· Private foundation
Marshall & Jane Brown Family Foundation
Its FY2021 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Read this first · the figures below need context
95% of Marshall & Jane Brown Family Foundation’s FY2021 grant dollars went to Boston Foundation Inc, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2021 names 7 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2020, the last year Marshall & Jane Brown Family Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 11 organizations, $54k. It is dated, not current.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What you funded, over time
Every grant clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2017–2021.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2020
- Under $10k12 grants · $22k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $32k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| SEATTLE OPERA | $17,000 |
| NORTHWEST HARVEST EMM | $15,000 |
| UW FOUNDATION CINEMA AND MEDIA STUDIES | $5,000 |
| OXFAM AMERICA INC | $5,000 |
| YALE COMMUNITY FUND FOR NEW HAVEN | $4,000 |
| UW FOUNDATION GERMANICS | $2,500 |
| BAT CONSERVATION INTERNATIONAL | $2,000 |
| SEATTLE CANCER CARE ALLIANCE | $1,000 |
| DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS USA INC | $500 |
| PLANNED PARENTHOOD PUBLIC POLICY NETWORK OF THE NORTHWEST AND HAWAII | $500 |
| SEATTLE PUBLIC LIBRARY FOUNDATION | $500 |
| AMERICAN FRIENDS SERVICE COMMITTEE | $500 |
| UNITED NEGRO COLLEGE FUND INC | $250 |
| AMERICAN INDIAN COLLEGE FUND | $250 |
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 (FY17–21) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 87% of your 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.
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 +112% since the first grant, against +50% for the ones you funded once.
8 repeat relationships — 7 still active in FY2020, 1 since wound down; 9 grantees were first funded in FY2020 (too recent to call). Read against FY2020, the last year this funder named its own grantees directly; its giving has since run through a sponsor, which reports no donor behind each grant.
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 FY2021, 74% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $6k 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
BAT CONSERVATION INTERNATIONAL2× · 2020–2021 · $3k · revenue +128%- PPPLANNED PARENTHOOD PUBLIC POLICY NETWORK OF THE NORTHWEST AND HAWAII2× · 2020–2021 · $2k · revenue +377%
MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC2× · 2020–2021 · $2k · revenue +39%
Funded once
PLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION OF AMERICA INCgraduatedone grant, 2018 · $4k · revenue +50%- YUYale Universityone grant, 2017 · $3k
- RURutgers Universityone grant, 2017 · $500
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.
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For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Seattle Public Library Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
14 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. 14 of the 21 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 Boston Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds SEATTLE OPERA ↗
- Who funds OXFAM-AMERICA INC ↗
- Who funds NORTHWEST HARVEST EMM ↗
- Who funds GREATER BOSTON FOOD BANK INC ↗
- Who funds PLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION OF AMERICA INC ↗
- Who funds BAT CONSERVATION INTERNATIONAL ↗
- Who funds PLANNED PARENTHOOD PUBLIC POLICY NETWORK OF THE NORTHWEST AND HAWAII ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center ↗
- Who funds SEATTLE PUBLIC LIBRARY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds BIXBY & ASSOCIATES ↗
- Who funds UNITED NEGRO COLLEGE FUND INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN INDIAN COLLEGE FUND ↗
Government reliance of your grantees
Every dot is one organization Marshall & Jane Brown 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.
- Greater Boston Food Bank Inc — 22% of income from government
- Boston Foundation Inc — 0% of income from government
- Oxfam-America Inc — 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.