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· Private foundation

Sellin Family Foundation

Its FY2019 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

$53k
Granted FY2019
7
Grants FY2019
4
States reached
$32k
Largest

Read this first · the figures below need context

61% of Sellin Family Foundation’s FY2019 grant dollars went to Adirondack Foundation, not to grantees.

Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2019 names 5 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it.

Organizations named directly on the return

2
’17
1
’18
5
’19

Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.

01What it funds
01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2019.

Environment$71kHealth$50kPhilanthropy$36kEducation$14kArts & Culture$5kHuman Services$2kReligion$100
02FY2019 · 7 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2019

  • Under $10k5 grants · $8k
  • $10k–50k2 grants · $44k
$1,000
Median grant
4
States reached
$0
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
ADIRONDACK FOUNDATION$31,978
AMHERST COLLEGE$12,500
TUPPER ARTS$5,000
KINKAID SCHOOL$1,000
WILD CENTER$1,000
NATIONAL AT-HOME DAD NETWORK$1,000
ARISE OF NORTHERN NY$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 (FY17–19) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 99% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 10%AMHERST COLLEGE: $13k → 12%ADIRONDACK FOUNDATION: $32k → 13%WILD CENTER: $70k → 16%UT MD ANDERSON CANCER CENTER: $25k → 16%NATIONAL AT-HOME DAD NETWORK: $1k → 6%ADIRONDACK FOUNDATION: $4k → 13%TUPPER ARTS: $5k → 16%BAYLOR COLLEGE OF MEDICINE: $25k → 16%NATIONAL AT-HOME DAD NETWORK: $1k → 6%WILD CENTER: $1k → 16%KINKAID SCHOOL: $1k → 16%ARISE OF NORTHERN NY: $100 → 16%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.
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
04Its field
04the grantee network

7 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. 7 of the 9 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)
6/7
Grantees still filing
6/7
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM OF THE ADIRONDACKS: $71,000 · Arts & CultureNATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM OF THE ADIRONDACKSTUPPER ARTS INC: $5,000 · Arts & CultureTUPPER ARTS INCBaylor College of Medicine: $25,000 · EducationBaylor College of Medicin…AMHERST COLLEGE TRUSTEES: $12,500 · EducationAMHERST COLLEGE TRUSTEESNATIONAL AT-HOME DAD NETWORK: $2,000 · Education+1 more: $1,000 · EducationADIRONDACK FOUNDATION: $35,978 · PhilanthropyADIRONDACK FOUNDATIONUT MD ANDERSON CANCER CENTER: $25,000 · OtherUT MD ANDERSON C…+1 more: $100 · Other
Arts & Culture$76,000Education$40,500Philanthropy$35,978Other$25,100

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

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetNATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM OF THE ADIRONDACKS: $71,000 over 2y, 1.2% of budgetADIRONDACK FOUNDATION: $35,978 over 2y, 0.5% of budgetBaylor College of Medicine: $25,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetAMHERST COLLEGE TRUSTEES: $12,500 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetTUPPER ARTS INC: $5,000 over 1y, 5.1% of budgetThe Kinkaid School Inc: $1,000 over 1y, 0.0% 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.

How much its grantees rely on government

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

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%0%1%3%5%funder's share of their income ↑0%5%10%15%20%share of the org’s income from government →median 0%
  • Amherst College Trustees: 0% of income from government
no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
0get no government money at all
1report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
0rely on government for over half their income
⤢ axis zoomed · 0–20%
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 Sellin Family Foundation?

Find your warmest path to Sellin Family 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.

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 9 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 2019, released 2019. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Source object · view filing

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