· Private foundation
Messler Family 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 FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k18 grants · $74k
- $10k–50k8 grants · $86k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Maine Coast Heritage Trust | $16,250 |
| Gamble House | $10,000 |
| Midcoast Habitat for Humanity | $10,000 |
| Park Slope Childcare Collective | $10,000 |
| Historic Charleston Foundation | $10,000 |
| Penobscot Bay YMCA | $10,000 |
| Homeworthy | $10,000 |
| Wingspan | $10,000 |
| The Door | $5,000 |
| The Nature Conservancy | $5,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $5,000 |
| Galapagos Conservancy | $5,000 |
| Sanctuary For Families | $5,000 |
| Maine Farmland Trust | $5,000 |
| Center for Furniture Craftsmanship | $5,000 |
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 (FY17–25, $114k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 0% 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +45% since the first grant, against +13% for the ones you funded once.
42 repeat relationships — 24 still active in FY2025, 18 since wound down; 1 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, 94% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $10k 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
Maine Coast Heritage Trust8× · 2017–2025 · $179k · revenue +106%- PBPENOBSCOT BAY YMCA8× · 2017–2025 · $75k · revenue +12%
- CFCENTER FOR FURNITURE CRAFTSMANSHIP9× · 2017–2025 · $65k · revenue +54%
Funded once
- FOFriends of Camden School Districtone grant, 2017 · $10k
- NONC Outward Bound Ann Baruch Educational Fundone grant, 2018 · $10k
- CCConnecticut College Film Studiesone grant, 2024 · $10k
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 Midcoast Conservancy is to protect vital lands and waters on a scale that matters and to inspire wonder and action on behalf of all species and the Earth.
We conserve land permanently to benefit the natural and human communities of western the Penobscot Bay region.
Maine Media Workshops & College educates and inspires visual artists and storytellers to achieve their creative potential. We provide lifelong learning opportunities for those pursuing the fine arts and media-related professions. We are…
Kennebunk Land Trust's mission is to permanently conserve and steward land to benefit natural and human communities.
Maine Conservation Alliance envisions a Maine where nature and people thrive through an inclusive, just democracy, a sustainable economy, and equitable access to nature's benefits - healthy climate, lands, air, and waters. We bring people…
The mission of the mount desert land & garden preserve is to conserve and share the beauty of our historic lands and gardens.
The mission of Islesboro Islands Trust is to enhance the quality of residents' lives through the preservation of open space, educate all residents as to the value of the island's natural ecosystems, and act as an environmental advocate on…
The organization's mission is to conserve and promote new england's native plants to ensure healthy, biologically diverse landscapes.
Cei integrates financing, small business and industry expertise, and policy solutions to grow a vibrant future for people and communities in maine and rural regions.
Secure a sustainable future for fisheries and fishing communities in Eastern Maine and beyond.
Maine Conservation Voters plays a critical role in turning public support for conservation into new laws to protect our air, land, water and wildlife. As a result of successful strategies, a focused policy agenda and sharp accountability…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Natural Resources Council of Maine Inc and the most unlike its peers is Documentary Songwriters. 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 39 years old; the field is 21. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 16% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% lost their exemption, against 9% 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.
38 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. 38 of the 66 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 Maine Coast Heritage Trust ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds PENOBSCOT BAY YMCA ↗
- Who funds HISTORIC CHARLESTON FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR FURNITURE CRAFTSMANSHIP ↗
- Who funds Coastal Maine Botanical Gardens Inc ↗
- Who funds Maine Farmland Trust ↗
- Who funds TREKKERS INC ↗
- Who funds SANCTUARY FOR FAMILIES INC ↗
- Who funds Natural Resources Council of Maine Inc ↗
- Who funds CITY HARVEST INC ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds Finding Our Voices ↗
- Who funds COASTAL FAMILY HOSPICE ↗
- Who funds MIDCOAST HABITAT FOR HUMANITY ↗
- Who funds EXODUS TRANSITIONAL COMMUNITY INC ↗
- Who funds GALAPAGOS CONSERVANCY INC ↗
- Who funds The Thacher School Inc ↗
- Who funds OXFAM-AMERICA INC ↗
- Who funds Points North Institute ↗
- Who funds THE DOOR - A CENTER OF ALTERNATIVES INC ↗
- Who funds Homeworthy ↗
- Who funds THE WOMEN'S BAKERY INC ↗
- Who funds LAND TRUST ALLIANCE INC ↗
- Who funds CAMBA INC ↗
- Who funds PARK SLOPE CHILD CARE COLLECTIVE 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: Maine Community Foundation Inc · Onion Foundation · Ann H Symington Foundation Xxxxx6000 · Fisher Charitable Foundation · Bangor Savings Bank Foundation · Davis Family Foundation · Community Foundation of Greater Memphis Inc · Trowbridge Foundation · Cara Charitable Foundation Inc · Association Foundation · The Bertuzzi Family Foundation · Arthur K Watson Trust Xxxxx5001
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 Messler 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 or a single department — and drag the year to watch it move.
- 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Messler Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Messler Family 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.