· Private foundation
Johnson 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 FY2021–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- $10k–50k13 grants · $343k
- $50k–250k15 grants · $879k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| LEADERSHIP BRAINERY | $100,000 |
| PARTNERS FOR YOUTH WITH DISABIITIES | $100,000 |
| SPOONFULS INC | $60,000 |
| MIT OFFICE OF ENGINEERING OUTREACH - | $60,000 |
| BREAK THROUGH CINCINNATI | $55,000 |
| CAMP STARFISH INC | $53,500 |
| FAMILIES 1ST PARENTING PROGRAMS INC | $50,000 |
| BOSTON AREA GLEANERS | $50,000 |
| MORE THAN WORDS INC | $50,000 |
| MISSIONSAFE A NEW BEGINNING | $50,000 |
| INNOVATORS FOR PURPOSE | $50,000 |
| THE WELCOME PROJECT | $50,000 |
| NEXT ONE UP FOUNDATION | $50,000 |
| UNCORNERED INC | $50,000 |
| MAY WE HELP | $50,000 |
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, $708k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 82% 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.
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 +36% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
31 repeat relationships — 26 still active in FY2025, 5 since wound down; 2 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, 95% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $55k 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
- SSPOONFULS5× · 2021–2025 · $300k · revenue +31%
- BCBreakthrough Cincinnati Inc5× · 2021–2025 · $265k · revenue +197%
- CSCAMP STARFISH INC5× · 2021–2025 · $253k · revenue +49%
Funded once
- EAENVISIONING ACCESS INCone grant, 2025 · $30k · revenue -43%
- AFARTS FOR LEARNING MASSACHUSETTS INCone grant, 2025 · $25k · 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.
Goodwill provides exceptional opportunities for people facing employment barriers.
We work to ensure that individuals with disabilities can live independently as equal members of society.
With love and respect, we partner with opportunity youth to build the skillsets and mindsets that lead to lifelong learning, livelihood, and leadership. youthbuild strives to create a world where all young people are seen for their…
To inspire excitement for learning, create paths to and through college, and promote careers in education.
The mission of the volunteer lawyers project of the boston bar association is to increase access to justice by delivering high quality pro bono civil legal services to eligible clients in the greater boston area.
Massachusetts education and career opportunities, inc. (massedco, inc.) is a statewide network of service sites that provides education and career advising to over 12,000 low-income, first generation individuals each year. massedco…
Digital Ready activates the creative potential of young adults, especially low-income residents, to build tangible pathways to economic opportunities in Boston's innovation economy.
Alternatives, inc.'s mission is to facilitate personal development,strengthen family relationships and enhance the community's well being. serving over 3,000 youth and families annually, the organization offers a range of counseling and…
Our mission is to mobilize people, partnerships and resources to catalyze change that strengthens the communities served.
Providing innovative and life-enriching services for children, adolescents, and adults with disabilities.
To employ, train, and empower youth to, in collaboration with adults, create peace, equity, and justice.
Maha breaks down barriers facing first-time and first-generation home buyers and owners through education, counseling, advocacy, and grassroots organizing.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is More Than Words Inc and the most unlike its peers is Inner City Youth Opportunities. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 27 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) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% 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.
28 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. 28 of the 33 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 SPOONFULS ↗
- Who funds Breakthrough Cincinnati Inc ↗
- Who funds CAMP STARFISH INC ↗
- Who funds MORE THAN WORDS INC ↗
- Who funds MISSIONSAFE A NEW BEGINNING INC ↗
- Who funds BOSTON AREA GLEANERS INC ↗
- Who funds THE WELCOME PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds UNCORNERED INC ↗
- Who funds NEXT ONE UP FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Leadership Brainery Inc ↗
- Who funds EL EDUCATION INC ↗
- Who funds Innovators for Purpose Inc ↗
- Who funds Critical Exposure Inc ↗
- Who funds MAY WE HELP INC ↗
- Who funds HAMILTON LIVING WATER MINISTRY INC ↗
- Who funds CRAYONS AND BEYOND INC ↗
- Who funds THE UNIVERSITY OF CINCINNATI FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds HOUSEHOLD GOODS INC ↗
- Who funds NEW LIFE FURNITURE BANK ↗
- Who funds A WIDER CIRCLE INC ↗
- Who funds HALEY HOUSE INC & AFFILIATES ↗
- Who funds INNER CITY YOUTH OPPORTUNITIES ↗
- Who funds THE LOOP LAB INC ↗
- Who funds NEW BEGINNINGS REENTRY SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds BE CONCERNED INC ↗
- Who funds PARTNERS FOR YOUTH WITH DISABILITIES INC ↗
- Who funds ENVISIONING ACCESS INC ↗
- Who funds ARTS FOR LEARNING MASSACHUSETTS INC ↗
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: Boston Foundation Inc · Cummings Foundation Grants Inc (Fka Oneworld Boston Inc) · Liberty Mutual Foundation Inc · Eastern Bank Foundation · Priscilla Alden Uwo · Edelweiss Foundation · Andrew Jergens Foundation · The Cabot Family Charitable Trust · Elsa M Heisel Sule Charitable Trust 2005 · Bushrod H Campbell & Adah F Hall Charity Fund · Nellie Mae Education Foundation Inc · Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston 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 Johnson 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.
- New Beginnings Reentry Services Inc — 42% of income from government
- Missionsafe a New Beginning Inc — 38% of income from government
- More Than Words Inc — 24% of income from government
- Uncornered Inc — 24% of income from government
- Boston Area Gleaners Inc — 20% of income from government
- Camp Starfish Inc — 18% of income from government
- A Wider Circle Inc — 6% of income from government
- The Welcome Project Inc — 4% of income from government
- Arts for Learning Massachusetts Inc — 4% 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.