· Private foundation
Phineas W Sprague Memorial 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 FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k48 grants · $149k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $77k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MAINE MEDICAL CENTER | $43,500 |
| GOOD SHEPHERD FOOD BANK | $12,000 |
| FARMS FOR FOOD EQUITY | $11,000 |
| CAPE ELIZABETH HIGH SCHOOL | $10,000 |
| PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF NEW ENGLAND | $6,000 |
| WAYFINDER SCHOOLS | $6,000 |
| KETCHA OUTDOORS | $6,000 |
| RIDING TO THE TOP THERAPEUTIC RIDING CENTER | $6,000 |
| AMERICAN CHESTNUT FOUNDATION | $6,000 |
| CAPE ELIZABETH LAND TRUST | $5,000 |
| UNION OF MAINE VISUAL ARTISTS | $5,000 |
| PORTLAND COMMUNITY SQUASH | $5,000 |
| CAMP COMMUNITY ARENA GROUP | $5,000 |
| SCARBOROUGH LAND TRUST | $5,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $5,000 |
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 (FY20–25, $97k) land where the poverty rate runs at 7%, against an area that typically sits at 7%. 24% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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 +40% since the first grant, against +8% for the ones you funded once.
53 repeat relationships — 42 still active in FY2025, 11 since wound down; 10 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, 88% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $27k 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
- MMaineHealth5× · 2020–2025 · $138k · revenue +64%
- GSGood Shepherd Food Bank6× · 2020–2025 · $88k · revenue +50%
THE AMERICAN CHESTNUT FOUNDATION6× · 2020–2025 · $43k · revenue +40%
Funded once
- MMMAINE MEDICAL CENTER - PIERone grant, 2021 · $10k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2023 · $8k
- MMMAINE MEDICAL CENTER - SPIRITUAL CAREone grant, 2021 · $5k
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.
Maine Media Workshops & College educates and inspires visual artists and storytellers to achieve their creative potential. We provide lifelong learning opportunities for those pursuing the fine arts and media-related professions. We are…
The mission of the Maine Museum of Photographic Arts is to inspire, engage and educate through the exhibition, preservation and collection of photographic works. The Museums programs address contemporary, historical, cultural and…
The mission of Midcoast Conservancy is to protect vital lands and waters on a scale that matters and to inspire wonder and action on behalf of all species and the Earth.
Secure a sustainable future for fisheries and fishing communities in Eastern Maine and beyond.
Maine Rivers is a statewide advocacy organization. Our mission is to protect, restore and enhance the ecological health of Maine's river systems. We support and direct efforts to conserve and improve the health of Maine's rivers and…
The mission of Islesboro Islands Trust is to enhance the quality of residents' lives through the preservation of open space, educate all residents as to the value of the island's natural ecosystems, and act as an environmental advocate on…
Maine & Company is a private, non-profit business development sales organization. Its purpose is to improve Maine's success in attracting new business and expanding and retaining existing business by providing a focused, statewide sales…
Penobscot Bay Medical Center (PBMC) is an acute care hospital that offers inpatient and outpatient care, diagnostic, therapeutic and rehabilitative services, patient and community education, and a full range of specialty services through…
The Maine Narrow Gauge Railroad Company & Museum preserves and operates hstoric two-foot gauge railroad equipment for the education and enjoyment of the public.
The manufacturers association of maine is dedicated to promoting and strengthening manufacturing in maine as an informative voice for the state's manufacturing community.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Children's Museum and Theatre of Maine and the most unlike its peers is Androscoggin Bank's Mainstreet Fdn Portland Trust Company Llc. 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 34 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 3% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% 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.
60 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. 60 of the 91 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 MaineHealth ↗
- Who funds Good Shepherd Food Bank ↗
- Who funds THE AMERICAN CHESTNUT FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Planned Parenthood of Northern New England Inc ↗
- Who funds RIDING TO THE TOP ↗
- Who funds Ketcha Outdoors ↗
- Who funds WAYFINDER SCHOOLS ↗
- Who funds MAINE PRESERVATION ↗
- Who funds Cape Elizabeth Land Trust ↗
- Who funds FARMS FOR FOOD EQUITY ↗
- Who funds Portland Museum of Art ↗
- Who funds Maine Huts & Trails ↗
- Who funds Maine Audubon Society ↗
- Who funds TATE HOUSE MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds MAINE HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds Sailing Ships Portland ↗
- Who funds SAIL MAINE ↗
- Who funds Southern Maine Agency on Aging ↗
- Who funds Maine Farmland Trust ↗
- Who funds GULF OF MAINE RESEARCH INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds GREATER PORTLAND LANDMARKS INC ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN'S MUSEUM AND THEATRE OF MAINE ↗
- Who funds Maine Seacoast Mission ↗
- Who funds Portland Community Squash ↗
- Who funds MAINE COLLEGE OF ART AND DESIGN ↗
- Who funds PALAVER STRINGS INC ↗
- Who funds Maine Island Trail Association ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF SEGUIN ISLAND LIGHT STATION ↗
- Who funds United Way Inc ↗
- Who funds PROUTS NECK HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
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: Maine Community Foundation Inc · Davis Family Foundation · Sam L Cohen Foundation · Morton-Kelly Charitable Trust · Fisher Charitable Foundation · Horizon Foundation Inc · The Apple Lane Foundation Inc 14101830 · Saco & Biddeford Savings Charitable Foundation · Onion Foundation · The Widgeon Point Charitable Foundation · Elmina B Sewall Foundation · Albert B Glickman Family 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 Phineas W Sprague Memorial 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.
- Manomet Inc — 12% of income from government
- Planned Parenthood of Northern New England Inc — 2% 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 Phineas W Sprague Memorial Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Phineas W Sprague Memorial 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.