· Private foundation
Richard Saltonstall Charitable 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 FY2019–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- $10k–50k17 grants · $550k
- $50k–250k22 grants · $1.8M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| UNITED WAY | $160,000 |
| NEW ENGLAND AQUARIUM | $150,000 |
| CONSERVATION LAW FOUNDATION | $150,000 |
| GREATER BOSTON FOOD BANK | $115,000 |
| UNITED WAY | $100,000 |
| CURE ALZHEIMER'S FUND | $100,000 |
| HALE RESERVATION | $100,000 |
| BAY AREA LYME FOUNDATION | $90,000 |
| GLOBAL LYME ALLIANCE | $90,000 |
| WBUR | $75,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $75,000 |
| PLANNED PARENTHOOD | $70,000 |
| WGBH | $62,500 |
| TRUSTEES OF RESERVATIONS | $60,000 |
| MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY | $60,000 |
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 (FY20–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 7%. 87% 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.
44 repeat relationships — 37 still active in FY2024, 7 since wound down; 1 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, 99% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $35k 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
- ADALZHEIMER'S DISEASE RESEARCH FOUNDATION6× · 2019–2024 · $900k · revenue +85%
CONSERVATION LAW FOUNDATION INC6× · 2019–2024 · $800k · revenue +122%
NEW ENGLAND AQUARIUM CORPORATION5× · 2020–2024 · $675k · revenue +108%
Funded once
- MGMassachusetts General Hospitalone grant, 2019 · $100k
- UWUnited Way (Family Fund)one grant, 2019 · $81k
- HHaleone grant, 2019 · $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.
The museum's mission statement is: "to discover, interpret, and disseminate - through scientific research and education - knowledge about human cultures, the natural world, and the universe."
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
The Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) is a world-renowned center for biological discovery and training that is notably affiliated with more than 60 Nobel Prize winners. Research is conducted by full-time faculty as well as hundreds of the…
Organization's mission statement true to the ambitious vision of its founder and her spirit of creative risk-taking, the mission of the isabella stewart gardner museum is: - to bring to life and preserve the rich historic collection; - to…
The mission of lowell observatory is to pursue the study of astronomy, especially the study of our solar system and its evolution; to conduct pure research in astronomical phenomena; and to maintain quality public education and outreach…
The mission of mit is to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century.
To protect the nature of massachusetts for people and for wildlife through education, land conservation, advocacy, scientific research, and habitat stewardship/restoration.
Ocean conservancy unites science, people, and policy to protect our ocean, today and for generations to come.
Western new england university, a comprehensive private institution with a tradition of excellence in teaching and scholarship and a commitment to service, awards undergraduate, master's, and doctoral degrees in various departments from…
The museum's mission statement is "turn on the science: inspire learning. inform policy. improve lives."
The program mission of the quebec-labrador foundation u.s. is defined by a regional component (new england and eastern canada), and an international component, which ties our regional model to a global conservation network. qlf's program…
Organization's mission bentley university believes good business can impact more than the bottom line - it can change the world. bentley is a community of future business leaders who will deliver value in the marketplace and lasting…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is New England Aquarium Corporation and the most unlike its peers is The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. 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 59 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 11% 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.
29 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. 29 of the 62 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 ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE RESEARCH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CONSERVATION LAW FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds NEW ENGLAND AQUARIUM CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds BAY AREA LYME FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds GREATER BOSTON FOOD BANK INC ↗
- Who funds GLOBAL LYME ALLIANCE INC ↗
- Who funds TRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS ↗
- Who funds WOODS HOLE OCEANOGRAPHIC INSTITUTION ↗
- Who funds PERKINS SCHOOL FOR THE BLIND ↗
- Who funds BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC ↗
- Who funds HALE EDUCATION INC ↗
- Who funds CHARLES RIVER WATERSHED ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE TRUSTEES OF RESERVATIONS ↗
- Who funds MASSACHUSETTS HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds MUSEUM OF SCIENCE ↗
- Who funds PENOBSCOT MARINE MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds PEABODY ESSEX MUSEUM INC ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF BOSTON INC ↗
- Who funds MASSACHUSETTS HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds WholeSchool Mindfulness Inc ↗
- Who funds SAVE THE HARBORSAVE THE BAY INC ↗
- Who funds Maine Coast Heritage Trust ↗
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: Boston Foundation Inc · Haven Trust · Highland Street Connection and Subsidiaries · Liberty Mutual Foundation Inc · Barr Foundation · Eastern Bank Foundation · American Endowment Foundation · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · National Philanthropic Trust
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 Richard Saltonstall Charitable 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, a single department, or state — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution — 63% of income from government
- Massachusetts Historical Society — 22% of income from government
- Greater Boston Food Bank Inc — 22% of income from government
- Trustees of Boston University — 12% of income from government
- New England Aquarium Corporation — 12% of income from government
- Charles River Watershed Association Inc — 8% of income from government
- President and Fellows of Harvard College — 7% of income from government
- Perkins School for the Blind — 7% of income from government
- Peabody Essex Museum Inc — 3% of income from government
- Community Rowing Inc — 2% of income from government
- Boys & Girls Clubs of Boston Inc — 2% of income from government
- The Trustees of Reservations — 2% of income from government
- Boston Symphony Orchestra Inc — 0% of income from government
- Museum of Science — 0% of income from government
- Museum of Fine Arts — 0% of income from government
- Animal Rescue League of Boston — 0% 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 Richard Saltonstall Charitable Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Richard Saltonstall Charitable 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.