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· Private foundation

Marilyn Mason 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.

$20k
Granted FY2025still arriving
8
Grants FY2025still arriving
3
States reached
$6k
Largest
01What it funds
01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2020 to 2025.

Arts & Culture$44kHealth$11kReligion$5k
02FY2025 · 8 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

$2,000
Median grant
3
States reached
$31k
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
APOLLO ENSEMBLE OF BOSTON$6,050
MAGGIES ENTHUSE CHARITY$4,662
AMERICAN GUILD OF ORGANISTS$4,000
Individual grant recipient$2,000
MASS EYE EAR HOSPITAL$1,000
MASS CHAMBER MUSIC ARTISTS$1,000
KEEPING THE BLUES ALIVE$800
ORCHESTRA BOOK CLUB$500
02The need
03

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY20–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 100% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 8%ORCHESTRA BOOK CLUB: $500 → 8%MASS EYE EAR HOSPITAL: $1k → 16%FRACTURED ATLAS MUSIC: $2k → 9%AMERICAN GUILD OF ORGANISTS: $4k → 17%KEEPING THE BLUES ALIVE: $800 → 13%1ST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH: $5k → 14%LONGY SCHOOL OF MUSIC: $4k → 8%AMERICAN GUILD OF ORGANISTS: $4k → 17%LONGY SCHOOL OF MUSIC: $3k → 8%AMERICAN GUILD OF ORGANISTS: $4k → 17%MASS CHAMBER MUSIC ARTISTS: $1k → 8%AMERICAN GUILD OF ORGANISTS: $2k → 17%AMERICAN GUILD OF ORGANISTS: $2k → 17%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount
How this is measured
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.
How this is measured
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.
03Its grantees
repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

67%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$40k · 4 repeat orgs$20k to everyone else

4 repeat relationships: 2 still active in FY2025, 2 since wound down; 6 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

4
2

Total granted

$40k
$10k

Still filing today

50%
0%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 50% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $10k went to new ones.

50%100%’20’21’22’23’24’25
RenewedFirst-time
How this is measured
First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

  • AG
    AMERICAN GUILD OF ORGANISTS
    5× · 2020–2025 · $16k · revenue +34%
  • AE
    APOLLO ENSEMBLE OF BOSTON INC
    3× · 2023–2025 · $14k · revenue +105% · 32% of their budget
  • LS
    LONGY SCHOOL OF MUSIC
    2× · 2023–2024 · $7k

Funded once

  • HM
    HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL
    one grant, 2024 · $5k
  • 1C
    1ST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH
    one grant, 2020 · $5k
How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field
04the grantee network

2 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 2 of the 12 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

1
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
1
Early backer (in before they grew)
2/2
Grantees still filing
2/2
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

AMERICAN GUILD OF ORGANISTS: $16,000 · OtherAMERICAN GUILD OF ORGANISTSLONGY SCHOOL OF MUSIC: $7,000 · OtherLONGY SCHOOL OF MUSICHARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL: $5,000 · OtherHARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL1ST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH: $5,000 · Other1ST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCHMAGGIES ENTHUSE CHARITY: $4,662 · OtherMAGGIES ENTHUSE CHARITYJUVENTAS NEW MUSIC ENSEMBLE: $3,000 · OtherJUVENTAS NEW MUSIC ENSEMBLEIndividual grant recipient: $2,000 · Other+4 more: $3,300 · Other+4 moreAPOLLO ENSEMBLE OF BOSTON INC: $14,050 · Arts & CultureAPOLLO ENSEMBLE OF BOSTON …
Other$45,962Arts & Culture$14,050

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$100k$1.0M$10Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetAMERICAN GUILD OF ORGANISTS: $16,000 over 5y, 0.2% of budgetAPOLLO ENSEMBLE OF BOSTON INC: $14,050 over 3y, 32% of budget
Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

  • Who funds AMERICAN GUILD OF ORGANISTS ↗
  • Who funds APOLLO ENSEMBLE OF BOSTON INC ↗

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Marilyn Mason Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Marilyn Mason Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24
no gov · 10%3%10%23%40%funder's share of their income ↑0%1%3%4%5%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    1get no government money at all
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–5%
    typical government reliance, FY20–24
    How this is measured
    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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.
    05Through Plinth

    Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

    How do I get to Marilyn Mason Foundation?

    Find your warmest path to Marilyn Mason Foundation 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.

    On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 12 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

    How this is measured
    Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears.

    Generated from the IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2025, released 2025. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

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