· Public charity
Legacy Fund for Boston Inc
The legacy fund for boston is a public charity which supports the endurance of places and spaces that are meaningful to bostonians and the historic character of the entire city of boston.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- $10k–50k7 grants · $191k
- $50k–250k6 grants · $411k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CHINESE CONSOLIDATED BENEVOLENT ASSOCIATION OF NEW ENGLAND | $100,000 |
| REVOLUTIONARY SPACES INC | $97,265 |
| SECOND CHURCH IN DORCHESTER CHURCH OF THE NAZARENE | $64,000 |
| BOSTON WOMEN'S HERITAGE TRAIL | $50,000 |
| SHIRLEY-EUSTIS HOUSE ASSOCIATION | $50,000 |
| VILNA SHUL BOSTON CENTER FOR JEWISH CULTURE INC | $50,000 |
| BEACON HILL FRIENDS HOUSE INC | $45,661 |
| FOOTLIGHT CLUB | $30,000 |
| ELIOT CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH | $30,000 |
| CHARLESTOWN PRESERVATION SOCIETY | $25,000 |
| UNITARIAN UNIVERSALIST URBAN MINISTRY | $25,000 |
| BOSTON PRESERVATION ALLIANCE INC | $19,500 |
| HYDE PARK HISTORICAL SOCIETY | $16,000 |
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 (FY25–25, $100k) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, against an area that typically sits at 16%. 100% 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.
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.
Historic preservation
Museum and research library for history of fitchburg, massachusetts
The purpose of the Boston Portuguese Festival is to promote the image of Portugal and the visibility of the Portuguese community and its ancestry in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to promote the education of the community regarding…
To preserve and share the unique history and traditions of the area.
Historic Beverly collects, preserves, and stewards Beverlys past and present to cultivate public support and appreciation for history; our vision is to share Beverly history with everyone.
The mission of The Gibson House Museum is to serve as the primary resource for understanding and interpreting life in Bostons Back Bay. The museum accomplishes this by preserving the row house and its collections; exhibiting and…
Preservation of an historic boston landmark building.
The mission of the west stockbridge historical society is to preserve the history and culture of west stockbridge, ma through research, programming, community involvment and the restoration of the old town hall.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Revolutionary Spaces Inc and the most unlike its peers is The Footlight Club. 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 13 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 CHINESE CONSOLIDATED BENEVOLENT ASSOCIATION OF NEW ENGLAND INC ↗
- Who funds REVOLUTIONARY SPACES INC ↗
- Who funds THE VILNA SHUL BOSTONS CENTER FOR JEWISH CULTURE INC ↗
- Who funds BOSTON WOMENS HERITAGE TRAIL INC ↗
- Who funds THE SHIRLEY-EUSTIS HOUSE ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds BEACON HILL FRIENDS HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds THE FOOTLIGHT CLUB ↗
- Who funds BENEVOLENT FRATERNITY OF UNITARIAN CHURCHES ↗
- Who funds CHARLESTOWN PRESERVATION SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds BOSTON PRESERVATION ALLIANCE 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: George B Henderson Foundation Jh5090 · Massachusetts Foundation for the Humanities & Public Policy Inc · Boston Foundation Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · 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 Legacy Fund for Boston 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.
- Revolutionary Spaces Inc — 20% of income from government
- The Shirley-Eustis House Association — 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 Legacy Fund for Boston Inc?
Find your warmest path to Legacy Fund for Boston 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.