShare ↗
- Who funds The Yellow Tulip Project ↗
- Who funds ARTVAN ↗
- Who funds Mycelium Youth Network ↗
- Who funds HOME RESOURCE INC ↗
- Who funds CONNECTICUT CENTER FOR NONVIOLENCE ↗
- Who funds GIVE MUSIC INC ↗
- Who funds ARTogether ↗
- Who funds 317 Main St Community Center Inc ↗
- Who funds DREAMS FOR SCHOOLS ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN'S MUSEUM OF NEW HAMPSHIRE ↗
- Who funds 15 MINUTE FIELD TRIPS ↗
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: Maine Community Foundation Inc · Onion Foundation · Sam L Cohen Foundation · Bangor Savings Bank Foundation · Elmina B Sewall Foundation · Simmons Foundation - PerkinsThompson · Stephen & Tabitha King Foundation Inc · Davis Family Foundation · Agnes M Lindsay Trust · Androscoggin Bank's Mainstreet Fdn Portland Trust Company LLC · Leonard C & Mildred F Ferguson Foundation · Peoples United Community 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 Irving 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.
- Give Music Inc — 56% of income from government
- Solar Youth Inc — 19% of income from government
- The Discovery Museum Inc — 15% of income from government
- Gather New Haven Inc (Formely New Haven Land Trust Inc) — 11% of income from government
- Out Metrowest Inc — 9% 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 Irving Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Irving 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.