How much does Ruth H & Warren a Ellsworth Foundation give?

Ruth H & Warren a Ellsworth Foundation reported 60 grants totaling $980,500 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 42 and 55 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does Ruth H & Warren a Ellsworth Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2018 to FY2025, its largest causes are Education (23%), Arts & Culture (13%), Human Services (9%).

Who are Ruth H & Warren a Ellsworth Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2018 to FY2025: Trustees of Clark University ($689k), Worcester Art Museum ($354k), Worcester Natural History Society Inc ($326k).

Does Ruth H & Warren a Ellsworth Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 26% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Ruth H & Warren a Ellsworth Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it accepts unsolicited grant applications.

Which funders back the same organizations as Ruth H & Warren a Ellsworth Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Greater Worcester Community Foundation Inc, The Fletcher Foundation, Stoddard Charitable Trust.

Where is Ruth H & Warren a Ellsworth Foundation based?

Ruth H & Warren a Ellsworth Foundation is based in MA.

Ruth H & Warren a Ellsworth Foundation

Ruth H & Warren a Ellsworth Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

Ruth H & Warren a Ellsworth Foundation

Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.

$981k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$98k

Largest

01What it funds

0197% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.

Education$1.9MArts & Culture$1.1MHuman Services$751kHealth$703kPhilanthropy$605kYouth Development$529kEnvironment$529kHousing & Shelter$490kOther$0

02FY2025 · 60 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k13 grants · $44k
$10k–50k45 grants · $761k
$50k–250k2 grants · $175k

$10,000

Median grant

States reached

$16M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
CLARK UNIVERSITY	$97,500
UMAS MEMORIAL HEALTH CARE INC	$77,500
UNITED WAY OF CENTRAL MASSACHUSETTS	$42,500
ECOTARIUM	$32,500
WORCESTER ART MUSEUM	$31,250
NATIVITY SCHOOL OF WORCESTER INC	$30,000
HANOVER THEATRE FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS	$27,500
BARTON CENTER FOR DIABETES EDUCATION INC	$26,500
WORCESTER STATE COLLEGE	$25,000
PLANNED PARENTHOOD LEAGUE OF MASS	$25,000
YMCA OF CENTRAL MASSACHUSETTS	$25,000
CENTRO INC	$25,000
QUINSIGAMOND COMMUNITY COLLEGE FDN	$25,000
THE BOTTOM LINE	$20,000
VNA CARE NETWORK AND HOSPICE INC	$20,000

02The need

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:

Its human-services grants (FY18–25, $526k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

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.

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 grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

91%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$6.7M · 77 repeat orgs$646k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +38% since the first grant, against +30% for those funded once.

77 repeat relationships: 45 still active in FY2025, 32 since wound down; 15 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$6.7M

$468k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+38%

+30%

Still filing today

60%

51%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 82% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $178k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

Human ServicesArts & CultureEducationHealthCommunity ImprovementHousing & ShelterOther

How this is measured

First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

TRUSTEES OF CLARK UNIVERSITY
8× · 2018–2025 · $689k · revenue +33%
WORCESTER ART MUSEUM
8× · 2018–2025 · $354k · revenue +130%
WN
WORCESTER NATURAL HISTORY SOCIETY INC
8× · 2018–2025 · $326k · revenue +249%

Funded once

UM
UMASS MEMORIAL HEALTH CARE INC
one grant, 2021 · $50k
GO
GUILD OF SAINT AGNES OF WORCESTERgraduated
one grant, 2022 · $50k · revenue +30%
HT
HANOVER THEATRE AND CONSERVATORY FO
one grant, 2022 · $45k

How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

Wheaton College

Wheaton college provides a transformative liberal arts education, combining theory and practice, for intellectually curious students within a collaborative and vibrant extended community and network that values and strives to create an…

Education

Worcester Business Development Corp

The worcester business development corporation (wbdc) is a private, non- profit business organization with a public purpose mission to serve as an innovation and leading force in the economic development of the city of worcester and the…

—

Wentworth Institute of Technology Inc

Wentworth institute of technology is a nationally recognized private coeducational and residential university of higher education with a mission to empower, inspire and innovate through experiential learning with a core purpose of career…

Education

Worcester Community Cable Access Inc

—

Wicn Public Radio Inc

To operate as a noncommercial educational fm broadcast public radio station for purposes of providing a cultural, educational, literary, scientific, artistic and musical outlet for the area community.

—

Worcester District Medical Society

Medical education and medical ethics

Health

Worcester Regional Chamber of Commerce

The organization is dedicated to being the leading business organization in central massachusetts by providing valuable membership services and programs and events to its members and in advancing and advocating on behalf of economic…

—

Massachusetts Higher Education Assistance Corporation

The organization's primary exempt purpose is to provide access to and conduct activities in furtherance of higher education.

—

Worcester Comm Housing Resource Inc

Worcester Community Housing Resources' mission is to help create and preserve affordable housing and to initiate and support neighborhood revitalization in the greater Worcester area. Since 1994 we have proven ourselves to be a successful…

—

Worcester Area Mission Society United Church of Christ

The organization's vision is to fuel inclusion, voice, and opportunity for all. to support its charitable mission of working with individuals and community partners to inspire economic and educational equity through social change. wam ucc…

Religion

Massachusetts Education & Career Opportunities Inc

Massachusetts education and career opportunities, inc. (massedco, inc.) is a statewide network of service sites that provides education and career advising to over 12,000 low-income, first generation individuals each year. massedco…

Education

Massachusetts Regional Employment Board Association

The massachusetts workforce association (mwa) is a statewide membership association that leads, advocates and convenes on behalf of the massachusetts workforce development system.

Employment

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Greater Worcester Community Foundation Inc; the most unlike its peers is Willard House & Clock Museum Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

04the grantee network

82 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. 82 of the 130 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.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

77/82

Grantees still filing

53/82

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$3,676,750Education$1,521,650Arts & Culture$924,750Human Services$525,500Community Improvement$350,750Philanthropy$251,750Health$248,250

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

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.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Greater Worcester Community Foundation IncMA105.8× affinity50 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Greater Worcester Community Foundation Inc · The Fletcher Foundation · Stoddard Charitable Trust · Webster Five Foundation Inc · The Fred Harris Daniels Foundation · United Way of Central Massachusetts Inc · The George I Alden Trust · Mildred H McEvoy Foundation · Schwartz Charitable Foundation · Wyman Gordon · Hoche-Scofield Foundation-Equity · Rockland Trust Charitable Foundation Inc

How this is measured

Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Ruth H & Warren a Ellsworth Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Ruth H & Warren a Ellsworth Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

22get no government money at all

13report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

7rely on government for over half their income

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.

05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to Ruth H & Warren a Ellsworth Foundation?

Find your warmest path to Ruth H & Warren a Ellsworth 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.

Play a game based on Ruth H & Warren a Ellsworth’s filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions

grants reported with no recipient in the public record

The regranting layer

51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer

The DAF merry-go-round

$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds

The endowment market

who holds foundation money, and what just moved

The camps

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

By state

where grant money is based, and what stays home