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Vermont · Private foundation

Melvin and Sylvia Kafka Foundation co Sara Suchman

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.

$31k
Granted FY2025(still arriving)
13
Grants FY2025
10
Organizations funded FY2024
30%
First-time grantees FY2024
Read the full brief
Median grant, FY2025
$2,250
Largest grant, FY2025
$3,500
Organizations funded a year
7 to 10
FY2018 to FY2024
States reached, FY2025
8
Total assets, FY2025
$37k
Applications
Preselected organizations only
Per its most recent filing; check its own site

How open it is to new grantees

In FY2024, 30% of the organizations Melvin and Sylvia Kafka Foundation co Sara Suchman funded were first-time grantees, receiving 23% of its grant dollars.

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 77% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $6k went to new ones.

50%100%’18’19’20’21’22’23’24
RenewedFirst-time

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

’18’19’20’21’22’23’24
InternationalEnvironmentArts & CultureHousing & ShelterCrime & LegalHuman ServicesOther
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.
The numbers by year
Fiscal yearOrganizations fundedTo those organizationsFirst-time grantees
FY2025still arriving12$28k58%
FY202410$26k30%
FY20237$12k14%
FY202210$27k20%
FY20219$26k11%
FY20208$14k13%
FY20199$17k33%
FY20187$33k43%
90% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.

International$72kCivil Rights$30kArts & Culture$18kCrime & Legal$15kHuman Services$15kHousing & Shelter$11kScience & Tech$11kEducation$6kOther$0

Where its grants go

Grant dollars by states, across the years we hold.

Which US states its grants reach

VT
MN
IL
NY
MA
OH
CT
VA
MD
TN
NC
DC
AL

Top grantees

Largest recipients by total granted, FY2017 to FY2025, and the share of each one’s budget the grants supplied at peak.

Show all 20 grantees

What it could do for these grantees

Plus 7 recipients with no EIN on record ($63k), not named here.

Where it is load-bearing

Each grantee by its size and the share of its budget Melvin and Sylvia Kafka Foundation co Sara Suchman supplied at peak.

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetMedecins Sans Frontieres USA Inc: $28,125 over 8y, 0.0% of budgetHias Inc: $20,950 over 8y, 0.0% of budgetCenter for Constitutional Rights: $16,250 over 6y, 0.0% of budgetFractured Atlas Inc: $12,000 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetBoston Neighborhood Community Land Trust Inc: $11,250 over 6y, 0.3% of budgetSouthern Poverty Law Center Inc: $11,000 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetThe Union of Concerned Scientists Inc: $11,000 over 6y, 0.0% of budgetPalestine Children's Relief Fund: $8,750 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetHuman Kindness Foundation: $8,000 over 3y, 1.8% of budgetEqual Justice Initiative: $3,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetNc Warn Inc: $3,000 over 3y, 0.1% of budgetAlight: $3,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetCarolina Abortion Fund: $2,250 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetEmpowerment Inc: $2,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetAmerican Bar Foundation: $1,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetHighlander Research & Education Center Inc: $1,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetNational Center for Montessori in the Public Sector: $1,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budget

Tap a dot to name the grantee.

How this is measured
Share of budget is the funder’s grant in a year over the grantee’s total revenue that year, at its highest across the years we hold; revenue is from all sources. Only grantees confirmed against their own filings, whose grants do not exceed their revenue, are plotted: the largest 17.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Shared Visions Foundation IncNC13.6× affinity4 shared granteesties to 9 of 9Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Shared Visions Foundation Inc · Triangle Community Foundation Inc · Amalgamated Charitable Foundation Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · National Philanthropic Trust · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile Foundation

How this is measured
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

Compare Melvin and Sylvia Kafka Foundation co Sara Suchman with peer funders

About Melvin and Sylvia Kafka Foundation co Sara Suchman

How much does Melvin and Sylvia Kafka Foundation co Sara Suchman give?
Melvin and Sylvia Kafka Foundation co Sara Suchman reported 13 grants totaling $31,058 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 7 and 10 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.
What does Melvin and Sylvia Kafka Foundation co Sara Suchman fund?
By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are International (32%), Civil Rights (14%), Arts & Culture (8%).
Who are Melvin and Sylvia Kafka Foundation co Sara Suchman's largest grantees?
By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: Medecins Sans Frontieres USA Inc ($28k), Hias Inc ($21k), Center for Constitutional Rights ($16k).
Does Melvin and Sylvia Kafka Foundation co Sara Suchman fund new organizations?
In FY2024, 30% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.
Does Melvin and Sylvia Kafka Foundation co Sara Suchman accept unsolicited applications?
Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Which funders back the same organizations as Melvin and Sylvia Kafka Foundation co Sara Suchman?
Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Shared Visions Foundation Inc, Triangle Community Foundation Inc, Amalgamated Charitable Foundation Inc.
Where is Melvin and Sylvia Kafka Foundation co Sara Suchman based?
Melvin and Sylvia Kafka Foundation co Sara Suchman is based in VT.

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 29 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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