· Private foundation
John and Judith Nelson Family 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 FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k24 grants · $50k
- $10k–50k5 grants · $76k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| THE SMALL WORLD | $20,000 |
| MASSACHUSETTS DOWN SYNDROME CONGRESS | $20,000 |
| LAHEY CLINIC | $15,000 |
| WILDLIFE CONSERVATION NETWORK | $11,250 |
| BELKNAP HOUSE | $10,000 |
| DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS | $7,500 |
| INTERNATIONAL RESCUE COMMITTEE | $6,500 |
| PLEDGE THE PINK FOUNDATION | $4,000 |
| HEIFER INTERNATIONAL FOUNDATION | $3,750 |
| WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN | $2,500 |
| PANTHERA CORPORATION | $2,500 |
| MANNA FOOD BANK | $2,500 |
| CHEETAH CONSERVATION FUND | $2,500 |
| OCEAN CONSERVANCY | $2,000 |
| NEW ENGLAND DISABLED SPORTS | $2,000 |
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 (FY21–25, $24k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 25% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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 +29% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
23 repeat relationships — 12 still active in FY2025, 11 since wound down; 17 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, 69% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $40k 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
NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY5× · 2020–2024 · $110k · revenue +63%- LCLAHEY CLINIC INC7× · 2018–2025 · $110k · revenue +24%
MAKE-A-WISH FOUNDATION OF MASSACHUSETTS AND RHODE ISLAND INC5× · 2017–2022 · $110k · revenue +11%
Funded once
- OOORDER OF MALTA WORLDWIDE RELIEF MALTESER INTERNATIONAL AMERICASone grant, 2023 · $5k · revenue -46%
- HFHORIZONS FOR HOMELESS CHILDRENgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $5k · revenue +31%
- I6Isaiah 61 Cafeone grant, 2024 · $3k · revenue 0%
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.
Ci works to spotlight and secure the critical benefits that nature provides to humanity.
Project drawdown's mission is to drive meaningful climate action by advancing science-based solutions and strategies. project drawdown's work is focused on three pillars: science - advancing science-based climate solutions and strategies;…
(msh) saves lives and improves the health of the world's poorest (see schedule o) and most vulnerable people by closing the gap between knowledge and action in public health.
To engage and catalyze global seafood supply chains in rebuilding depleted fish stocks and reducing the environmental impacts of fishing and fish farming.
Conservation law foundation, inc. (clf) protects new england's environment for the benefit of all people and future generations. we use the law, science, and markets to create solutions that preserve and restore our natural resources,…
Susan g. komen 's mission is to save lives by meeting the most critical needs in our communities & investing in breakthrough research to prevent & cure breast cancer.
Leadership in the prevention, treatment, and cure of cancer through excellence, vision and cost effectiveness in patient care, outreach programs, research, and education.
Dedicated to improving the quality of life of myeloma patients while working toward prevention and a cure.
Our mission is to break down barriers to als research to find effective treatments. by uniting academia, the pharma and biotech industry, government, venture capital, related nonprofits, and the als community, we aim to overcome the…
Operate a state-of-the-art, world-class genomic research center that creates and uses advanced genomics to understand the genetic basis of disease. for more information, see schedule o.
Increase societal understanding of the earth system through scientific research and education.
Chemists without borders is a global humanitarian organization committed to sustainable and equitable solutions that empower communities and improve overall well-being. our strategic framework is: service - developing, facilitating, and…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Make-a-Wish Foundation of Massachusetts and Rhode Island Inc and the most unlike its peers is Seven Mile Music. 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 33 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 2% lost their exemption, against 11% 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.
46 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. 46 of the 62 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 NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds LAHEY CLINIC INC ↗
- Who funds MAKE-A-WISH FOUNDATION OF MASSACHUSETTS AND RHODE ISLAND INC ↗
- Who funds MASSACHUSETTS DOWN SYNDROME CONGRESS INC ↗
- Who funds ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INC ↗
- Who funds GLOBALGIVING FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Belknap House ↗
- Who funds TRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds MANNA FOOD BANK INC ↗
- Who funds NEW ENGLAND DISABLED SPORTS ↗
- Who funds SMILE TRAIN INC ↗
- Who funds WILDLIFE CONSERVATION NETWORK INC ↗
- Who funds ASHEVILLE AREA HABITAT FOR HUMANITY INC ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds PLEDGE THE PINK FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN INC ↗
- Who funds International Rescue Committee INC ↗
- Who funds ASHEVILLE SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds ORDER OF MALTA WORLDWIDE RELIEF MALTESER INTERNATIONAL AMERICAS ↗
- Who funds HORIZONS FOR HOMELESS CHILDREN ↗
- Who funds CYSTIC FIBROSIS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds WORLD WILDLIFE FUND INC ↗
- Who funds HEIFER INTERNATIONAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Isaiah 61 Cafe ↗
- Who funds SAMARITAN'S PURSE ↗
- Who funds THE CAJUN NAVY RELIEF INC ↗
- Who funds THE ANDREW MCDONOUGH B FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CLEAN AIR TASK FORCE INC ↗
- Who funds PANTHERA CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds Cheetah Conservation Fund ↗
- Who funds OCEAN CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds ALL HANDS AND HEARTS SMART RESPONSE INC ↗
- Who funds Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Inc ↗
- Who funds SEVEN MILE MUSIC ↗
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: Duke Energy Foundation · Shell USA Company Foundation · Silicon Valley Community Foundation · Verizon Foundation · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Raymond James Charitable Endowment Fund · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · Paypal Charitable Giving Fund · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program
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 John and Judith Nelson Family 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.
- Horizons for Homeless Children — 21% of income from government
- Trustees of Boston University — 12% of income from government
- Northeastern University — 7% of income from government
- Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Inc — 7% of income from government
- Lahey Clinic Inc — 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.