· Private foundation
Muse 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.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k30 grants · $32k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $10k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| EYE & EAR FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| PITTSBURGH CULTURAL TRUST | $5,000 |
| AMOCA | $5,000 |
| CARNEGIE MUSEUM OF PITTSBURGH | $3,000 |
| VIEWPOINT SCHOOL | $3,000 |
| PITTSBURGH OPERA | $2,000 |
| JUST 1 MIKE FOUNDATION | $2,000 |
| WQED PITTSBURGH | $1,500 |
| SHADY SIDE PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH | $1,200 |
| LOYALHANNA ASSOCIATION | $1,000 |
| PITTSBURGH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | $1,000 |
| PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF WESTERN PA | $1,000 |
| CAMILLE MACLAIR DUQUENSE CLUB | $1,000 |
| SHADY SIDE ACADEMY | $500 |
| COLIN GLASSCO FOUNDATION FOR CHILDR | $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 (FY20–21, $1k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 100% 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.
40 repeat relationships — 28 still active in FY2024, 12 since wound down; 2 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 95% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2k 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
- PCPITTSBURGH CULTURAL TRUST5× · 2020–2024 · $30k · revenue +174%
- VEVIEWPOINT EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION5× · 2020–2024 · $15k · revenue +32%
- CICARNEGIE INSTITUTE2× · 2020–2021 · $10k · revenue +41%
Funded once
- CMCARNEGIE MUSEUM OF ARTone grant, 2022 · $3k
- CFCENTER FOR HOPEgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $800 · revenue +43%
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2020 · $500
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.
Provides innovative education in a dynamic urban setting. dedicated to academic excellence and community engagement,we prepare students of diverse backgrounds with the knowledge, skill,and experience to lead meaningful lives as informed…
Germantown academy inspires students to be independent in thought; confident in expression; compassionate in spirit; collaborative in action; and honorable in deed. germantown academy is a private school educating students from pre-k…
Wilson college empowers students to be confident and critical thinkers, creative visionaries, effective communicators, honorable leaders, and agents of justice.
The philadelphia school educates children for a future that is impossible to know but not impossible to shape. learn here. go anywhere.
Gettysburg college is a residential, undergraduate college of the liberal arts and sciences.
See schedule o.we are inspired by the ideals of our founder who, in 1896, emphasized respect for all people and ideas, who honored knowledge with practice, progress and the common good. our historical commitment to experiential learning…
An independent college preparatory school for girls from age three through twelfth grade.
The university of pittsburgh, founded in 1787, is one of the oldest institutions of higher education in the united states and one of the nation's top public research universities. for more than two centuries, the university of pittsburgh…
The trustees of the university of pennsylvania (the "university") sees itself as having a public service mission. in such regard, the university aims to provide a rich and diverse educational environment for its students; to pioneer…
As a diverse community of learners, we cultivate integrity, curiosity, connection and resilience.
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…
York college prepares graduates for fulfilling, productive, and purposeful lives by providing high quality programs of study supported by relevant real-world experiences. continued on schedule o.as a rich and diverse community of educators…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Valley School of Ligonier and the most unlike its peers is Allegheny Cemetery Historical Association. 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 71 years old; the field is 20. 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 — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 7% 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.
29 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. 29 of the 49 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 PITTSBURGH CULTURAL TRUST ↗
- Who funds EYE AND EAR FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds PITTSBURGH OPERA INC ↗
- Who funds VIEWPOINT EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CARNEGIE INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds WQED MULTIMEDIA ↗
- Who funds Loyalhanna Association Inc ↗
- Who funds PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF WESTERN PA INC ↗
- Who funds PITTSBURGH SYMPHONY INC ↗
- Who funds SHADY SIDE ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds Propel Schools Inc ↗
- Who funds FORT LIGONIER ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds WINCHESTER THURSTON SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds SEWICKLEY ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds MISS PORTER'S SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds Fox Families Care ↗
- Who funds GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR HOPE ↗
- Who funds The Trustees of Princeton University ↗
- Who funds LIGONIER VALLEY FIRE COMPANIES ↗
- Who funds FRICK ART & HISTORICAL CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds New York University ↗
- Who funds VALLEY SCHOOL OF LIGONIER ↗
- Who funds LIGHT OF LIFE MINISTRIES 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: The Pittsburgh Foundation · Richard King Mellon Foundation · Eden Hall Foundation · Rk Mellon Family Foundation · Rp Simmons Family Foundation · Clapp G H Decd Char and Ed Tr · The Jack Buncher Foundation · Jewish Federation of Greater Pittsburgh · Central Pennsylvania Scholarship Fund · Eqt Foundation · Hillman Family Foundations · The Ayco Charitable 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 Muse 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.
- The Trustees of Princeton University — 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 Muse Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Muse 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.