· Private foundation
Mary and Charles Sethness Charitable 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.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k67 grants · $204k
- $10k–50k23 grants · $378k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CENTER FOR REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS | $45,000 |
| DEPAUL UNIVERSITY | $30,000 |
| WILDERNESS WATCH | $25,000 |
| NORTHWOODS ALLIANCE | $25,000 |
| LAND O'LAKES ARTS | $22,000 |
| TROUT UNLIMITED | $20,000 |
| NATIONAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL | $19,000 |
| NATIONAL ABORTION FEDERATION | $16,000 |
| YELLOWSTONE TO YUKON CONSERVATION | $15,000 |
| ACLU FOUNDATION | $15,000 |
| FEED OUR RURAL KIDS | $15,000 |
| BRENNAN CENTER FOR JUSTICE | $15,000 |
| NATURE CONSERVANCY | $12,500 |
| NATIONAL PARK FOUNDATION | $12,500 |
| CHICAGO SCHOLARS FOUNDATION | $10,500 |
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 (FY20–25, $32k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 30% 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.
99 repeat relationships — 66 still active in FY2025, 33 since wound down; 22 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (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 FY2025, 84% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $92k 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
- DUDEPAUL UNIVERSITY6× · 2020–2025 · $130k · revenue +7%
NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL INC6× · 2020–2025 · $127k · revenue +26%- WWWILDERNESS WATCH INC6× · 2020–2025 · $119k · revenue +28%
Funded once
- UOUNIVERSITY OF NEW HAMPSHIREone grant, 2022 · $30k
- UOUNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND BALTIMORE FOUNDATION INCgraduatedone grant, 2024 · $27k · revenue +48%
- LOLAND O LAKES COMMUNITY PLAYGROUND INCone grant, 2022 · $8k · revenue -98%
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.
The purpose of the water research foundation (wrf) is a definitive research organization to advance the science of all things water to better meet the evolving needs of its subscribers and the water sector. to engage exclusively in…
The union of concerned scientists puts rigorous, independent science into action, developing solutions and advocating for a healthy, safe, and just future.
To drive transformational adaptation to protect communities across the country from higher seas, stronger storms, and more frequent flooding.
To promote public health, safety, and welfare through the improvement of the quality and quantity of drinking water and the development and furtherance of understanding of the problems relating thereto.
To establish and promote programs to protect the global climate, forests, wildlife and the natural environment, through research, advocacy, and investigation.
Nacwa is the national voice of public clean water utilities, shaping water policy, convening a vibrant peer network, and empowering water leaders.
The npr foundation ("foundation") is organized and operated exclusively for the benefit of its sole supported organization, national public radio, inc. ("npr inc."). the foundation supports npr inc. through various activities such as…
Wildearth guardians works to protect and restore the wildlife, wild places, wild rivers, and health of the american west.
To sustain, restore, and enhance the nation's fish, wildlife, plants, and habitats.
The organization's mission is to conserve and promote new england's native plants to ensure healthy, biologically diverse landscapes.
American gas association's (the association) mission is to develop and advocate for informed, innovative, and durable policy that fulfills our nation's energy needs, environmental aspirations and economic potential. we are committed to…
Friends of the earth strives for a more healthy and just world by defendng the environment and human health while advancing social and economic justice by conducting research and education, transforming the economy so it protects the…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Denver Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Feed Our Rural Kids Inc. 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 31 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.8% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
116 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. 116 of the 162 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 CENTER FOR REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS INC ↗
- Who funds DEPAUL UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL INC ↗
- Who funds WILDERNESS WATCH INC ↗
- Who funds NORTHWOODS ALLIANCE INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds WILLIAM J BRENNAN CENTER FOR JUSTICE INC ↗
- Who funds Planned Parenthood of Illinois ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL PARK FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ST NORBERT COLLEGE INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN RIVER CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds FEED OUR RURAL KIDS INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL ABORTION FEDERATION ↗
- Who funds WOUNDED WARRIOR PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds K9S FOR WARRIORS INC ↗
- Who funds GARY SINISE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE CHICAGO SCHOLARS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND BALTIMORE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds CRISIS TEXT LINE INC ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE CLEARWATER INC ↗
- Who funds SIERRA CLUB FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds TREVOR PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds THE BARACK OBAMA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds DIGS WITH DIGNITY CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds YELLOWSTONE FOREVER ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR CARBON REMOVAL ↗
- Who funds CLEAN AIR TASK FORCE INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL NETWORK OF ABORTION FUNDS INC ↗
- Who funds WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN 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: Raikes Foundation · Seattle Foundation · The Chicago Community Trust · Tides Foundation · The Russell Family Foundation · Mightycause Charitable Foundation · Arthur J Gallagher Foundation · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · The Pfizer Foundation Inc · Amalgamated Charitable Foundation Inc · AbbVie 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 Mary and Charles Sethness Charitable 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 or a single department — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Postpartum Support International — 43% of income from government
- Als Therapy Development Foundation Inc — 8% of income from government
- Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Inc — 7% of income from government
- The Howard County Conservancy Inc — 5% of income from government
- University of Maryland Baltimore Foundation Inc — 3% of income from government
- Wounded Warrior Project Inc — 0% of income from government
- Cat Depot — 0% of income from government
- K9S for Warriors 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Mary and Charles Sethness Charitable Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Mary and Charles Sethness Charitable 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.