· Private foundation
Melamed Foundation
Its FY2024 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
99% of Melamed Foundation’s FY2021 grant dollars went to Greater Washington Community Foundation, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2021 names 13 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2020, the last year Melamed Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 38 organizations, $67k. 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 placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2021.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| OAR | $5,000 |
| FOOD RECOVERY NETWORK | $3,500 |
| DC CENTRAL KITCHEN | $3,500 |
| FEEDING AMERICA | $3,000 |
| INTERNATIONAL RESCUE COMMITTEE | $3,000 |
| MONTGOMERY COUNTY FAMILY JUSTICE CENTER | $2,500 |
| MANNA FOOD CENTER | $2,500 |
| A WIDER CIRCLE | $2,500 |
| HOUSE OF RUTH | $1,500 |
| FOOD & FRIENDS | $1,500 |
| NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AFRICAN AMERICAN HISTORY AND CULTURE | $1,500 |
| FAMILIES AGAINST MANDATORY MINIMUMS | $1,500 |
| ST JOSEPH'S INDIAN SCHOOL | $1,500 |
| WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN | $1,500 |
| N STREET VILLAGE | $1,500 |
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 (FY17–20, $10k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 58% 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.
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 +55% since the first grant, against +44% for the ones you funded once.
50 repeat relationships — 43 still active in FY2020, 7 since wound down; 13 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, 95% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $1k 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
- FAFAMILIES AGAINST MANDATORY MINIMUMS4× · 2017–2020 · $14k · revenue +745%
- TDTHE DC CENTRAL KITCHEN INC4× · 2017–2020 · $13k · revenue +96%
- MFMANNA FOOD CENTER INC4× · 2017–2021 · $7k · revenue +82%
Funded once
- SHSAMUEL'S HOUSE INCgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $5k · revenue +44%
- TMTHE MEDSTAR-GEORGETOWN MEDICAL CENTER INCgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $3k · revenue +57%
MEMORIAL SLOAN-KETTERING CANCER CENTERgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $2k · revenue +82%
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 mission of mit is to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century.
To establish and promote programs to protect the global climate, forests, wildlife and the natural environment, through research, advocacy, and investigation.
The open markets institute works to help people relearn how to use competition policy to build stronger democracies, more just and equitable societies, more innovative and sustainable economies, and a more secure and peaceful world.
Create a more accessible, sustainable, prosperous and livable national capital region by being a discussion forum, expert resource, issue advocate, and catalyst for action.
For over 60 years, counterpart international has partnered with communities worldwide to turn local ideas into lasting solutions, connecting local vision with global opportunity. (continued on schedule o)we believe people closest to the…
Central indiana corporate partnership (cicp) is an alliance of indiana's business and research university leaders coming together to foster long-term prosperity for the region. cicp's mission is to transform the economy of indiana in order…
The mission of the george washington university (gw) is to educate individuals in liberal arts, languages, sciences, learned professions, and other courses and subjects of study, and to conduct scholarly research and publish the findings…
Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.
The fsmb serves as the voice for state medical boards, supporting them through education, assessment, research and advocacy while providing services and initiatives that promote patient safety, quality health care and regulatory best…
At the internet society foundation, we focus on funding initiatives that strengthen the internet in function and reach so that it can effectively serve all people. our work advances the vision of the internet society (isoc): the internet…
Under the medical service plan of the university of maryland, school of medicine, administrative support services are provided to the physician practices of the university of maryland, including but not limited to information technology,…
To educate students to be ethical and socially responsible leaders in a global community.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Greater Washington Community Foundation and the most unlike its peers is The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. 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 37 years old; the field is 18. 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.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 12% 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.
60 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. 60 of the 95 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 GREATER WASHINGTON COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds FAMILIES AGAINST MANDATORY MINIMUMS ↗
- Who funds THE DC CENTRAL KITCHEN INC ↗
- Who funds MANNA FOOD CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds FOOD RECOVERY NETWORK INC ↗
- Who funds International Rescue Committee INC ↗
- Who funds A WIDER CIRCLE INC ↗
- Who funds SAMUEL'S HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN INC ↗
- Who funds MICAH HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds The Studio Theatre Inc ↗
- Who funds Feeding America ↗
- Who funds Save The Children Federation Inc ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION ↗
- Who funds LEARNINGWORKS ↗
- Who funds THE FOUNDATION SCHOOLS ↗
- Who funds FOOD & FRIENDS INC ↗
- Who funds TSIC INC DBA/TAKE STOCK IN CHILDREN ↗
- Who funds SHARE OUR STRENGTH ↗
- Who funds OPERATION SMILE INC ↗
- Who funds THE THEATRE LAB INC ↗
- Who funds ROUND HOUSE THEATRE INC ↗
- Who funds VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE INC ↗
- Who funds THE MEDSTAR-GEORGETOWN MEDICAL CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds MONHEGAN ASSOCIATES INC ↗
- Who funds Lewy Body Dementia Association Inc ↗
- Who funds JUBILEE JOBS INC ↗
- Who funds SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds COLLEGETRACKS INC ↗
- Who funds DOORWAYS FOR WOMEN AND FAMILIES INC ↗
- Who funds WASHINGTON HUMANE SOCIETY ↗
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: The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation · Greater Washington Community Foundation · Clark-Winchcole Foundation · William S Abell Foundation Inc · United Way of the National Capital Area · Nora Roberts Foundation · John Edward Fowler Memorial Foundation · Dimick Foundation John M Lynham Jr Trustee · Philip L Graham Fund co Graham Holdings Company · Td Charitable Foundation · Maine Community Foundation Inc · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc
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 Melamed 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.
- Save the Children Federation Inc — 30% of income from government
- A Wider Circle Inc — 6% of income from government
- Round House Theatre Inc — 5% of income from government
- Manna Food Center Inc — 1% of income from government
- Tsic Inc Dba/Take Stock in Children — 0% of income from government
- Samuel's House 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.