· Private foundation
Sally Mead Hands Foundation
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.
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 $10k10 grants · $41k
- $10k–50k20 grants · $328k
- $50k–250k18 grants · $1.5M
- $250k+1 grant · $320k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CITIZENS CLIMATE EDUCATION CORP | $320,000 |
| ROCKY MOUNTAIN INSTITUTE | $147,500 |
| ENVIRONMENTAL LAW & POLICY CENTER | $110,000 |
| CERES | $100,000 |
| WORLD WILDLIFE FUND | $100,000 |
| PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF NORTHERN NEW ENGLAND | $100,000 |
| PROJECT DRAWDOWN | $100,000 |
| PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF MICHIGAN | $100,000 |
| PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF WISCONSIN | $100,000 |
| PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF ILLINOIS | $100,000 |
| TRANSPORTATION RIDERS UNITED | $90,000 |
| MAINE COAST HERITAGE TRUST | $77,500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $75,000 |
| PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF THE GREAT PLAINS | $70,000 |
| CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | $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.
Your human-services grants (FY23–25, $24k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 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.
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 +46% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
59 repeat relationships — 35 still active in FY2025, 24 since wound down; 13 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, 85% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $330k 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
WORLD WILDLIFE FUND INC6× · 2020–2025 · $985k · revenue +28%- ELENVIRONMENTAL LAW AND POLICY CENTER OF THE MIDWEST6× · 2020–2025 · $630k · revenue +32%
- PPPlanned Parenthood of Illinois6× · 2020–2025 · $475k · revenue +77%
Funded once
- PPPLANNED PARENTHOOD OF MID & SOUTH MICHIGANone grant, 2020 · $70k
- NHNeighborhood House Community Center Incone grant, 2024 · $40k · revenue 0%
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2020 · $30k
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 union of concerned scientists puts rigorous, independent science into action, developing solutions and advocating for a healthy, safe, and just future.
The minnesota center for environmental advocacy is a nonprofit organization that uses law, science and research to protect minnesota's environment, its natural resources and the health of its people.
The purpose of the water research foundation (wrf) is a definitive research organization to advance the science of all things water to better meet the evolving needs of its subscribers and the water sector. to engage exclusively in…
The organization's mission is to conserve and promote new england's native plants to ensure healthy, biologically diverse landscapes.
Grist is an independent, non profit media organization dedicated to reporting on climate change.
To establish and promote programs to protect the global climate, forests, wildlife and the natural environment, through research, advocacy, and investigation.
Central indiana corporate partnership (cicp) is an alliance of indiana's business and research university leaders coming together to foster long-term prosperity for the region. cicp's mission is to transform the economy of indiana in order…
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.
Our mission is conserving West Michigans ecologically critical land. We protect land by creating public nature preserves, providing support to communities and local governments in creating natural areas, and helping private landowners…
To effectively and efficiently mitigate risks to the reliability and security of the western interconnection's bulk power system.
Midwest dairy works with others to give consumers an excellent dairy experience increasing sales, fostering innovation, and inspiring consumer confidence of dairy products and practices.
Environment next supports individuals, nonprofits and businesses around the world on solutions to complex climate issues. we provide leadership, outreach and communication support, grants, and investments to empower leaders and their ideas…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Midwest Renewable Energy Association Inc and the most unlike its peers is Lac Courte Oreilles Ojibwa Public Broadcasting Corp. 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 35 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) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 1% 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.
69 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. 69 of the 93 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 CITIZENS CLIMATE EDUCATION CORP ↗
- Who funds WORLD WILDLIFE FUND INC ↗
- Who funds ENVIRONMENTAL LAW AND POLICY CENTER OF THE MIDWEST ↗
- Who funds Planned Parenthood of Illinois ↗
- Who funds PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF WISCONSIN INC ↗
- Who funds PROJECT DRAWDOWN ↗
- Who funds Rocky Mountain Institute ↗
- Who funds TRANSPORTATION RIDERS UNITED INC ↗
- Who funds PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF MICHIGAN ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR NEIGHBORHOOD TECHNOLOGY ↗
- Who funds Maine Coast Heritage Trust ↗
- Who funds Chicago Symphony Orchestra ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds 1000 FRIENDS OF WISCONSIN ↗
- Who funds RENEW WISCONSIN INC ↗
- Who funds PLANNED PARENTHOOD GREAT PLAINS ↗
- Who funds CERES INC ↗
- Who funds ENTERPRISE COMMUNITY PARTNERS INC ↗
- Who funds WORLD RESOURCES INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY ↗
- Who funds MICHIGAN ENVIROMENTAL COUNCIL ↗
- Who funds Planned Parenthood of Northern New England Inc ↗
- Who funds HEALTHY CLIMATE WISCONSIN INC ↗
- Who funds ECOLOGY CENTER ↗
- Who funds Appalachian Mountain Club ↗
- Who funds SAVANNA INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds MIDWEST RENEWABLE ENERGY ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds Trinity Jubilee Center Inc ↗
- Who funds CONWAY AREA HUMANE SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds Neighborhood House Community Center 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 Evjue Foundation Inc · Madison Gas and Electric Foundation Inc · Maine Community Foundation Inc · United States Energy Foundation · The Joyce Foundation · Madison Community Foundation · Greater Milwaukee Foundation Inc · Alliant Energy Foundation Inc · The Nature Conservancy · Patagoniaorg · Endres Manufacturing Foundation Inc · Elmina B Sewall 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 Sally Mead Hands 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.
- Enterprise Community Partners Inc — 22% of income from government
- Atlantic Center for the Arts Inc — 5% of income from government
- Planned Parenthood of Northern New England Inc — 2% of income from government
- Appalachian Mountain Club — 1% of income from government
- Ceres Inc — 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 Sally Mead Hands Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Sally Mead Hands 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.