· Private foundation
Karen Sachs Besson Foundation Inc
Its FY2024 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 FY2020–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k5 grants · $20k
- $10k–50k7 grants · $90k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| VOICES FOR CHILDREN | $20,000 |
| EASTPORT YACHT CLUB FOUNDATION | $20,000 |
| NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO | $10,000 |
| MOVEABLE FEAST | $10,000 |
| THE AMERICAN ACADEMY IN BERLIN | $10,000 |
| HABITAT FOR HUMANITY | $10,000 |
| PRIDE OF BALTIMORE II INC | $10,000 |
| AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE | $8,000 |
| SPCA OF ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY | $5,000 |
| DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS | $5,000 |
| IMPACT100 GREATER CHESAPEAK | $2,100 |
| MARYLAND FOOD BANK | $15 |
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 (FY20–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 46% of your dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants spread fairly evenly across need levels.
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.
3 repeat relationships — 3 still active in FY2024, 0 since wound down; 9 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 25% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $82k 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
- VFVOICES FOR CHILDREN INC2× · 2020–2024 · $35k · revenue +51%
AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE2× · 2020–2024 · $13k · revenue +14%- TMTHE MARYLAND FOOD BANK INC2× · 2020–2024 · $10k · revenue +18%
Funded once
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2020 · $20k
- HEHOWARD ECOWORKS INCgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $15k · revenue +83%
- CACOMMUNITY ACTION COUNCIL OF HOWARD COUNTY MARYLAND INCgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $10k · revenue +87%
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.
To represent the business community of howard county, maryland
The maryland center on economic policy advances innovative policy ideas to foster broad prosperity and help our state be the standard-bearer for responsible public policy.
We are making maryland healthier by connecting residents to insurance and care, educating the community about healthier living, and advocating a more equitable health care system.
Mcfc builds an equitable, resilient and sustainable local food system through collaboration, transformation, and cultivation.mcfc envisions a vibrant and equitable food system that is healthy for our community, economy, and environment.
Council for court excellence's (cce's) mission is to bring people together to conduct research, educate, and advocate to make d.c.'s unique legal systems more just, equitable, and accountable to the community.
To establish and promote programs to protect the global climate, forests, wildlife and the natural environment, through research, advocacy, and investigation.
To drive transformational adaptation to protect communities across the country from higher seas, stronger storms, and more frequent flooding.
The association of washington cities builds connections between our state's diverse cities and towns, while providing our members with the support needed to thrive through delivery of data-driven education, nationally recognized pooling…
The american society for nutrition, inc. (asn) was established to advance health around the world through evidence based nutrition. this is accomplished through innovative programs and services designed to advance knowledge, create and…
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.
American foreign service association (afsa) is both the principal advocate for the long-term institutional wellbeing of the professional career foreign service and responsible for safeguarding the interest of afsa members. (continued on…
Create a more accessible, sustainable, prosperous and livable national capital region by being a discussion forum, expert resource, issue advocate, and catalyst for action.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Meals On Wheels of Central Marylandinc and the most unlike its peers is Impact 100 of the Greater Chesapeake Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
15 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. 15 of the 19 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 VOICES FOR CHILDREN INC ↗
- Who funds EASTPORT YACHT CLUB FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds HOWARD ECOWORKS INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF SCIENCE ↗
- Who funds THE MARYLAND FOOD BANK INC ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY ACTION COUNCIL OF HOWARD COUNTY MARYLAND INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN ACADEMY IN BERLIN ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO INC ↗
- Who funds MOVEABLE FEAST INC ↗
- Who funds MEALS ON WHEELS OF CENTRAL MARYLANDINC ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS OF ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY MD INC ↗
- Who funds CAROLINE CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds Impact 100 of the Greater Chesapeake Inc ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL PARK FOUNDATION ↗
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: American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile 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 Karen Sachs Besson Foundation Inc 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.
- Community Action Council of Howard County Maryland Inc — 44% of income from government
- Moveable Feast Inc — 18% of income from government
- The Maryland Food Bank Inc — 11% of income from government
- Howard Ecoworks Inc — 7% 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 Karen Sachs Besson Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to Karen Sachs Besson Foundation Inc 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.