· Private foundation
Nordlys 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 $10k3 grants · $15k
- $10k–50k15 grants · $295k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $180k
- $250k+1 grant · $250k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ADIRONDACK COUNCIL | $250,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA FOUNDATION | $100,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $80,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $44,547 |
| SARATOGA PLAN | $35,000 |
| THE NATIONAL HERITAGE TRUST | $25,000 |
| SARATOGA SENIOR CENTER | $25,000 |
| AMERICAN SWEDISH INSTITUTE | $25,000 |
| AGRICULTURAL STEWARDSHIP ASSN | $20,000 |
| CAFFE LENA | $20,000 |
| SARATOGA INSTITUTE | $20,000 |
| AMERICAN FARMLAND TRUST | $15,000 |
| SAGAMORE INSTITUTE OF THE ADIRONDAC | $15,000 |
| THE MOONCATCHER PROJECT | $10,000 |
| ADIRONDACK CENTER FOR LOON CONSERVA | $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.
Your human-services grants (FY17–21, $128k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 7%. 84% 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 +15% since the first grant, against -3% for the ones you funded once.
34 repeat relationships — 15 still active in FY2025, 19 since wound down; 6 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, 82% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $135k 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
- TATHE AMERICAN SWEDISH INSTITUTE9× · 2017–2025 · $555k · revenue +74%
- NHNORTH HOUSE FOLK SCHOOL5× · 2018–2024 · $380k · revenue +57%
- SPSARATOGA PLAN INC9× · 2017–2025 · $150k · revenue +68%
Funded once
- ALADIRONDACK LAND TRUST INCone grant, 2024 · $400k · revenue -51%
- SPSARATOGA PERFORMING ARTS CENTER INCone grant, 2024 · $100k · revenue 0%
- SASARATOGA ARTS CENTERone grant, 2024 · $50k
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.
Adk is the only non-profit organization in new york state dedicated to the conservation, preservation, and responsible recreational use of the new york state forest preserve and other parks, wild lands, and waters vital to our members and…
The central new york land trust seeks to preserve and protect natural areas in order to provide our communities clean water, clean air, wildlife habitat, and a chance to connect with the land.
Protect is a grassroots, membership organization dedicated to the protection, stewardship and sustainability of the natural environment and human communities of the adirondack park and the new york state forest preserve for current and…
The Catskill Center for Conservation and Development, Inc. (the Catskill Center) is a not-for-profit organization under the non-profit laws of the State of New York. The mission of the Catskill Center is to preserve and enrich the…
Support regional economic development in new york's 14 northernmost counties
Dutchess land conservancy (dlc) is dedicated to preserving the scenic, agricultural and environmental resources of dutchess county, new york, and the surrounding area. dlc, as a private non-profit land conservation organization, carries…
The saratoga springs preservation foundation promotes the preservation and enhancement of the architectural, cultural, and landscaped heritage of saratoga springs through educational programs, advocacy, technical assistance and restoration.
Scenic Hudson was founded in 1963 when six community members came together to stop a massive power plant from defacing the iconic Storm King Mountain. (Please see Schedule O explaination for further context of Organization's mission…
Dedicated to permanently preserve the natural, scenic and recreational resources of the Lake George Basin.
Sustainable hudson valley's mission is to speed up, scale up, jazz up, and leverage progress against climate change, creating communities where people and nature thrive.
Acquire land and easements to preserve and enhance the open lands, forests, water resources, scenic areas and historical sights of the Woodstock, NY area. Steward protected lands and offer educational programs and events regarding nature…
Conserve, enhance, and celebrate our distinctive catskill sanctuary through sustainable horticulture, responsible land stewardship, and innovative educational programming
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Saratoga Plan Inc and the most unlike its peers is Catie Hoch Foundation. 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 33 years old; the field is 19. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 19% startups (under 5 years old) — 5% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 12% 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.
37 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. 37 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 THE AMERICAN SWEDISH INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds ADIRONDACK LAND TRUST INC ↗
- Who funds NORTH HOUSE FOLK SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds THE ADIRONDACK COUNCIL INC ↗
- Who funds STOMPING GROUND CAMP INC ↗
- Who funds SARATOGA PLAN INC ↗
- Who funds SARATOGA PERFORMING ARTS CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds AGRICULTURAL STEWARDSHIP ASSN INC ↗
- Who funds SARATOGA INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds THE COMMUNITY HOSPICE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds CAFFE LENA INC ↗
- Who funds LAND TRUST ALLIANCE INC ↗
- Who funds LAKE GEORGE OPERA FESTIVAL ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds NATURAL HERITAGE TRUST ↗
- Who funds THE MOONCATCHER PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR ECONOMIC GROWTH INC ↗
- Who funds HUDSON CROSSING PARK INC ↗
- Who funds CRESCENT COVE ↗
- Who funds DOMESTIC VIOLENCE & RAPE CRISIS SERVICES OF SARATOGA COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds FRANKLIN COMMUNITY CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds HUDSON SLOOP CLUB INC ↗
- Who funds ARTS CENTER AND THEATRE OF SCHENECTADY INC ↗
- Who funds SOBRO CONSERVANCY OF SARATOGA 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 Community Foundation for the Greater Capital Region Inc · The Adirondack Trust Company Community Fund · Price Chopper's Golub Foundation · Ge Aerospace Foundation · Neil Jane William Estelle Golub Family Foundation Inc · Jane N Mooty Foundation · JM McDonald Foundation Inc · Ibm International Foundation · The Swyer Family Foundation Inc · Keeler Motor Car Company Charitable Foundation · Alfred Z Solomon Testamentary Trust · The Mitzen Foundation 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 Nordlys 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.
- Berkshire Pulse Inc — 1% 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 Nordlys Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Nordlys 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.