· Private foundation
Minerva 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 FY2019–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- $10k–50k9 grants · $212k
- $50k–250k4 grants · $355k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| DEMOCRACY FORWARD FDN | $180,164 |
| DEFENDERS OF WILDLIFE | $75,000 |
| PLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION | $50,000 |
| JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY | $50,000 |
| UNRWA USA | $44,164 |
| DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS | $44,164 |
| FUND FOR CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT | $30,000 |
| SARAH LAWRENCE COLLEGE | $25,000 |
| THE NATURE CONSERVANCY | $25,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $14,000 |
| NEW URBAN ARTS | $10,000 |
| 826NYC INC | $10,000 |
| ALEX MANFULL FUND | $10,000 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY19–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 65% of your 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 +43% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
14 repeat relationships — 9 still active in FY2025, 5 since wound down; 3 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, 55% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $244k 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
MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC7× · 2019–2025 · $485k · revenue +79%
PLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION OF AMERICA INC7× · 2019–2025 · $435k · revenue +43%
WORLD RESOURCES INSTITUTE4× · 2019–2024 · $347k · revenue +68%
Funded once
- NNNATIONAL NETWORK OF ABORTION FUNDS LILITH FUNDone grant, 2024 · $100k · revenue 0%
EQUAL JUSTICE INITIATIVEone grant, 2020 · $50k · revenue -63%
NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE & EDUC FUND INCone grant, 2020 · $50k · revenue -54%
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.
Educational & charitable. to provide legal and scientific information to public interest attorneys and scientists in numerous countries.
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…
To establish and promote programs to protect the global climate, forests, wildlife and the natural environment, through research, advocacy, and investigation.
To sustain, restore, and enhance the nation's fish, wildlife, plants, and habitats.
Pew Research Center is a nonpartisan "fact tank" that informs the public about the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world. Pew Research Center generates a foundation of facts that enriches the public dialogue and…
The University of New Haven is a student-centered comprehensive university with an emphasis on excellence in liberal arts and professional education. Our mission is to prepare our students to lead purposeful and fulfilling lives in a…
The organization's mission is to conserve and promote new england's native plants to ensure healthy, biologically diverse landscapes.
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.
Founded in 1889, the national association of regulatory utility commisioners (naruc) is a non-profit organization dedicated to representing the state public service commisions who regulate the utilities that provide essential services such…
Improving the transparency and scientific integrity of climate solutions through open data and tools.
Natural History Institute is organized to provide leadership and resources for a revitalized practice of natural history that integrates art, science, and humanities to promote the health and well-being of humans and the rest of the…
Partnership for Policy Integrity (PFPI) uses data-driven advocacy and litigation to fight for forests, communities and the climate.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Democracy Forward Foundation and the most unlike its peers is The Alex Manfull Fund. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 35 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) — 5% of your grantees by number, and just 3% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% 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.
23 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. 23 of the 24 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 MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds PLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION OF AMERICA INC ↗
- Who funds WORLD RESOURCES INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL WOMEN'S HISTORY MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds Woodwell Climate Research Center Inc ↗
- Who funds SARAH LAWRENCE COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds DEMOCRACY FORWARD FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds FUND FOR CONSTITUTIONAL GOVERNMENT ↗
- Who funds UNRWA USA NATIONAL COMMITTEE INC ↗
- Who funds THE ALEX MANFULL FUND ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL NETWORK OF ABORTION FUNDS LILITH FUND ↗
- Who funds 826NYC Inc ↗
- Who funds New Urban Arts ↗
- Who funds Defenders of Wildlife ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL SCENIC VISITORS CENTER ↗
- Who funds EQUAL JUSTICE INITIATIVE ↗
- Who funds JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE & EDUC FUND INC ↗
- Who funds Women's Reproductive Rights Assistance Project ↗
- Who funds PANDAS NETWORKORG ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds Osceola Arts Inc ↗
- Who funds New Hampshire Charitable Foundation ↗
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: Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Amazonsmile 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 Minerva 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.
- Johns Hopkins University — 12% of income from government
- Woodwell Climate Research Center Inc — 11% 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 Minerva Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Minerva 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.