· Private foundation
Sylvester Memorial Fund
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| PARISH OF SAINT JOHN THE EVANGELIST | $2,600 |
| NORWELL HIGH SCHOOL SCHOLARSHIP FUND | $2,000 |
| NVNA AND HOSPICE | $2,000 |
| SOUTH SHORE BAPTIST CHURCH | $2,000 |
| YOUTH ACROSS BORDERS | $2,000 |
| COMPASSION INTERNATIONAL | $1,000 |
| THE JAMES LIBRARY | $500 |
| MASS AUDOBON SOCIETY | $500 |
| PINE STREET INN | $500 |
| YOUTH PASTOR THEOLOGIAN | $500 |
| CHURCH HILL CEMETERY CORPORATION | $500 |
| WGBH EDUCATION FOUNDATION | $500 |
| CUSHING POND PRESERVATION GROUP | $500 |
| NEW ENGLAND WILDLIFE CENTER | $300 |
| FLORIDA OCEANOGRAPHIC SOCIETY | $300 |
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 (FY21–25, $8k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, 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.
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.
28 repeat relationships — 16 still active in FY2025, 12 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, 64% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $6k 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
- NVNorwell Visiting Nurse Association Inc5× · 2020–2025 · $8k · revenue +70%
Compassion International Incorporated4× · 2022–2025 · $4k · revenue +16%- FOFLORIDA OCEANOGRAPHIC SOCIETY INC6× · 2020–2025 · $1k · revenue +13%
Funded once
- SJST JOHN EPISCOPAL CHURCHone grant, 2020 · $4k
- NSNORTH SOUTH RIVER WATERSHEDone grant, 2020 · $3k
- WTWILDLANDS TRUST INCone grant, 2021 · $1k · revenue -6%
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.
Wwf's mission is to conserve nature and reduce the most pressing threats to the diversity of life on earth. (continued on schedule o)
Maine Audubon works to conserve Maine's wildlife and habitat by engaging people of all ages in education, conservation, and action. We are helping the people of Maine become the nation's most informed and effective stewards of wildlife and…
The mission of lowell observatory is to pursue the study of astronomy, especially the study of our solar system and its evolution; to conduct pure research in astronomical phenomena; and to maintain quality public education and outreach…
The wildlife society's mission is to inspire, empower, and enable wildlife professionals to sustain wildlife populations and habitats through science-based management and conservation.
The new jersey audubon society is a privately supported, not-for-profit, statewide membership organization. (see schedule o for details).
The museum's mission statement is: "to discover, interpret, and disseminate - through scientific research and education - knowledge about human cultures, the natural world, and the universe."
Rainforest trust saves endangered wildlife and protects our planet by creating rainforest reserves through partnerships, community engagement, and donor support.
Ocean conservancy unites science, people, and policy to protect our ocean, today and for generations to come.
The nber conducts unbiased, non-partisan economic research and communicates the findings of that research to academic researchers, policy-makers, and business professionals. (continued on schedule o)
Our mission is to spark people's curiosity to explore, steward, and find peace and joy in nature. in service to this, norman bird sanctuary inspires, builds, and engages a community of stewards who preserve, protect, enjoy, and learn from…
Founded in 1877, american humane association, dba american humane society (american humane) is committed to ensuring the safety, welfare and well-being of animals. our leadership programs are first to serve in promoting and nurturing the…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Wildlands Trust Inc and the most unlike its peers is Father Flanagan's Boys' Home. 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 54 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) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 2% 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.
25 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. 25 of the 64 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 Norwell Visiting Nurse Association Inc ↗
- Who funds YOUTH ACROSS BORDERS INC ↗
- Who funds Compassion International Incorporated ↗
- Who funds FLORIDA OCEANOGRAPHIC SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds WILDLANDS TRUST INC ↗
- Who funds THE TRUSTEES OF RESERVATIONS ↗
- Who funds STRAFFORD HISTORICAL SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds CHRISTIAN CAMPS & CONFERENCE INC ↗
- Who funds HINGHAM LAND CONSERVATION TRUST ↗
- Who funds Appalachian Mountain Club ↗
- Who funds YOUNG LIFE ↗
- Who funds PINE STREET INN INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN RIVERS INC ↗
- Who funds MASSACHUSETTS AUDUBON SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds NEW ENGLAND WILDLIFE CENTER 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: Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · 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 Sylvester Memorial Fund 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.
- Pine Street Inn Inc — 11% of income from government
- Wildlands Trust Inc — 5% of income from government
- The Trustees of Reservations — 2% of income from government
- The National Federation of the Blind — 2% of income from government
- Appalachian Mountain Club — 1% of income from government
- Massachusetts Audubon Society Inc — 1% of income from government
- New England Wildlife Center Inc — 1% of income from government
- Florida Oceanographic Society 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.