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Plinth

· Private foundation

Specter Etal Trs Specter Char Tr-Ima

Its FY2020 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.

$17k
Granted FY2020
15
Grants FY2020
8
States reached
$3k
Largest
01What you fund
01FY2020 · 15 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

$1,000
Median grant
8
States reached
$357k
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
FORMAN SCHOOL$2,500
PITTSBURGH CULTURAL TRUST$2,000
UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY$2,000
PLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION OF AMERICA$1,800
NARAL$1,000
NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY$1,000
ST ANTHONY'S HOSPITAL INC$1,000
AMERICAN UNIVERSITY$1,000
SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY$1,000
MOFFITT CANCER CENTER FOUNDATION$1,000
WILBRAHAM & MONSON ACADEMY$500
GREATER PITTSBURGH LITERACY COUNCIL$500
OPERATION FREEDOM PAWS$500
UPMC MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES FDN$500
GREATER PITTSBURGH COMMUNITY FOOD BANK$500
02The need
02

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.

show:

Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY20–20) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 77% of your dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 9%NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY: $1k → 16%WILBRAHAM & MONSON ACADEMY: $500 → 17%GREATER PITTSBURGH COMMUNITY FOOD BANK: $500 → 11%OPERATION FREEDOM PAWS: $500 → 8%SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY: $1k → 14%AMERICAN UNIVERSITY: $1k → 14%ST ANTHONY'S HOSPITAL INC: $1k → 12%MOFFITT CANCER CENTER FOUNDATION: $1k → 13%FORMAN SCHOOL: $3k → 9%PITTSBURGH CULTURAL TRUST: $2k → 11%NARAL: $1k → 14%UPMC MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES FDN: $500 → 11%GREATER PITTSBURGH LITERACY COUNCIL: $500 → 11%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

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

NY
MA
PA
CT
CA
KY
DC
FL

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.

03Your field

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.

1
Point Park University

Provides innovative education in a dynamic urban setting. dedicated to academic excellence and community engagement,we prepare students of diverse backgrounds with the knowledge, skill,and experience to lead meaningful lives as informed…

2
The Trustees of Princeton University

Research, education and general - princeton university is a private not-for-profit, non-sectarian institution of higher learning with approximately 5,700 undergraduate and 3,300 graduate students. 2,500 students graduated in the 2024-2025…

Education
3
Furman University

The primary mission of furman as a liberal arts institution is to provide a distinctive education in fine arts, humanities, social sciences, mathematics and the sciences, as well as selected professional disciplines.

Education
4
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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.

Education
5
Trustees of the University of Pennsylvania

The trustees of the university of pennsylvania (the "university") sees itself as having a public service mission. in such regard, the university aims to provide a rich and diverse educational environment for its students; to pioneer…

Education
6
University of Pittsburgh

The university of pittsburgh, founded in 1787, is one of the oldest institutions of higher education in the united states and one of the nation's top public research universities. for more than two centuries, the university of pittsburgh…

Education
7
University of New Haven

The University of New Haven is a student-centered comprehensive university with an emphasis on excellence in liberal arts and professional education. Our mission is to prepare our students to lead purposeful and fulfilling lives in a…

Education
8
Albright College

As a diverse community of learners, we cultivate integrity, curiosity, connection and resilience.

Education
9
The George Washington University

The mission of the george washington university (gw) is to educate individuals in liberal arts, languages, sciences, learned professions, and other courses and subjects of study, and to conduct scholarly research and publish the findings…

Education
10
Trustees of Tufts College

Education and Research

Education
11
President and Fellows of Harvard College

Undergraduate, graduate, and professional education and research across a broad array of academic domains.

Education
12
Manhattanville University

To educate students to be ethical and socially responsible leaders in a global community.

Education

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Syracuse University and the most unlike its peers is Operation Freedom Paws. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

03the grantee network

10 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 20172025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 10 of the 15 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.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
2
Early backer (in before they grew)
10/10
Grantees still filing
10/10
Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

FORMAN SCHOOL INC — $2,500 · OtherFORMAN SCHOOL INCUNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY — $2,000 · OtherUNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKYNARAL — $1,000 · OtherNARALST ANTHONY'S HOSPITAL INC — $1,000 · OtherST ANTHONY'S HOSPITAL INCMOFFITT CANCER CENTER FOUNDATION — $1,000 · OtherMOFFITT CANCER CENTER FOUNDATIONWILBRAHAM AND MONSON ACADEMY — $500 · OtherWILBRAHAM AND MONSON ACADEMYUPMC MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES FDN — $500 · OtherUPMC MEDICAL AND HEALTH SCIENCES FDNNORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY — $1,000 · EducationNORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITYAMERICAN UNIVERSITY — $1,000 · EducationAMERICAN UNIVERSITYSYRACUSE UNIVERSITY — $1,000 · EducationSYRACUSE UNIVERSITYLITERACY PITTSBURGH — $500 · EducationLITERACY PITTSBURGHPITTSBURGH CULTURAL TRUST — $2,000 · Arts & CulturePITTSBURGH CU…PLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION OF AMERICA INC — $1,800 · HealthPLANNED PARE…OPERATION FREEDOM PAWS — $500 · Public BenefitGREATER PITTSBURGH COMMUNITY FOOD BANK — $500 · Food & Nutrition
Other$8,500Education$3,500Arts & Culture$2,000Health$1,800Public Benefit$500Food & Nutrition$500

Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ your share of their budgetFORMAN SCHOOL INC — $2,500 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetPITTSBURGH CULTURAL TRUST — $2,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetPLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION OF AMERICA INC — $1,800 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetNORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY — $1,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetAMERICAN UNIVERSITY — $1,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetSYRACUSE UNIVERSITY — $1,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetOPERATION FREEDOM PAWS — $500 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetWILBRAHAM AND MONSON ACADEMY — $500 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetLITERACY PITTSBURGH — $500 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetGREATER PITTSBURGH COMMUNITY FOOD BANK — $500 over 1y, 0.0% of budget
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.

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.

The Blackbaud Giving FundSC11.6× affinity4 shared granteesties to 3 of 3Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile 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 Specter Etal Trs Specter Char Tr-Ima 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.

2024
202122232425
no gov · 10%0%1%3%5%your share of their income ↑0%4%8%11%15%share of the org’s income from governmentmedian 7%
  • Northeastern University7% of income from government
  • Wilbraham and Monson Academy0% of income from government
no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
1get no government money at all
3report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
0rely on government for over half their income
⤢ axis zoomed · 0–15%
typical government reliance, FY2025

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.

On method. Every financial figure here is read directly from IRS e-file XML — your own 990/990-PF and the multi-year returns of the 15 grantees we resolved across every year we hold, several hundred filings in all (a different count from the grant rows on the cover, which are one fiscal year)— each linked to its source. Grantee achievements and outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III); we read these as association with sustained funding — the foundation is one of several forces — suppress low-confidence name matches rather than guess, and say so where a figure rests on a single grant or filing. Not everything on this page is a filed figure, and the difference matters. Filed is what you reported on your 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. How we build these →

Generated from your IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2020, released 2020. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Source object · view filing

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