· Private foundation
Proteus 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 $10k18 grants · $91k
- $10k–50k8 grants · $180k
- $50k–250k4 grants · $250k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE FOR MACHINE CONSCIOUSNESS | $100,000 |
| FERN HOLLOW NATURE CENTER | $50,000 |
| COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF CENTRAL BLUE RIDGE | $50,000 |
| CENTER FOR OPEN SCIENCE | $50,000 |
| SWEETWATER CENTER FOR ARTS | $37,500 |
| AMERICAN SHAKESPEARE CENTER | $25,000 |
| MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY | $25,000 |
| GREEN FORESTS WORK | $25,000 |
| SANTA FE INSTITUTE | $25,000 |
| SHENANDOAH GREEN | $17,000 |
| THE LINDSAY THEATER | $15,000 |
| TREE PITTSBURGH | $10,000 |
| WVLS ALLEGHENY MOUNTAIN RADIO | $5,500 |
| COCHRAN HOSE COMPANY | $5,000 |
| MIT FREE SPEECH ALLIANCE | $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 (FY21–25, $35k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 14% of Proteus Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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 +32% since the first grant, against +14% for the ones you funded once.
35 repeat relationships — 22 still active in FY2025, 13 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, 65% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $158k 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
- CFCENTER FOR OPEN SCIENCE INC6× · 2020–2025 · $200k · revenue +49%
SANTA FE INSTITUTE6× · 2020–2025 · $200k · revenue +320%- GFGREEN FORESTS WORK INC4× · 2022–2025 · $125k · revenue +192%
Funded once
- OGOPEN GLOBAL MIND CO LIONSBERG MMAPone grant, 2021 · $25k
- FGFUTURE GENERATIONS UNIVERSITY CORPORATIONone grant, 2024 · $16k · revenue -26%
- CACLEAN AIR TASK FORCE INCgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $15k · revenue +59%
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.
Fsc i&p promotes environmentally appropriate, socially beneficial, and economically viable management of the world's forests. this mission aligns with the forest stewardship council (fsc), its network of offices, and other organizations.…
The union of concerned scientists puts rigorous, independent science into action, developing solutions and advocating for a healthy, safe, and just future.
To assume and foster certain charitable activities of the university corporation for atmospheric research (ucar). these include development of scientific innovations, related research, and application of scientific advances for the benefit…
The university of virginia investment management company (uvimco) is organized to invest funds on behalf of the rector and visitors of the university of virginia (the university or uva) and university-associated organizations (uaos).
Glen foerd stewards an eclectic riverfront estate for the enjoyment and educational benefit of the community. drawing from the estate's architecture, art, material culture, and history-as well as its gardens and waterways-glen foerd…
To partner with individuals and organizations to access, organize, and share data that inspires action that restores our environment.
Veic is a sustainable energy company on a mission to generate the energy solutions the world needs (continues in schedule o). (continued), working to combat the climate crisis, boost community resilience, and lower energy costs. for nearly…
To drive transformational adaptation to protect communities across the country from higher seas, stronger storms, and more frequent flooding.
The health and environmental sciences institute (hesi) is a nonprofit institution whose mission is to engage scientists from academia, government, industry, nonprofit, and other research institutions to identify and resolve global health…
The western pennsylvania conservancy protects and restores exceptional places to provide our region with clean waters and healthy forests, wildlife and natural areas for the benefit of present and future generations. the conservancy…
Mcfc builds an equitable, resilient and sustainable local food system through collaboration, transformation, and cultivation.mcfc envisions a vibrant and equitable food system that is healthy for our community, economy, and environment.
To return the iconic american chestnut to its native range.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Community Foundation of the Central Blue Ridge and the most unlike its peers is California Institute for Machine Consciousness. 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 30 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 8% of your grantees by number, and just 11% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
30 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. 30 of the 54 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 COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF THE CENTRAL BLUE RIDGE ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR OPEN SCIENCE INC ↗
- Who funds SANTA FE INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds GREEN FORESTS WORK INC ↗
- Who funds California Institute for Machine Consciousness ↗
- Who funds Massachusetts Institute of Technology ↗
- Who funds MEDIATORS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE PITTSBURGH URBAN FOREST ↗
- Who funds FOODSHED CAPITAL ↗
- Who funds GROW PITTSBURGH ↗
- Who funds FERN HOLLOW NATURE CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds Squirrel Hill Urban Coalition ↗
- Who funds MIT Free Speech Alliance ↗
- Who funds HISTORIC STAUNTON FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Highland County Volunteer Rescue Squad Inc ↗
- Who funds HIGHLAND MEDICAL CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds HIGHLAND COUNTY HUMANE SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds Highland Children's House ↗
- Who funds Sewickley Public Library ↗
- Who funds ALLEGHENY LAND TRUST ↗
- Who funds PROJECT GROWS INC ↗
- Who funds FUTURE GENERATIONS UNIVERSITY CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds CLEAN AIR TASK FORCE INC ↗
- Who funds RENEWING HOMES OF GREATER AUGUSTA 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 · Community Foundation of the Central Blue Ridge · The Community Foundation of Harrisonburg & Rockingham County · Glen and Diane Meakem Foundation Inc · Richard King Mellon Foundation · The Heinz Endowments · The Kopf Family Foundation · The Grable Foundation · National Philanthropic Trust · American Endowment Foundation · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Paypal Charitable Giving Fund
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 Proteus 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.
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology — 35% 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.