· Private foundation
Sills Family Foundation
Its FY2024 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Read this first · the figures below need context
99% of Sills Family Foundation’s FY2024 grant dollars went to Boston Foundation Inc, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2024 names 6 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k5 grants · $5k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $10k
- $250k+1 grant · $1.4M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Boston Foundation | $1,400,000 |
| Doula Project | $10,000 |
| Our Childrens Trust | $1,000 |
| New Neighbors Partnership | $1,000 |
| Westhab | $1,000 |
| UPRose | $1,000 |
| New Rochelle Council on the Arts | $1,000 |
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 (FY21–24, $20k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 10% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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 +37% since the first grant, against +21% for the ones you funded once.
5 repeat relationships — 1 still active in FY2024, 4 since wound down; 5 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, 7% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $14k 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
- IGIndividual grant recipient2× · 2019–2020 · $4.9M
- TBTHE BROOKLYN INSTITUTE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES2× · 2021–2022 · $1.8M · revenue -25%
PHILANTHROPY NEW YORK INC4× · 2019–2023 · $21k · revenue +118%
Funded once
- AIARTSWESTCHESTER INCone grant, 2021 · $40k · revenue +24%
- BCBLOOMFIELD COLLEGE OF MONTCLAIR STATE UNIVERSITY INCone grant, 2021 · $25k · revenue -63%
- AFAMERICAN FRIENDS OF POLIN MUSEUM OF THE HISTORY OF POLISH JEWS INCone grant, 2021 · $25k · revenue -35%
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.
Brooklyn bridge park corporation's mission, d/b/a brooklyn bridge park ("bbp") mission is to provide an exceptional public space that connects people, nature, and the waterfront, through inclusive, innovative, and sustainable management…
Established in 1971, the mission of the new york foundation for the arts (nyfa) is to empower artists in all disciplines, as well as cultural workers, to achieve success on their own terms by providing critical support, resources, and…
A pioneering advocate for cultural equity, the bronx council on the arts nurtures the development of diverse artists and arts organizations and build strong cultural connections in and beyond the bronx.
A center for exhibitions, information, and documentation about living artists since 1977, which continues to be a place of experimentation and a hub of new art and new ideas.
The mission of new york city center is to be new york city's leading center for dance and musical theater. dedicated to making the arts accessible to the broadest possible audience, city center seeks to create a welcoming environment and…
White columns identifies significant emerging and under-represented visual artists and encourages their creative and professional development through the presentation of group and solo exhibitions, an online curated artists registry, and…
(a) the development, stimulation, encouragement, improvement and promotion of the business climate in new york city; (b) the fostering of trade and commerce in new york city and the promotion of the general welfare andprosperity of new…
The architectural league of new york supports critically transformative work in the allied fields that shape the built environment. as a vital, independent forum, the league stimulates thinking, debate, and action on today's (continued on…
The municipal art society of new york (mas) lifts up the voices of the people in the debates that shape new york's built environment and leads the way to a more livable city from sidewalk to skyline. mas envisions a future in which all new…
The new york botanical garden is a museum of plants and a scientific research center devoted to the study of plants and their uses. it is the garden's mission to improve public understanding of the natural world, horticulture, and the…
To produce bold theatre experiences that reach across artistic, physical and social boundries. We aim to increase empathy and open-mindedness by illuminating nuanced perspectives and unspoken truths behind the salient issues of our time.…
To bring quality public television programs and resources to communities throughout new jersey and its tri-state neighbors. its content, both on-air and online, aims to reflect the diverse
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Artswestchester Inc and the most unlike its peers is American Friends of Polin Museum of the History of Polish Jews Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 31 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.
23 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. 23 of the 28 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 Boston Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds THE BROOKLYN INSTITUTE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES ↗
- Who funds ARTSWESTCHESTER INC ↗
- Who funds BLOOMFIELD COLLEGE OF MONTCLAIR STATE UNIVERSITY INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN FRIENDS OF POLIN MUSEUM OF THE HISTORY OF POLISH JEWS INC ↗
- Who funds PHILANTHROPY NEW YORK INC ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY-WORD PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds BROOKLYN BALLETINC ↗
- Who funds SONGCATCHERS INC ↗
- Who funds Creative Arts Workshops for Kids Inc ↗
- Who funds GROUNDSWELL INC ↗
- Who funds NEW YORK SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL ↗
- Who funds THE DOULA PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds PURPOSE DIGNITY ACTION ↗
- Who funds DREAMORG ↗
- Who funds BENNINGTON COLLEGE CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds NEW ROCHELLE COUNCIL ON THE ARTS ↗
- Who funds Westhab Inc ↗
- Who funds NEW NEIGHBORS PARTNERSHIP ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds UPROSE INC ↗
- Who funds OUR CHILDREN'S TRUST ↗
- Who funds West Harlem Environmental Action Inc ↗
- Who funds WITNESS TO MASS INCARCERATION 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: Boston Foundation Inc · The Hyde and Watson Foundation · The New York Community Trust · Td Charitable Foundation · American Express Foundation · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Network for Good · National Philanthropic Trust · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc
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 Sills Family 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.
- Bennington College Corporation — 0% of income from government
- Boston Foundation 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.