A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 56% of MASSACHUSETTS CHARITABLE MECHANIC ASSOCIATION’s grantee dollars fall outside its nine largest cause areas, whether because the recipient carries no IRS cause code or because its cause sits in the long tail. A chart would be mostly one residual band and misrepresent the portfolio.

02FY2024 · 35 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

By grant size · FY2024

Under $10k26 grants · $132k
$10k–50k9 grants · $129k

$6,640

Median grant

States reached

$4.7M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
NORTH BENNETT STREET SCHOOL	$31,962
NORTHEAST ARC	$17,000
THE CARROLL CENTER FOR THE BLIND	$15,600
OLD STURBRIDGE VILLAGE	$12,000
JUST-A-START	$11,400
GLOUCESTER MARINE GENOMICS INSTITUT	$10,709
Individual grant recipient	$10,089
NATIONAL BRAILLE PRESS	$10,010
Individual grant recipient	$10,007
CHALLENGE UNLIMITED	$9,960
DEARBORN ACADEMY	$8,482
DOUBLE EDGE THEATRE	$8,334
THE ELIOT SCHOOL	$8,055
ROAD TO RESPONSIBILITY	$7,207
ESSEX HISTORICAL SOCIETY & SHIPBUIL	$7,000

02The need

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.

show:

Your human-services grants (FY17–24, $101k) land where the poverty rate runs at 8%, against an area that typically sits at 7%. 47% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants spread fairly evenly across need levels.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

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.

03Your edge

repeat funding

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.

91%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.

$1.8M · 44 repeat orgs$175k to everyone else

And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +44% since the first grant, against +13% for the ones you funded once.

44 repeat relationships — 27 still active in FY2024, 17 since wound down; 8 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$1.8M

$134k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+44%

+13%

Still filing today

61%

35%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 85% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $40k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

Arts & CultureHuman ServicesEducationHealthRecreation & SportsEmploymentOther

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

OS
OLD STURBRIDGE INC
7× · 2017–2024 · $148k · revenue +44%
TC
THE CARROLL CENTER FOR THE BLIND INC
8× · 2017–2024 · $114k · revenue +53%
GLOUCESTER MARINE GENOMICS INSTITUTE INCORPORATED
4× · 2021–2024 · $65k · revenue +167%

Funded once

CROSSROADS FOR KIDS INCgraduated
one grant, 2018 · $37k · revenue +45%
KS
KING SOLOMON HUMANITARIAN FOUNDATION FOR HANDICAPPED CHILDREN INC
one grant, 2018 · $17k · revenue -95%
IG
Individual grant recipient
one grant, 2020 · $12k

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

04Your field

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.

Lifestream Inc

Lifestream, inc. (the organization") provides community-based services that support individuals in attaining greater independence, promising opportunities, and lives that are meaningful and fulfilling on their own terms.

Health

Viability Inc

Viability's mission is to build a world in which individuals with disabilities and other disadvantages realize acceptance, inclusion, and access.

Employment

Brockton Area Arc Inc

Brockton area arc inc will work in partnership with and for the community to provide advocacy, information and direct services that offer new opportunities and choice for individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities and…

Human Services

Boston Architectural College

The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.

—

Triangle Inc

Through support, challenge and opportunity, triangle empowers people with disabilities and their families to enjoy rich, fulfilling lives. we are committed to helping the world recognize that we are all people with ability.

—

Cutchins Programs for Children & Families Inc

To help children and families transform significant emotional distress into increased resilience, hope and quality of life. to support the healing and learning process with innovation and integrity, and to serve as a model for best and…

Health

Easter Seals Massachusetts Inc

Easter seals massachusetts is a statewide community-based organization that has been helping people with disabilities to live full and independent lives for over 75 years. our mission is to provide services to ensure that children and…

Health

Melmark New England Inc

Melmark new england, is a multi state human services provider with premier private special education schools, professional development, training, and research centers. melmark new england is committed to enhancing the lives of individuals…

Education

Western New England University

Western new england university, a comprehensive private institution with a tradition of excellence in teaching and scholarship and a commitment to service, awards undergraduate, master's, and doctoral degrees in various departments from…

Education

North Suffolk Community Services Inc

North suffolk community services supports individuals and families across the lifespan in their pursuit of independence and stability by providing a comprehensive array of treatment and recovery services. our approach is to intervene as…

—

Beaverbrook Step Inc

Beaverbrook step, inc. is a private, not-for-profit organization which provides residential, day and support services to adults with developmental and intellectual disabilities in eastern massachusetts. the organization assists with the…

Human Services

Barry L Price Rehabilitation Center Inc

The price center empowers individuals with intellectual and developmental disabilities to thrive in their living, social and work communities.

Human Services

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Carroll Center for the Blind Inc and the most unlike its peers is American Kidney Fund 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.

the sector your giving your giving is ahead of the sector the sector’s ahead of you· dot size = how much the theme matters to each side

Ordered by the change in your giving — leaning in on top, pulling back at the bottom. The bar between the two dots is how out of step you are with the sector. Hover any row for detail.

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 45 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.

The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.

Closures · last 5 years

The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 11% of the field you don’t fund.

orgs you fund

0.0%0/43

the rest of the field

11%

3,424/30,348

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.

04the grantee network

41 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. 41 of the 75 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.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

40/41

Grantees still filing

32/41

Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

Other$1,167,018Arts & Culture$315,179Health$152,325Human Services$101,328Education$99,558Science & Tech$65,202Recreation & Sports$41,860

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.

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.

Eastern Bank FoundationMA43.8× affinity22 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Eastern Bank Foundation · Amelia Peabody Charitable Fund Trust · Rockland Trust Charitable Foundation Inc · Cummings Foundation Grants Inc (Fka Oneworld Boston Inc) · Boston Foundation Inc · The Doug Flutie Jr Foundation for Autism Inc · Arbella Insurance Foundation · Riley Mabel Louise Tr Uwill · Essex County Community Foundation Inc · Fidelity Foundation · People's United Community Foundation of Eastern Massachusetts Inc · Yawkey Foundation II

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 Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association 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.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

7get no government money at all

4report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

4rely on government for over half their income

typical government reliance, FY20–25

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.

05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association?

Find your warmest path to Massachusetts Charitable Mechanic Association 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.

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions

grants reported with no recipient in the public record

The regranting layer

51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer

The DAF merry-go-round

$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds

The camps

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

By state

where grant money is based, and what stays home

State money flows

the interactive map of money crossing state lines