How much does Tern Foundation give?

Tern Foundation reported 43 grants totaling $250,538 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 18 and 30 organizations a year over FY2019 to FY2024.

What does Tern Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2019 to FY2025, its largest causes are Environment (47%), Arts & Culture (28%), Community Improvement (5%).

Who are Tern Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2019 to FY2025: Massachusetts Audubon Society Inc ($309k), Association to Preserve Cape Cod Inc ($135k), Wellfleet Preservation Hall Inc ($65k).

Does Tern Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 17% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Tern Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

Where is Tern Foundation based?

Tern Foundation is based in MA.

Tern Foundation

Tern Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

Tern Foundation

Q: Which funders back the same organizations as Tern Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Mutual Bancorp Foundation Inc Fka Cape Cod 5 Foundation Inc, Cape Cod Foundation Inc, Cape Cod Five Cents Savings Bank Charitable Foundation Trust.

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.

$251k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$60k

Largest

01What it funds

0198% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2019 to 2025.

Environment$607kArts & Culture$358kCommunity Improvement$67kEducation$60kAnimals$45kYouth Development$36kHealth$34kFood & Nutrition$31kOther$0

02FY2025 · 43 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k38 grants · $69k
$10k–50k4 grants · $121k
$50k–250k1 grant · $60k

$1,057

Median grant

States reached

$2.3M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
HERITAGE MUSEUM AND GARDENS INC	$60,000
BERKSHIRE BOTANICAL GARDENS	$45,132
ASOCIATION TO PRESERVE CAPE COD	$38,000
ASOCIATION TO PRESERVE CAPE COD	$23,000
SUMMER OF SASS	$15,000
NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL (NRDC)	$5,000
COOLIDGE CORNER THEATRE FOUNDATION	$5,000
HAMPSHIRE COLLEGE	$5,000
MASSACHUSETTS AUDUBON SOCIETY	$5,000
THIRD SECTOR NEW ENGLANDFUTURE CHEFS	$3,500
909 WBUR	$2,500
PAYOMET PERFORMING ARTS CENTER	$2,500
WCAI CAPE & ISLANDS NPR STATION	$2,500
CENTER FOR COASTAL STUDIES	$2,500
WELLFLEET PRESERVATION HALL	$2,500

02The need

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Its human-services grants (FY21–25, $34k) land where the poverty rate runs at 8%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 0% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

How this is measured

Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.

How this is measured

US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.

Where the work is directed

The same grants placed two ways: where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose sends the money.

About 9% of Tern Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked for a different county than the recipient’s own address.

Tern Foundationlessmore of its giving

Placed by recipient address

How this is measured

Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the funder’s own 990 grant descriptions.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

88%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$1.1M · 35 repeat orgs$150k to everyone else

35 repeat relationships: 29 still active in FY2025, 6 since wound down; 13 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$1.1M

$19k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+14%

+32%

Still filing today

74%

70%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 48% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $131k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

EnvironmentArts & CultureCommunity ImprovementEducationAnimalsHuman ServicesOther

How this is measured

First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

MASSACHUSETTS AUDUBON SOCIETY INC
7× · 2019–2025 · $309k · revenue +16%
AT
ASSOCIATION TO PRESERVE CAPE COD INC
6× · 2020–2025 · $135k · revenue +321%
FA
FINE ARTS WORK CENTER IN PROVINCETOWN INC
5× · 2019–2025 · $64k · revenue +48%

Funded once

BC
BREWSTER CONSERVATION TRUSTgraduated
one grant, 2023 · $10k · revenue +32%
TF
THE FILM COLLABORATIVE INCgraduated
one grant, 2021 · $3k · revenue +117%
G
GBH
one grant, 2024 · $1k

How this is measured

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

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

Cohasset Conservation Trust Inc

—

The Compact of Cape Cod Conservation Trusts Inc

To encourage and assist in the acquisition, preservation and management of open space on cape cod

Environment

Massachusetts Land Conservation Trust

Conservation and preservation of land.

Environment

Orleans Conservation Trust

The orleans conservation trust protects and restores natural lands- for people and wildlife, the health of our waters, and the character of our community. a private nonprofit organization, the trust acquires and manages land to enhance…

Environment

Nantucket Conservation Foundation Inc

The nantucket conservation foundation owns, protects, and stewards over 9,000 acres of land and coastal shoreline, conserves nantucket's rare and significant natural resources, and engages in impactful ecological research to inform…

Environment

Massachusetts Outdoor Heritage Foundation Inc Attn Susan Sacco

—

Bourne Conservation Trust

To provide the general public with woodland trails through a wildlife sanctuary in a natural state for their appreciation and enjoyment

Environment

Oyster Pond Environmental Trust Inc

Land conservation

Environment

Harwich Conservation Trust

Preservation and conservation of open space in harwich, massachusetts

Environment

The Trustees of Reservations

Overview - founded in boston by pioneering landscape architect and open space visionary charles eliot in 1891, the trustees is the nation's first and the commonwealth's largest conservation and preservation nonprofit.

Environment

Westport Land Conservation Trust Inc

To preserve and protect westport massachusetts natural resources for people and nature, and to educate the public about the wise use of natural resources.

Environment

Hilltown Land Trust Inc

Hilltown land trust conserves and stewards land through strong relationships to ensure clean water, wildlife habitat, climate resilience, recreational opportunities, and healthy farmland for the benefit of all.

Environment

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Heritage Museums and Gardens Inc; the most unlike its peers is Natural Resources Defense Council Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

05the grantee network

43 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 43 of the 58 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

42/43

Grantees still filing

24/43

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Environment$551,712Arts & Culture$235,929Other$226,740Community Improvement$132,210Education$55,500Animals$44,692Human Services$34,000

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Mutual Bancorp Foundation Inc Fka Cape Cod 5 Foundation IncMA28× affinity11 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Mutual Bancorp Foundation Inc Fka Cape Cod 5 Foundation Inc · Cape Cod Foundation Inc · Cape Cod Five Cents Savings Bank Charitable Foundation Trust · The Alvan G & Carol J Lampke Family Foundation · Edward Bangs Kelley and Elza Kelley Foundation Inc · Boston Foundation Inc · Treved Foundation Inc · Seamens Long Point Charitable Foundation Inc · Bilezikian Family Foundation Inc · Gramercy Park Foundation Inc · Horizon Foundation Inc · Impactassetsinc

How this is measured

Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Tern Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Tern Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

10get no government money at all

3report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

1rely on government for over half their income

typical government reliance, FY20–25

How this is measured

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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to Tern Foundation?

Find your warmest path to Tern 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.

Play a game based on Tern’s filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions

grants reported with no recipient in the public record

The regranting layer

51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer

The DAF merry-go-round

$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds

The endowment market

who holds foundation money, and what just moved

The camps

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

By state

where grant money is based, and what stays home