· Private foundation
Stephen W & Merle Dresner Charitable Foundation C/O John Marginson
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.
What you funded, over time
By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).
A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 94% of STEPHEN W & MERLE DRESNER CHARITABLE FOUNDATION C/O JOHN MARGINSON’s grantee dollars fall outside its nine largest cause areas, whether because the recipient carries no IRS cause code or because its cause sits in the long tail. A chart would be mostly one residual band and misrepresent the portfolio.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k6 grants · $42k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $45k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| VINCENT DEPAUL SOCIETY | $15,000 |
| SAN MIGUEL SCHOOL | $10,000 |
| YELLOW HORSE EQUINE THERAPEUTIC RIDING PROGRAM | $10,000 |
| CHESTERTON ACADEMY | $10,000 |
| ANGEL IN ACTION RI | $8,000 |
| CLOTHES TO KIDS | $7,500 |
| NORTH KINGSTOWN FOOD PANTRY | $7,500 |
| MOMS OF MARIEVILLE | $7,500 |
| BRIAN MESSIER EAST GREENWICH HIGH SCHOOL SCHOLARSHIP FUND | $6,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $5,000 |
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 (FY24–25, $15k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-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.
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 +76% since the first grant, against +37% for the ones you funded once.
9 repeat relationships — 5 still active in FY2025, 4 since wound down; 5 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (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 FY2025, 48% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $45k 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
SAN MIGUEL EDUCATION CENTER5× · 2018–2025 · $60k · revenue +76%
NORTH KINGSTOWN FOOD PANTRY INC3× · 2020–2025 · $18k · revenue +47%- YHYELLOW HORSE2× · 2018–2020 · $3k · revenue +213%
Funded once
MCAULEY CORPORATIONone grant, 2024 · $20k · revenue -16%- BHBradley Hospital Foundationgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $10k · revenue +41%
THE JONNYCAKE CENTER OF WESTERLY INCgraduatedone grant, 2024 · $8k · revenue +37%
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.
We seek to minimize hunger and provide nutritional sustenanc
To provide with dignity, emergency food and outreach to thousands of at-risk neighbors in southern rhode island and surrounding communities.
The mission of the jonnycake center is to provide basic needs, resources, and hope to our community members. our vision is a community without hunger and poverty where everyone can reach their full potential and improve their quality of…
To organize, plan and provide social services to low income and elderly individuals.
Christian mission to the poor providing food, shelter clothing and counseling to the homeless
The mission of mae organization is to work with the homeless and help them transition through workshops, and other related programs
The mission of children's friend and service (the organization) is to be the innovative leader in improving the well-being and healthy development of rhode island's most vulnerable young children. they accomplish this by providing flexible…
Our mission is to work towards the elimination of economic and social barriers for the Silver Lake Community of Providence Rhode Island by providing community services of Early Childhood Education, Before and After School daycare,…
To care for families of children with complex medical needs by providing comfort, compassion and community. ronald mcdonald house of providence keeps the families together.
Better lives rhode island is a non-profit agency whose mission is to offer stability, justice, and hope to those in need through advocacy and direct service.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Sojourner House Inc and the most unlike its peers is Moms of Marieville. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
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 2017–2025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 10 of the 20 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 SAN MIGUEL EDUCATION CENTER ↗
- Who funds MCAULEY CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds NORTH KINGSTOWN FOOD PANTRY INC ↗
- Who funds Bradley Hospital Foundation ↗
- Who funds THE JONNYCAKE CENTER OF WESTERLY INC ↗
- Who funds TRI-COUNTY COMMUNITY ACTION AGENCY ↗
- Who funds MOMS OF MARIEVILLE ↗
- Who funds CLOTHES TO KIDS RI INC ↗
- Who funds SOJOURNER HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds YELLOW HORSE ↗
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: The Rhode Island Community Foundation · Centreville Savings Bank Charitable Foundation · Washington Trust Co Charitable Fdn · The Champlin Foundation · United Way of Rhode Island Inc · Citizens Charitable Foundation · Amica Companies Foundation · Uw Urania C Sherburne · Rhode Island Community Food Bank Association · The Mr & Mrs Robert N Chapman Son Robert B Chapman Charitable Trust · Citizens Community Foundation · Ida Ballou Littlefield Memorial Trust
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 Stephen W & Merle Dresner Charitable Foundation C/O John Marginson 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.
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.