· Private foundation
Kestrel Foundation of Maine
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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k14 grants · $27k
- $10k–50k3 grants · $41k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $181k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| THE GIRLS FOUNDATION OF TANZANIA | $180,500 |
| EASTERN MAINE CONSERVATION INITIATIVE | $20,541 |
| THE CHAPIN SCHOOL | $10,300 |
| BAY CHAMBER CONCERTS & MUSIC SCHOOL | $10,000 |
| ONE PLYMPTON PRESERVATION FOUNDATION | $6,000 |
| THE LANDING SCHOOL | $5,000 |
| MAINE COAST HERITAGE TRUST | $5,000 |
| MISS PORTER'S SCHOOL | $2,500 |
| AFRICA SCHOOLHOUSE | $1,000 |
| PALAVER STRINGS | $1,000 |
| ST PAUL'S SCHOOL | $1,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $1,000 |
| SMITH COLLEGE | $1,000 |
| FOUNDATION FOR AFRICAN MEDICINE & EDUCATION | $1,000 |
| PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF NORTHERN NEW ENGLAND | $1,000 |
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 (FY17–24, $464k) land where the poverty rate runs at 7%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 0% 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 +52% since the first grant, against +44% for the ones you funded once.
29 repeat relationships — 18 still active in FY2024, 11 since wound down.
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, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
- TGThe Girls Foundation of Tanzania8× · 2017–2024 · $464k · revenue +283% · 43% of their budget
Portland Museum of Art4× · 2019–2022 · $100k · revenue +17%- EMEastern Maine Conservation Initiative6× · 2017–2024 · $59k · revenue +70% · 31% of their budget
Funded once
- WSWAYNFLETE SCHOOLgraduatedone grant, 2018 · $1k · revenue +54%
- BFBROADREACH FAMILY & COMMUNITY SERVICESone grant, 2018 · $1k
- TRTRAVIS ROY FOUNDATIONone grant, 2020 · $1k
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.
Maine Media Workshops & College educates and inspires visual artists and storytellers to achieve their creative potential. We provide lifelong learning opportunities for those pursuing the fine arts and media-related professions. We are…
Maine Historical Society, founded in 1822, is a private non-profit whose mission is to preserve and share Maine's story. Based in Portland, we work closely with communities and partners throughout the state, and serve a statewide and…
Bates is a college of the liberal arts and sciences, and is a coeducational, nonsectarian, residential college with special commitments to academic rigor, and to assuring in all of its efforts the dignity of each individual, and access to…
To connect people to the past, present, and future of Maine's waterways and their global reach.
The mission of Midcoast Conservancy is to protect vital lands and waters on a scale that matters and to inspire wonder and action on behalf of all species and the Earth.
Maine Farmland Trust protects farmland, supports farmers, and advances the future of farming.
To enhance, every day, the health of our patients, our families and our communities. We do that through a range of health care services for people of all ages, in a variety of care settings.
Dartmouth College educates the most promising students and prepares them for a lifetime of learning and of responsible leadership, through a faculty dedicated to teaching and the creation of knowledge.
The mission of Islesboro Islands Trust is to enhance the quality of residents' lives through the preservation of open space, educate all residents as to the value of the island's natural ecosystems, and act as an environmental advocate on…
Kennebunk Land Trust's mission is to permanently conserve and steward land to benefit natural and human communities.
The Maine Philanthropy Center (MPC) is the state's leading resource that provides opportunity, leadership and support to advance the effectiveness of philanthropy in Maine and its ability to make a meaningful difference. It helps grant…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is North Yarmouth Academy and the most unlike its peers is Great Mountain Forest Corporation. 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 43 years old; the field is 21. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 16% startups (under 5 years old) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 8% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 2% lost their exemption, against 9% 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.
56 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. 56 of the 81 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 The Girls Foundation of Tanzania ↗
- Who funds Portland Museum of Art ↗
- Who funds Eastern Maine Conservation Initiative ↗
- Who funds One Plympton Preservation Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds ST PAUL'S SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds Maine Coast Heritage Trust ↗
- Who funds THE CHAPIN SCHOOL LTD ↗
- Who funds THE TRUSTEES OF THE SMITH COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds MISS PORTER'S SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds Planned Parenthood of Northern New England Inc ↗
- Who funds President and Fellows of Harvard College ↗
- Who funds PALAVER STRINGS INC ↗
- Who funds ATLANTIC CHALLENGE FOUNDATION INC DBA THE APPRENTICESHOP ↗
- Who funds WAYNFLETE SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds THE MICHAEL J FOX FOUNDATION FOR PARKINSON'S RESEARCH ↗
- Who funds Portland ESL Scholarship Fund ↗
- Who funds BROADREACH FAMILY & COMMUNITY SERVICES ↗
- Who funds Great Mountain Forest Corporation ↗
- Who funds ROCKPORT LIBRARY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Maine Public Broadcasting Corporation ↗
- Who funds MILESTONE RECOVERY ↗
- Who funds Portland Parks Conservancy ↗
- Who funds THE BARBARA BUSH FOUNDATION FOR FAMILY LITERACY INC ↗
- Who funds BLOOD CANCER UNITED INC ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE STRAND THEATRE INC ↗
- Who funds NORTH YARMOUTH ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds United Way 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: Maine Community Foundation Inc · Murray Charitable Trust · Sam L Cohen Foundation · Davis Family Foundation · Fisher Charitable Foundation · Saco & Biddeford Savings Charitable Foundation · Morton-Kelly Charitable Trust · Onion Foundation · The Apple Lane Foundation Inc 14101830 · The Widgeon Point Charitable Foundation · John T Gorman Foundation · Albert B Glickman Family 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 Kestrel Foundation of Maine 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 or a single department — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Safe Passage Inc — 55% of income from government
- President and Fellows of Harvard College — 7% of income from government
- Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Inc — 7% of income from government
- Planned Parenthood of Northern New England Inc — 2% of income from government
- The Trustees of the Smith College — 1% of income from government
- Proprietors of the Boston Athenaeum — 0% of income from government
- Wilbraham and Monson Academy — 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 Kestrel Foundation of Maine?
Find your warmest path to Kestrel Foundation of Maine 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.