· Public charity
Mystic River Watershed Association Inc
The mystic river watershed is a network of rivers, streams and ponds that all flow into the mystic river and ultimately boston harbor.
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.
The 14 grants below total $355,902 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $398,381 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $42,479 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k4 grants · $24k
- $10k–50k8 grants · $134k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $198k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CITY OF BOSTON | $130,000 |
| EVERETTE COMMUNITY GROWERS | $67,796 |
| FRIENDS OF BELLE ISLE MARCH | $22,934 |
| CHINESE CULTURE CONNECTION INC | $22,250 |
| TRUSTEES OF TUFTS COLLEGE | $20,000 |
| GREENROOTS INC | $15,146 |
| CAMBRIDGE HEALTH ALLIANCE | $15,000 |
| GROUNDWORK SOMERVILLE INC | $14,113 |
| CITY OF MEDFORD | $12,213 |
| FIELD OF GREEN (VIA ARTHUR KURTZ) | $12,100 |
| WEST MEDFORD COMMUNITY CENTER INC | $6,350 |
| STEELE COMMUNITY HOUSE TENANT ASSOC | $6,000 |
| KNOW YOUR NEIGHBOR WOBURN INC | $6,000 |
| THE ISLAMIC CENTER OF BURLINGTON | $6,000 |
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 (FY21–25, $259k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 97% 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.
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 +38% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
19 repeat relationships — 7 still active in FY2025, 12 since wound down; 7 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, 46% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $191k 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
- LCLA COMUNIDAD INC6× · 2020–2025 · $287k · revenue +38%
- GIGREENROOTS INC5× · 2020–2025 · $253k · revenue +50%
- MBMY BROTHER'S TABLE INC4× · 2020–2023 · $175k · revenue +113%
Funded once
- COCITY OF MALDENone grant, 2024 · $600k
- TOTOWN OF WINCHESTERone grant, 2021 · $106k
- CSCHARLESTOWN SPROUTS INCone grant, 2021 · $45k · revenue -81% · 31% of their budget
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.
To bring about the sustained regeneration, improvement, and management of the physical environment by developing community-based partnerships that empower people, businesses, and organizations to promote environmental, economic, and social…
Conservation law foundation, inc. (clf) protects new england's environment for the benefit of all people and future generations. we use the law, science, and markets to create solutions that preserve and restore our natural resources,…
To protect, enhance and restore the quality of the natural resources in southeastern massachusetts, in particular the jones river and cape cod bay, for present and future generations. as well as, cultivating effective stewardship of our…
To protect and preserve the Wentworth-Crescent Watershed through initiatives that enhance water quality, land conservation and community education.
The mission of our organization is to protect and restore Massachusetts rivers and streams.
Our mission is to ensure that the people of greater boston benefit from a vibrant, resilient, and inclusive waterfront, harbor, and islands; these spaces are equitable, accessible, and adapted to climate change; and to ensure our public,…
The mystic river watershed is a network of rivers, streams and ponds that all flow into the mystic river and ultimately boston harbor. home to 600,000 residents, the mystic river watershed association is the only organization working to…
The council creates positive environmental, social and economic change by revitalizing the woonasquatucket river, its greenway and its communities.
Green Cambridge strives to create a more sustainable city protect the environment and educate youth and adults about the importance of environmental issue.
Sudbury valley trustees, inc. ("the organization") works to protect natural areas and farmland for wildlife and people in the 36 communities that surround the sudbury, assabet, and concord rivers. the organization cares for some of the…
See attached schedule othe conservancy has sole responsibility for managing all aspects of the rose kennedy greenway, including horticulture, programming, public art, maintenance, and capital improvements. we envision a vibrant, inclusive,…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Greenroots Inc and the most unlike its peers is Know Your Neighbor Woburn. 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 35 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 7% of your grantees by number, and just 4% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% lost their exemption, against 10% 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 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 LA COMUNIDAD INC ↗
- Who funds GREENROOTS INC ↗
- Who funds Garrison Trotter Neighborhood Association Inc ↗
- Who funds MY BROTHER'S TABLE INC ↗
- Who funds CODMAN SQUARE NEIGHBORHOOD DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds Groundwork Lawrence Inc ↗
- Who funds LA COLABORATIVA INC ↗
- Who funds SELF HELP INC ↗
- Who funds DORCHESTER BAY ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds AUTHENTIC CARIBBEAN FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds EVERETT COMMUNITY GROWERS INC ↗
- Who funds BETTER FUTURE PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF BOSTON INC ↗
- Who funds CHARLESTOWN SPROUTS INC ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF BELLE ISLE MARSH INC ↗
- Who funds MUSEUM OF SCIENCE ↗
- Who funds Trustees of Tufts College ↗
- Who funds SELF HELP INC ↗
- Who funds CHINESE CULTURE CONNECTION INC ↗
- Who funds PANGEASEED FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds GROUNDWORK SOMERVILLE INC ↗
- Who funds CHARLES RIVER WATERSHED ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds Neponset River Watershed Association ↗
- Who funds NORTH & SOUTH RIVERS WATERSHED ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds OARS INC ↗
- Who funds NASHUA RIVER WATERSHED ASSOC INC ↗
- Who funds Cohasset Center For Student Coastal Research Inc ↗
- Who funds WEST MEDFORD COMMUNITY CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds KNOW YOUR NEIGHBOR WOBURN ↗
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: Eastern Bank Foundation · Boston Foundation Inc · Health Resources in Action Inc · Rockland Trust Charitable Foundation Inc · Fidelity Foundation · American Tower Corporation Foundation Inc · Patagoniaorg · Lawrence & Lillian Solomon Foundation Inc · Merck Family Fund · Project Bread-The Walk for Hunger Inc · Barr Foundation · United Way Of Massachusetts Bay 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 Mystic River Watershed Association Inc 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.
- Oars Inc — 100% of income from government
- Nashua River Watershed Assoc Inc — 54% of income from government
- Friends of Belle Isle Marsh Inc — 43% of income from government
- La Colaborativa Inc — 34% of income from government
- Self Help Inc — 27% of income from government
- Trustees of Tufts College — 13% of income from government
- Groundwork Somerville Inc — 12% of income from government
- West Medford Community Center Inc — 12% of income from government
- Neponset River Watershed Association — 8% of income from government
- Charles River Watershed Association Inc — 8% of income from government
- Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston Inc — 2% of income from government
- Chinese Culture Connection Inc — 2% of income from government
- Authentic Caribbean Foundation Inc — 1% of income from government
- Greenroots Inc — 1% of income from government
- Museum of Science — 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.