· Private foundation
Putnam Foundation
Its FY2024 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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 115 grants below total $1,320,363 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $1,633,363 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $313,000 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 · FY2024
- Under $10k83 grants · $174k
- $10k–50k24 grants · $501k
- $50k–250k8 grants · $646k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Colonial Theatre Capital Campaign | $200,000 |
| NEGEF | $85,000 |
| NHCF Asahel & Thankful Putnam Fund COTAH | $74,000 |
| NHCF Asahel & Thankful Putnam Fund COTAH | $72,000 |
| 350Vermont | $65,000 |
| Trustees of the Protestant Episcopal Church in NH | $50,000 |
| NH Charitable Foundation | $50,000 |
| MacDowell | $50,000 |
| Extinction Rebellion--Boston | $40,000 |
| 350NH | $40,000 |
| Church of Jesus Christ of LDS | $38,000 |
| Monadnock United Way, 2023 Grant | $35,000 |
| ME Youth for Climate Justice | $25,000 |
| Maine Climate Action Now | $25,000 |
| REAP | $25,000 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–21) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 6%. 100% of your 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 +32% since the first grant, against +3% for the ones you funded once.
48 repeat relationships — 37 still active in FY2024, 11 since wound down; 66 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, 60% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $495k 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
- 3V350 VERMONT INC3× · 2022–2024 · $137k · revenue +145%
- CHCheshire Health Foundation3× · 2022–2024 · $55k · revenue +78%
- FOFRIENDS OF THE PUBLIC GARDEN INC3× · 2022–2024 · $35k · revenue +30%
Funded once
- CTColonial Theatre Capital Campaign--FINALone grant, 2023 · $400k
- CTColonial Theatreone grant, 2021 · $400k
- TCTHE COLONIAL THEATREone grant, 2020 · $300k · revenue -71%
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.
The organization's mission is to conserve and promote new england's native plants to ensure healthy, biologically diverse landscapes.
Ceres is a nonprofit advocacy organization working to accelerate the transition to a cleaner, more just, and resilient world. through education and research, we make the business case for action on the most pressing sustainability…
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,…
Eastern national promotes the public's understanding and support of america's national parks and other public trust partners by providing quality educational experiences, products and services.
The Climate Center is a climate and energy policy nonprofit working to rapidly reduce climate pollution at scale, starting in California.
To provide exceptional healthcare services in a safe and trustful environment through the expertise, committment, and compassion of our family of caregivers.
To cultivate and develop an expansive collection of trees, gardens, and plants for all to explore, enjoy and study; and to provide through education and stewardship, a greener, healthier, more beautiful environment.
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
Rogue Climate's mission is to empower Southern Oregon communities most impacted by climate change including low-income, rural, youth, seniors & communities of color, to win climate justice by organizing for clean energy, sustainable jobs &…
The union of concerned scientists puts rigorous, independent science into action, developing solutions and advocating for a healthy, safe, and just future.
Northeast college of health sciences (the college) is committed to academic excellence, leadership, and professional best practices in the health sciences.
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.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Northeast Wilderness Trust Corporation and the most unlike its peers is Profound Autism Alliance Inc. 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 31 years old; the field is 22. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 16% startups (under 5 years old) — 7% of your grantees by number, and just 3% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 8% 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.
84 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. 84 of the 267 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
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
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 COLONIAL THEATRE ↗
- Who funds New Hampshire Charitable Foundation ↗
- Who funds 350 VERMONT INC ↗
- Who funds NEW ENGLAND GRASSROOTS ENVIRONMENT FUND INC ↗
- Who funds MARIAN AND EDWARD MACDOWELL INC ↗
- Who funds Cheshire Health Foundation ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE PUBLIC GARDEN INC ↗
- Who funds NORTHEAST WILDERNESS TRUST CORPORATION ↗
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: New Hampshire Charitable Foundation · The Vermont Community Foundation · The Kingsbury Fund · Hoffman Family Foundation · Boston Foundation Inc · National Grange Mutual Charitable Foundation Inc · Eversource Energy Foundation Inc · The Bessemer Giving Fund · Merrill Family Charitable Foundation Inc · The Windham Foundation Inc · The Ford Family Foundation · The Roundhouse 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 Putnam 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.
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 Putnam Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Putnam 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.