· Private foundation
Mt Cuba Astronomical Foundation
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k8 grants · $16k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $18k
- $50k–250k6 grants · $674k
- $250k+1 grant · $250k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE | $250,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII FOUNDATION | $243,232 |
| Individual grant recipient | $118,650 |
| THE RESEARCH FOUNDATION FOR THE SUNY | $102,000 |
| THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS RIO GRANDE VALLEY | $88,076 |
| LOWELL OBSERVATORY | $69,070 |
| THE UNIVERSITY CORPORATION | $53,441 |
| MT CUBA ASTRONOMICAL OBSERVATORY- VERNON LECTURE | $17,956 |
| Individual grant recipient | $3,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $3,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $3,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $3,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $1,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $1,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $1,000 |
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 (FY20–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 91% 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.
8 repeat relationships — 3 still active in FY2025, 5 since wound down; 12 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, 13% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $618k 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
- CACALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION FOR RESEARCH IN ASTRONOMY5× · 2020–2024 · $1.7M · revenue +1%
- CICALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY4× · 2020–2024 · $1.1M · revenue +18%
- ROREGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA4× · 2020–2024 · $428k
Funded once
- RTRUTGERS THE STATE UNIVERSITY OF NEW JERSEYone grant, 2020 · $212k
- TATEXAS A&M UNIVERSITYone grant, 2022 · $168k
- OOOBSERVATORIES OF THE CARNEGIE INSTITUTION FOR SCIENCEone grant, 2021 · $100k
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 central mission of the university of southern california is the development of human beings and society as a whole through the cultivation and enrichment of the human mind and spirit. the principal means by which our mission is…
The institute for advanced study (the institute) is one of the world's leading centers for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. see schedule o.
The museum's mission statement is: "to discover, interpret, and disseminate - through scientific research and education - knowledge about human cultures, the natural world, and the universe."
As a leading research university with a distinctive commitment to undergraduate education, Rice University aspires to path breaking research, unsurpassed teaching, and contributions to the betterment of our world. It seeks to fulfill this…
The university's goal in the coming decade is to advance learning through the integration of teaching, research and service to others. the core of this goal is to prepare graduates to engage with the world and lead lives of meaning. to do…
Stanford university is one of a select group of american universities that have achieved eminence in both undergraduate and graduate education and research - cont'd sch o.
Nyu is a private university with approximately 60,000 matriculating students in 20 schools and institutes. nyu's primary missions are education, research and scholarship, and patient care.
See Form 990, Part I, Line 1, Description of Organization Mission.
Ceu is committed to promoting the values of open society and self-reflective critical thinking. it aims at excellence in the mastery of established knowledge, courage to pursue the creation of new knowledge in the humanities, the social…
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…
Operate 3.6 meter astronomical telescope to further the knowledge and understanding of the universe through scientific research, studies, education, and dissemination of such knowledge.
Dartmouth College educates the most promising students and prepares them for a lifetime of learning and of responsible leadership, through a faculty dedicated to teaching and the creation of knowledge.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is California Association for Research in Astronomy and the most unlike its peers is Great Basin National Park Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
10 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. 10 of the 39 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 CALIFORNIA ASSOCIATION FOR RESEARCH IN ASTRONOMY ↗
- Who funds CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY ↗
- Who funds President and Fellows of Harvard College ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds LOWELL OBSERVATORY ↗
- Who funds GREAT BASIN NATIONAL PARK FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE UNIVERSITY CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds University of Notre Dame du Lac ↗
- Who funds EMBRY-RIDDLE AERONAUTICAL UNIVERSITY INC ↗
- Who funds University of Louisville Research 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 set of overlaps that mostly run through you, not between each other.
Open a dossier: Association of Universities for Research in Astronomy 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 Mt Cuba Astronomical 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.
- President and Fellows of Harvard College — 7% of income from government
- Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University Inc — 3% 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 Mt Cuba Astronomical Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Mt Cuba Astronomical 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.