· Private foundation
Jay Ramsdell 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.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| BOWDOIN COLLEGE | $1,500 |
| UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN MAINE | $1,500 |
| EASTERN MAINE TECHNICAL COLLEGE | $1,500 |
| MAINE SEACOAST MISSION DE FOOD | $1,100 |
| MDI HIGH SCHOOL ATHLETIC BOOSTERS | $1,100 |
| ELLSWORTH CHALLENGER LITTLE LEAGUE | $750 |
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 (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 85% 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.
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 +269% since the first grant, against +7% for the ones you funded once.
6 repeat relationships — 1 still active in FY2025, 5 since wound down; 5 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, 20% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $6k 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
- UOUNIVERSITY OF MAINE4× · 2020–2024 · $9k
- SMSEACOAST MISSION3× · 2019–2023 · $4k
- HUHusson University3× · 2018–2022 · $4k · revenue +34%
Funded once
- EAEMBRY-RIDDLE AERONAUTICAL UNIVERSITY INCone grant, 2024 · $3k · revenue +7%
- UOUNIVERSITY OF MAINE PRESQUE ISLEone grant, 2021 · $3k
- MCMAINE COLLEGE OF HEALTH PROFone grant, 2020 · $2k
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.
Western new england university, a comprehensive private institution with a tradition of excellence in teaching and scholarship and a commitment to service, awards undergraduate, master's, and doctoral degrees in various departments from…
Wake Forest University, a 501(c)(3) institution of higher education, is dedicated to the pursuit of excellence in the liberal arts and in graduate and professional education. The organization is comprised of seven constituent parts: Wake…
Dickinson college provides a useful, innovative and interdisciplinary education in the liberal arts and sciences to prepare students to lead rich and fulfilling lives of engaged global citizenship
Organization's mission bentley university believes good business can impact more than the bottom line - it can change the world. bentley is a community of future business leaders who will deliver value in the marketplace and lasting…
Lewis & clark is a premier private higher education institution offering an exceptional education in an inclusive environment. by fostering critical thinking, innovation, creativity, civic engagement, and leadership, both inside and…
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
Hastings college is a private, co-education, residential, liberal arts college founded in 1882.
See schedule omonmouth university is a comprehensive institution of higher education committed to excellence and integrity in teaching, scholarship and service. through its offerings in liberal arts, sciences, and professional programs,…
As a leading research university with a distinctive commitment to undergraduate education, Rice University aspires to path breaking research, unsurpassed teaching, and contributions to the betterment of our world. It seeks to fulfill this…
Enriched by the lasallian catholic heritage, saint mary's university of minnesota awakens, nurtures, and empowers learners to ethical lives of service and leadership.
to provide a rigorous and transformative liberal arts education that prepares students to become thoughtful, engaged citizens.
As a diverse community of learners, we cultivate integrity, curiosity, connection and resilience.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Hood College and the most unlike its peers is Bar Harbor Food Pantry. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
10 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. 10 of the 23 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 Husson University ↗
- Who funds EMBRY-RIDDLE AERONAUTICAL UNIVERSITY INC ↗
- Who funds BAR HARBOR FOOD PANTRY ↗
- Who funds LASELL UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds University of Miami ↗
- Who funds Harbor House Community Service Center ↗
- Who funds Bowdoin College ↗
- Who funds ENDICOTT COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds HOOD COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds MAINE BASKETBALL HALL OF FAME ↗
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 Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund
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 Jay Ramsdell 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.
- University of Miami — 5% of income from government
- Lasell University — 4% of income from government
- Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Inc — 3% of income from government
- Endicott College — 1% 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 Jay Ramsdell Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Jay Ramsdell 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.