· Private foundation
Spero Charitable 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.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k29 grants · $60k
- $10k–50k3 grants · $37k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $66k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| TOYS FOR TOTS | $66,121 |
| THE WOODSTOCK MUSEUM | $16,000 |
| BOWDOIN COLLEGE | $11,000 |
| DANA FARBER CANCER INSTITUTE | $10,000 |
| THE GEANCO FOUNDATION | $5,250 |
| RISE UP | $5,000 |
| MASS GENERAL HOSPITAL | $5,000 |
| HELPING HAND FOR RELIEF AND DEVELOPMENT | $5,000 |
| PLAYING FOR A FOUNDATION (FRANCES) | $4,500 |
| SALSA FOR THE SCHOOLS | $4,200 |
| PRIVATE SCHOOL VILLAGE | $3,900 |
| Individual grant recipient | $3,685 |
| SOUTH SHORE HEALTH | $3,000 |
| CORNELIA CONNELLY CENTER | $3,000 |
| CLERGY BENEFIT TRUST | $3,000 |
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 (FY20–24, $8k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 30% 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 +32% since the first grant, against +6% for the ones you funded once.
23 repeat relationships — 12 still active in FY2024, 11 since wound down; 20 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, 60% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $66k 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
- MTMARINE TOYS FOR TOTS FOUNDATION5× · 2020–2024 · $130k · revenue +45%
- WMWOODSTOCK MUSEUM4× · 2021–2024 · $36k · revenue +28% · 39% of their budget
- BCBERKLEE COLLEGE OF MUSIC INC4× · 2020–2024 · $22k · revenue +25%
Funded once
- GAGABRIELLE'S ANGEL FOUNDATION FOR CANCER RESEARCH INCone grant, 2022 · $12k · revenue -11%
- TOTHE OAK SCHOOLone grant, 2023 · $10k
- CICOMMUNITIES IN SCHOOLS OF LOS ANGELES INCone grant, 2022 · $10k · revenue -29%
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 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.
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
Organization's mission: boston university is an international, comprehensive, private research university, committed to educating students to be reflective, resourceful individuals ready to live, adapt, and lead in an interconnected world.…
Dartmouth College educates the most promising students and prepares them for a lifetime of learning and of responsible leadership, through a faculty dedicated to teaching and the creation of knowledge.
Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.
Operate a state-of-the-art, world-class genomic research center that creates and uses advanced genomics to understand the genetic basis of disease. for more information, see schedule o.
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…
Provider of pediatric healthcare, education, research & community service
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…
Mitchell college educates students through a highly individualized educational approach that brings forward each student's potential, reveals their strengths, and fosters personal growth.
Whitehead institute forges new frontiers in science, uncovering insights today that unlock the potential of tomorrow. our advances in genetics and genomics are now enabling us to tackle the complexities of life with unprecedented depth and…
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…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is March of Dimes Inc and the most unlike its peers is Empty Stocking Fund Formerly Bgl Foundation. 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 29 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) — 10% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% 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.
43 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. 43 of the 83 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 MARINE TOYS FOR TOTS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds WOODSTOCK MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds BERKLEE COLLEGE OF MUSIC INC ↗
- Who funds GABRIELLE'S ANGEL FOUNDATION FOR CANCER RESEARCH INC ↗
- Who funds Bowdoin College ↗
- Who funds Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Inc ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR HUMAN GENETICS INC ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITIES IN SCHOOLS OF LOS ANGELES INC ↗
- Who funds BLOOD CANCER UNITED INC ↗
- Who funds PACER CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds THE GEANCO FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds PABLOVE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE OAKS SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds HELPING HAND FOR RELIEF AND DEVELOPMENT INC ↗
- Who funds BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds TILLY'S LIFE CENTER ↗
- Who funds Private School Village ↗
- Who funds THE WANG CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS INC ↗
- Who funds THE PINGREE SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL ANIMAL INTEREST ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds NORTHAMPTON CENTER FOR THE ARTS 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: Pledgeling Foundation · Boston Foundation Inc · Eastern Bank Foundation · Cummings Foundation Grants Inc (Fka Oneworld Boston Inc) · Fidelity Foundation · Greater Horizons · California Community Foundation · The Pfizer Foundation Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc · Jewish Communal Fund · Silicon Valley Community 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 Spero Charitable 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, a single department, or state — and drag the year to watch it move.
- The Home for Little Wanderers Inc — 38% of income from government
- The Wang Center for the Performing Arts Inc — 10% of income from government
- Brandeis University — 9% of income from government
- Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Inc — 7% of income from government
- The New Dance Complex Inc — 2% of income from government
- Special Olympics Massachusetts Inc — 1% of income from government
- Berklee College of Music Inc — 1% of income from government
- Museum of Science — 0% of income from government
- Brooksby Village Inc — 0% of income from government
- Center for Human Genetics 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 Spero Charitable Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Spero Charitable 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.