· Private foundation
The Aaron a and Maria H Putnam Family Charitable Trust
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 FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k19 grants · $104k
- $10k–50k6 grants · $83k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| THE SALVATION ARMY | $20,000 |
| UNITARIAN CHURCH | $18,000 |
| MCGILLS COMMUNITY BAND | $15,000 |
| PUTNAM HOUSE | $10,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $10,000 |
| JOHN MILLAR CIVIC CENTER | $10,000 |
| VITAL PATHWAYS | $9,000 |
| HOULTON REGIONAL HEALTH SERVICES FD | $9,000 |
| LIFEFLIGHT FOUNDATION | $8,000 |
| AMERICAN RED CROSS | $8,000 |
| ARK ANIMAL SANCTUARY | $8,000 |
| AID FOR KIDS | $8,000 |
| HOULTON HUMANE SOCIETY | $8,000 |
| AROOSTOOK AGENCY ON AGING | $7,500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $6,000 |
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 (FY17–25, $89k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 13%. 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 +20% since the first grant, against -20% for the ones you funded once.
33 repeat relationships — 23 still active in FY2025, 10 since wound down; 2 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, 95% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $10k 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
- HHHOULTON HIGH SCHOOL ALUMNI ASSOCIAT9× · 2017–2025 · $98k · revenue +501% · 38% of their budget
- HHHoulton Humane Society9× · 2017–2025 · $56k · revenue +139%
- ANAmerican National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches9× · 2017–2025 · $52k · revenue +46%
Funded once
- PHPUTNAM HOUSE SENIOR CENTERone grant, 2017 · $15k
- AAADOPT A BLOCKone grant, 2017 · $8k
- HAHOULTON AMBULANCE SERVICEone grant, 2020 · $7k
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.
Rescue Homeless Cats
Soliciting and administering gifts to nonprofit agencies to ensure the continuity of quality healthcare throughout the region by financial support of equipment, program and educational needs.
Provide temporary housing and counseling services for the homeless of northern maine
Rescue and re-adoption of dogs and cats.
Shelter and care for abandoned pets
To shelter, rescue and protect Gods creatures from abuse, injury and mistreatment and to build and strenthen pet families throughout the community
Maine Animal Health Alliance (MAHA) provides high quality high volume spay/neuter to Maine animals in need. MAHA will improve the health of Maine pets through vaccination, wellness, and HQHVSN training for veterinary professionals. MAHA…
Provide for shelter, food, veterinary services and adoption of small animals. this shelter operates as a no kill shelter in north central iowa.
To rescue injured, sick and abandoned marine mammals and to educate the public about what to do if they find one of these marine mammals.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Houlton Humane Society and the most unlike its peers is Manes and Tails. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
14 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. 14 of the 44 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 HOULTON HIGH SCHOOL ALUMNI ASSOCIAT ↗
- Who funds AID FOR KIDS ↗
- Who funds Houlton Humane Society ↗
- Who funds American National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches ↗
- Who funds Houlton Chamber of Commerce ↗
- Who funds ARK ANIMAL SANCTUARY ↗
- Who funds LifeFlight Foundation ↗
- Who funds Greater Houlton Christian Acad ↗
- Who funds Manes and Tails ↗
- Who funds The Ark Pope Memorial Animal Shelter ↗
- Who funds THE NORTHERN LIGHTHOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds Aroostook Area Agency on Aging Inc ↗
- Who funds Friends of Aroostook ↗
- Who funds Catholic Charities Maine ↗
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: Maine Community Foundation Inc · Elmina B Sewall Foundation · Stephen & Tabitha King Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · 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 The Aaron a and Maria H Putnam Family Charitable Trust 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.