· Private foundation
James Ford Bell 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 FY2019–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k45 grants · $153k
- $10k–50k11 grants · $203k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $210k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA FOUNDATION (BELL MUSEUM) | $210,000 |
| THE SOURCE | $35,000 |
| MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY | $26,000 |
| AMERICAN ALLIANCE OF MUSEUMS | $25,000 |
| LEARNING ALLIANCE | $25,000 |
| MINNEAPOLIS INSTITUTE OF ARTS | $25,000 |
| RIVERSIDE THEATER | $15,000 |
| SENIOR RESOURCE FOUNDATION | $11,905 |
| HUMANE SOCIETY | $10,050 |
| WESTMINSTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH | $10,000 |
| CHILDCARE RESOURCES OF INDIAN RIVER | $10,000 |
| MINNESOTA ORCHESTRA | $10,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH DAKOTA FOUNDATION (NATIONAL MUSIC MUSEUM) | $9,000 |
| BELWIN CONSERVANCY | $8,000 |
| DUNWOODY INSTITUTE | $7,000 |
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.
Your human-services grants (FY19–25, $88k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 99% 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.
86 repeat relationships — 53 still active in FY2025, 33 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, 61% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $219k 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
- MSMINNEAPOLIS SOCIETY OF FINE ARTS DBA MINNEAPOLIS INSTITUTE OF ARTS7× · 2019–2025 · $162k · revenue +18%
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF MUSEUMS7× · 2019–2025 · $160k · revenue +11%- MHMINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY7× · 2019–2025 · $114k · revenue +43%
Funded once
- DPDIFFERENCE PRINCIPLE(SOBER JUSTICE FUND)one grant, 2021 · $13k
- TDTHE DIFFERENCE PRINCIPLE INCgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $13k · revenue +39%
- UOUNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA FOUNDATION (RAPTOR CENTER )one grant, 2023 · $10k
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 purpose of the water research foundation (wrf) is a definitive research organization to advance the science of all things water to better meet the evolving needs of its subscribers and the water sector. to engage exclusively in…
The minnesota land trust protects and restores minnesota's most vital natural lands in order to provide wildlife habitat, clean water, outdoor experiences and scenic beauty for generations to come.
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.
The aquarium of the pacific's mission is to instill a sense of wonder, respect, and stewardship for the pacific ocean, its inhabitants, and ecosystems.
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.
To support healthy communities and a healthy earth, the institute for conservation leadership strengthens leaders, organizations, coalitions and networks.
To promote public health, safety, and welfare through the improvement of the quality and quantity of drinking water and the development and furtherance of understanding of the problems relating thereto.
To be the leading voice of medicine to make minnesota the healthiest state and the best place to practice.
Naples zoo is accredited by the american zoo & aquarium association (aza) and has numerous animal exhibits placed on its 45-acre site. (continued on schedule o)each exhibit is unique and designed to simulate typical conditions for the…
Finance impacts everyone. as a socially relevant organization, the museum of american finance seeks to improve understanding of the influence of financial institutions and capital markets on the u.s. and global economies, and on…
The organization's mission is to conserve and promote new england's native plants to ensure healthy, biologically diverse landscapes.
The minnesota business partnership's mission is to maintain a high quality of life for all minnesotans by ensuring that the state's economy remains strong, globally competitive and its prospects for growth bright by working with elected…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Wild Salmon Center and the most unlike its peers is The Braxton Stuntz Foundation. 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 36 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 — 1% 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.
69 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. 69 of the 118 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 MINNEAPOLIS SOCIETY OF FINE ARTS DBA MINNEAPOLIS INSTITUTE OF ARTS ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF MUSEUMS ↗
- Who funds MINNESOTA HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds RIVERSIDE THEATRE INC ↗
- Who funds MINNESOTA ORCHESTRAL ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds THE LEARNING ALLIANCE INC ↗
- Who funds CHILDCARE RESOURCES OF INDIAN RIVER INC ↗
- Who funds CONNECTICUT COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds BELWIN CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds MINNESOTA PUBLIC RADIO AMERICAN PUBLIC MEDIA ↗
- Who funds MILLBROOK SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds Delta Waterfowl Foundation ↗
- Who funds YOUTH SAILING FOUNDATION OF INDIAN RIVER ↗
- Who funds INDIAN RIVER LAND TRUST INC ↗
- Who funds FIREFIGHTERS FOR HEALING ↗
- Who funds HENNEPIN HEALTH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds INDIAN RIVER GOLF FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds INDIAN RIVER HOSPITAL FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds MENTAL HEALTH COLLABORATIVE OF INDIAN RIVER COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival ↗
- Who funds THE BLAKE SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds FOOD BANK FOR MONTEREY COUNTY ↗
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: Indian River Community Foundation Inc · The John's Island Foundation Inc · Bernard a Egan Foundation Inc · John's Island Community Service League Inc · Olivia Delacruz Foundation Inc · Grand Harbor Community Outreach Program Inc · Quail Valley Charities Inc · The Kahle Foundation Inc · Archie S Wingfield Jr Charitable Trust U/A/D 5/15/1995 · The Schooner Foundation · Jake Owen Foundation · United Way of Indian River County Inc
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 James Ford Bell 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.
- Wild Salmon Center — 49% of income from government
- The Children's Home Society of Florida — 6% of income from government
- Treasure Coast Food Bank Inc — 2% of income from government
- United Way of Indian River County Inc — 1% of income from government
- Indian River Land Trust Inc — 0% of income from government
- Connecticut College — 0% of income from government
- The Learning Alliance Inc — 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to James Ford Bell Foundation?
Find your warmest path to James Ford Bell 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.