Skip to content
Plinth

· Private foundation

Sprague Foundation Inc

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.

$204k
Granted FY2024still arriving
19
Grants FY2024still arriving
8
States reached
$100k
Largest
01What you fund
0194% classified

What you funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY20192024.

Education$412kArts & Culture$267kHealth$135kPhilanthropy$47kHuman Services$45kScience & Tech$33kEnvironment$29kCrime & Legal$26kOther$0
02FY2024 · 19 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

By grant size · FY2024

  • Under $10k13 grants · $34k
  • $10k–50k5 grants · $70k
  • $50k–250k1 grant · $100k
$5,000
Median grant
8
States reached
$5.6M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
Individual grant recipient$100,000
Compass Arts Creativity Project$20,000
Individual grant recipient$20,000
Hope Partnership for Education$10,000
Peoples Light and Theater Co$10,000
More to Life$10,000
Hedgerow Theatre$8,000
Individual grant recipient$5,000
Dollar For$5,000
Crescent Foundations$5,000
Bard College Simons Rock FJS Schola$5,000
Shoreline Trolley Museum$2,000
Kairos Foundation$1,000
Riverbend Environmental Center$1,000
SquashSmarts$1,000
02The need
03

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:

Your human-services grants (FY24–24, $5k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 8%Dollar For: $5k → 9%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

WA
NY
MA
PA
CT
CA
DC
GA

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 edge
repeat funding

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.

73%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.
$723k · 28 repeat orgs$273k to everyone else

28 repeat relationships — 14 still active in FY2024, 14 since wound down; 5 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

28
24

Total granted

$723k
$137k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+39%
+71%

Still filing today

46%
33%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 34% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $135k went to new ones.

50%100%’19’20’21’22’23’24
RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

’19’20’21’22’23’24
Arts & CultureEducationEnvironmentHuman ServicesHousing & ShelterYouth DevelopmentOther

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

  • CA
    COMPASS ARTS CREATIVITY PROJECT INC
    6× · 2020–2025 · $55k · revenue +70%
  • KA
    KHAN ACADEMY INC
    7× · 2019–2025 · $50k · revenue +154%
  • HP
    HOPE PARTNERSHIP FOR EDUCATION
    6× · 2020–2025 · $40k · revenue +58%

Funded once

  • PY
    PHILADELPHIA YEARLY MEETING OF FRIENDS
    3× · 2023–2025 · $20k
  • CU
    columbia Univ LamontDoherty Observa
    one grant, 2020 · $13k
  • FF
    FIRE Foundation fo Ind Rights and E
    3× · 2023–2025 · $10k

Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Your 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
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
2
Drexel University

Drexel university fulfills its founder's vision of preparing each new generation of students for productive professional and civic lives while also focusing its collective expertise on solving society's greatest problems. drexel is an…

Education
3
Albright College

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

Education
4
Dickinson College

Dickinson college provides a useful, innovative and interdisciplinary education in the liberal arts and sciences to prepare students to lead rich and fulfilling lives of engaged global citizenship

Education
5
Wesleyan University

Wesleyan university is dedicated to providing an education in liberal arts by building a diverse, energetic community of students, faculty, and staff who value independence of mind and generosity of spirit. see additional description in…

Education
6
The Public School of Germantown

Germantown academy inspires students to be independent in thought; confident in expression; compassionate in spirit; collaborative in action; and honorable in deed. germantown academy is a private school educating students from pre-k…

Education
7
School in the Square Public Charter School

School in the square ("s2") engages, educates and empowers adolescents to respond mindfully and creatively to life's opportunities and challenges. s2 is a place where students, families and educators are seen, heard, and inspired and where…

Education
8
Sarah Lawrence College

At sarah lawrence college, our mission is to graduate citizens of the world who are diverse in every definition of the word, who take intellectual and creative risks, and who are able to focus exceptional intellectual discipline (continued…

Education
9
The Academy of Natural Sciences of Philadelphia

The mission is "to understand the natural world and inspire everyone to care for it." the academy implements its mission through understanding the diversity of life; developing and applying science to protect the environment; and informing…

Science & Tech
10
Hillsdale College

Hillsdale college is a private liberal arts college with approximately 1,500 students. founded in 1844, the college remains, in the words of its articles of association, "grateful to god for the inestimable blessings resulting from the…

Education
11
Whyy Inc

Whyy is the philadelphia region's leading public media provider, serving southeastern pennsylvania, southern new jersey, and all of delaware.

Arts & Culture
12
Phillips Exeter Academy

Unite goodness and knowledge and inspire youth from every quarter to lead purposeful lives. [text in quotations is taken from the academy's deed of gift, drafted in 1781] knowledge and goodness "above all, it is expected that the attention…

Education

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Philadelphia Education Fund and the most unlike its peers is Lower Merion Conservancy. 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.

← shrinkinggrowing →↓ leaning in → pulling backsteadyCommunity Arts OrganizationsCommunity Health CentersYouth Sports Booster Organi…Land Conservation Organizat…Volunteer Fire DepartmentsPublic Library SupportFood Pantries & AssistanceLegal Aid & Immigration Ser…Faith-Based Liberal Arts Co…
the sector your giving your giving is ahead of the sector the sector’s ahead of you· dot size = how much the theme matters to each side
Ordered by the change in your giving — leaning in on top, pulling back at the bottom. The bar between the two dots is how out of step you are with the sector. Hover any row for detail.

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 FIELDby orgYOUR GRANTEESby number22%4%<5yr14%4%5–10yr19%23%10–20yr16%19%20–35yr13%35%35–55yr16%15%55yr+
THE FIELDby orgYOUR MONEYby value22%0%<5yr14%14%5–10yr19%26%10–20yr16%31%20–35yr13%22%35–55yr16%8%55yr+

The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.

Closures · last 5 years

The orgs you fund almost never close 0.0% lost their exemption, against 13% of the field you don’t fund.

orgs you fund
0.0%0/28
the rest of the field
13%
240,396/1,819,537

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.

04the grantee network

24 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. 24 of the 58 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)
7
Early backer (in before they grew)
24/24
Grantees still filing
19/24
Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

Individual grant recipient — $100,000 · OtherIndividual grant recipientFRIENDS CENTRAL SCHOOL CORPORATION — $71,000 · OtherFRIENDS CENTRAL SCHOOL CORPORATIONStanford University Intro to Logic — $60,000 · OtherStanford University Intro to LogicCrescent Foundations — $55,000 · OtherCrescent FoundationsIndividual grant recipient — $40,300 · OtherIndividual grant recipientNational Service Center — $40,000 · OtherNational Service CenterAlumni University Otagoin America — $35,000 · OtherPeople's Light and Theater Co — $30,000 · OtherIndividual grant recipient — $30,000 · OtherThe Shore Line Trolley Museum — $27,000 · OtherBard College Simons Rock FJS Schola — $25,000 · Other+31 more — $184,600 · Other+31 moreTHE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY — $70,000 · EducationTHE BOARD OF TRUST…KHAN ACADEMY INC — $50,000 · EducationKHAN ACADEMY INCHOPE PARTNERSHIP FOR EDUCATION — $40,000 · EducationHOPE PARTNERSHIP F…+3 more — $11,500 · Education+3 moreCOMPASS ARTS CREATIVITY PROJECT INC — $55,000 · Arts & CultureCOMPASS ARTS CR…THE PEOPLE'S LIGHT & THEATRE COMPANY — $32,200 · Arts & CultureTHE PEOPLE'S LI…HEDGEROW THEATRE INC — $28,000 · Arts & CultureHEDGEROW THEATR…THE FRANKLIN INSTITUTE — $23,000 · Arts & CultureTHE FRANKLIN IN…BEACON ARTS COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION — $5,000 · Arts & Culture+1 more — $2,000 · Arts & CultureThe Kairos Foundation — $26,000 · Crime & LegalPUENTES DE SALUD — $10,000 · HealthEDDIES HOUSE — $10,000 · Housing & ShelterDOLLAR FOR — $5,000 · Human Services
Other$697,900Education$171,500Arts & Culture$145,200Crime & Legal$26,000Health$10,000Housing & Shelter$10,000Human Services$5,000

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

25%50%75%100%$100k$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ your share of their budgetTHE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY — $70,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetCOMPASS ARTS CREATIVITY PROJECT INC — $55,000 over 6y, 8.5% of budgetKHAN ACADEMY INC — $50,000 over 7y, 0.0% of budgetHOPE PARTNERSHIP FOR EDUCATION — $40,000 over 6y, 0.3% of budgetTHE PEOPLE'S LIGHT & THEATRE COMPANY — $32,200 over 4y, 0.2% of budgetHEDGEROW THEATRE INC — $28,000 over 4y, 12% of budgetThe Kairos Foundation — $26,000 over 6y, 7.3% of budgetTHE FRANKLIN INSTITUTE — $23,000 over 7y, 0.0% of budgetPUENTES DE SALUD — $10,000 over 1y, 0.6% of budgetEDDIES HOUSE — $10,000 over 1y, 2.4% of budgetDOLLAR FOR — $5,000 over 2y, 0.3% of budgetBARD COLLEGE — $5,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetBEACON ARTS COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION — $5,000 over 1y, 7.2% of budgetWIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION INC — $5,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetSQUASHSMARTS INC — $4,000 over 4y, 0.1% of budgetLOWER MERION CONSERVANCY — $2,000 over 5y, 0.2% of budgetTHE PHILADELPHIA EDUCATION FUND — $1,600 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetSPRINGSIDE CHESTNUT HILL ACADEMY — $1,500 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetGLADWYNE FIRE COMPANY — $1,200 over 5y, 0.1% of budgetGLADWYNE FREE LIBRARY — $1,000 over 5y, 0.5% of budgetFRIENDS OF THE RAIL PARK — $1,000 over 3y, 0.2% of budgetWellspringKaritas Foundation — $1,000 over 1y, 0.4% of budgetBRIDLEWILD TRAILS ASSOCIATION INC — $400 over 5y, 0.2% of budgetSHARE OUR STRENGTH — $200 over 2y, 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.

  • Who funds THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY
  • Who funds COMPASS ARTS CREATIVITY PROJECT INC
  • Who funds KHAN ACADEMY INC
  • Who funds HOPE PARTNERSHIP FOR EDUCATION
  • Who funds THE PEOPLE'S LIGHT & THEATRE COMPANY
  • Who funds HEDGEROW THEATRE INC
  • Who funds The Kairos Foundation
  • Who funds THE FRANKLIN INSTITUTE
  • Who funds PUENTES DE SALUD
  • Who funds EDDIES HOUSE
  • Who funds DOLLAR FOR
  • Who funds BARD COLLEGE
  • Who funds BEACON ARTS COMMUNITY ASSOCIATION
  • Who funds WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION 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.

The Philadelphia FoundationPA24.5× affinity10 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: The Philadelphia Foundation · The William Penn Foundation · United Way of Greater Philadelphia and Southern New Jersey · The Neubauer Family Foundation · Angelakis Family Foundation · Anderson Family Foundation · Angelakis Charitable Foundation · The Specter Foundation · Daniel M Tabas Family Foundation · Hamilton Family Foundation · Independence Foundation · The Patricia Kind Family 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 Sprague Foundation Inc 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.

2024
202122232425
no gov · 00%1%4%8%15%your share of their income ↑0%8%15%22%30%share of the org’s income from government
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    5report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–30%
    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.

    05Through Plinth

    Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

    How do I get to Sprague Foundation Inc?

    Find your warmest path to Sprague Foundation Inc 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 directly from IRS e-file XML — your own 990/990-PF and the multi-year returns of the 58 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 2024, released 2024. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Possibly out of date. A more recent filing (FY2025) is on record and reports no grant expense, so the figures above are from FY2024, the most recent year this funder made grants.

    Source object · view filing

    More from the funding graph