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· Private foundation

Returning the Sparks Inc

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.

$4k
Granted FY2025still arriving
4
Grants FY2025still arriving
4
States reached
$2k
Largest
01What it funds
0193% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2021 to 2024.

Religion$26kScience & Tech$10kEducation$8kCivil Rights$5kArts & Culture$197Other$0
02FY2025 · 4 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

$1,000
Median grant
4
States reached
$4k
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
ADAM THEATER$1,800
JEWISH ASSOCIATION FOR DEATH EDUCATION$1,000
B'NAI BRITH YOUTH ORGANIZATION$661
Individual grant recipient$100
02The need
03

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY21–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 34% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.

area typical 12%YESHIMEVET MENGISTU: $10k → 8%CLARK UNIVERSITY HILLEL: $5k → 11%UMASS AMHERST HILLEL: $4k → 12%NORTHEASTERN HILLEL: $2k → 16%JADYN BECKER: $500 → 9%B'NAI BRITH YOUTH ORGANIZATION: $661 → 14%COMBAT HATE FOUNDATION: $5k → 10%UCONN HILLEL: $3k → 11%JEWISH ASSOCIATION FOR DEATH EDUCATION: $1k → 12%INSTITUTE FOR EXPERIMENTAL JEWISH EDUCATION: $3k → 14%JEWISH SOCIAL RESPONSE: $10k → 13%HILLEL AT DARTMOUTH: $197 → 10%ADAS YOSHURON CONGREGATION: $100 → 11%JAY SNYDER: $5k → 8%ARIELLE SILVER: $500 → 11%ADAM THEATER: $2k → 16%JADYN BECKER: $500 → 11%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount
How this is measured
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.

Which US states its grants reach

NH
IL
NY
MA
NV
CT
MD
KS
How this is measured
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.
03Its field
04the grantee network

5 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 5 of the 18 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
1
Early backer (in before they grew)
5/5
Grantees still filing
3/5
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Individual grant recipient: $10,000 · OtherIndividual grant recipientIndividual grant recipient: $5,000 · OtherIndividual grant recipientCLARK UNIVERSITY HILLEL: $4,806 · OtherCLARK UNIVERSITY HILLELIndividual grant recipient: $3,632 · OtherIndividual grant recipientINSTITUTE FOR EXPERIMENTAL JEWISH EDUCATION: $3,200 · OtherINSTITUTE FOR EXPERIMENTAL JEWISH EDUCATIONUCONN HILLEL: $3,090 · OtherUCONN HILLELNORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY HILLEL ADVISORY: $1,816 · Other+7 more: $4,158 · Other+7 moreJewish Social Response: $10,000 · ReligionJewish Social ResponseZionist Rabbinic Coalition Inc: $5,000 · ReligionZionist Rabbinic Coalition In…COMBAT HATE FOUNDATION: $5,000 · Civil RightsCOMBAT HA…ADAM THEATER INC: $1,800 · Arts & Culture
Other$35,702Religion$15,000Civil Rights$5,000Arts & Culture$1,800

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetJewish Social Response: $10,000 over 1y, 3.6% of budgetCOMBAT HATE FOUNDATION: $5,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetZionist Rabbinic Coalition Inc: $5,000 over 1y, 1.8% of budgetNORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY HILLEL ADVISORY: $1,816 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetADAM THEATER INC: $1,800 over 1y, 0.4% of budget
Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

  • Who funds Jewish Social Response ↗
  • Who funds COMBAT HATE FOUNDATION ↗
  • Who funds Zionist Rabbinic Coalition Inc ↗
  • Who funds NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY HILLEL ADVISORY ↗
  • Who funds ADAM THEATER INC ↗

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Returning the Sparks Inc funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Returning the Sparks Inc. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 20%0%1%3%5%funder's share of their income ↑0%1%3%4%5%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    2get no government money at all
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–5%
    typical government reliance, FY20–25
    How this is measured
    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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.
    04Through Plinth

    Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

    How do I get to Returning the Sparks Inc?

    Find your warmest path to Returning the Sparks Inc 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.

    On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 18 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

    How this is measured
    Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears.

    Generated from the IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2025, released 2025. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

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