· Private foundation
The Bess Family Foundation
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
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.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| PALM BEACH COUNTY FOOD BANK INC | $1,500 |
| FEED THE CHILDREN INC | $1,500 |
| FEEDING SOUTH FLORIDA INC | $1,500 |
| COMMUNITY FOOD BANK OF NEW JERSEY INC | $1,000 |
| NEWARK SCHOOL OF THE ARTS INC | $1,000 |
| CARIDAD CENTER INC | $1,000 |
| FOUNDCARE INC | $1,000 |
| BOYS AND GIRLS CLUBS OF PALM BEACH COUNTY INC | $1,000 |
| ST JUDE CHILDRENS RESEARCH HOSPITAL INC | $1,000 |
| CENTER FOR CREATIVE EDUCATION | $1,000 |
| THE NEW YORK AND PRESBYTERIAN HOSPITAL | $1,000 |
| UNITED NEGRO COLLEGE FUND INC | $1,000 |
| FERD AND GLADYS ALPERT JEWISH FAMILY & CHILDRENS S | $1,000 |
| URBAN LEAGUE OF PALM BEACH COUNTY INC | $1,000 |
| JUPITER MEDICAL CENTER INC | $1,000 |
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, $31k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +50% since the first grant, against +44% for the ones you funded once.
25 repeat relationships — 18 still active in FY2025, 7 since wound down.
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, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
PLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION OF AMERICA INC9× · 2017–2025 · $9k · revenue +12%- ANAmerican National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches9× · 2017–2025 · $9k · revenue +46%
- FSFEEDING SOUTH FLORIDA INC8× · 2018–2025 · $9k · revenue +62%
Funded once
AMERICARES FOUNDATION INCgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $1k · revenue +90%
GLOBALGIVING FOUNDATION INCgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $1k · revenue +44%- HOHospice of the Valleyone grant, 2021 · $1k · revenue +19%
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.
Florida community health centers, inc. (fchc) is a federally qualified health center serving medically needy populations in south florida, with an emphasis on serving rural and farm worker communities.
PHILABUNDANCE WAS FOUNDED IN 1984 WITH THE SIMPLE BELIEF THAT NO ONE SHOULD GO HUNGRY WHILE HEALTHY FOOD GOES TO WASTE. OUR MISSION IS TO DRIVE HUNGER FROM OUR COMMUNITIES TODAY AND TO END HUNGER FOR GOOD. We have a commitment to always…
Our mission is to solve hunger in central pennsylvania by ensuring that everyone struggling with hunger has access to enough wholesome food every day. we will achieve this bold goal with the help of our generous donors, volunteers and…
United Food Bank unites communities to alleviate hunger.
The children's hospital of philadelphia, the oldest hospital in the united states dedicated exclusively to pediatrics, strives to be the world leader in the advancement of health care for children by integrating excellent patient care,…
Food forward fights hunger and prevents food waste by rescuing fresh surplus produce, connecting this abundance with people experiencing food insecurity, and inspiring others to do the same.
To end hunger and transform the health of our community by providing nourishment to those in need by acquiring and distributing safe nutritious food via local agencies and by providing education to solve hunger and nutritional problems in…
Inspired by jewish values, we protect the vulnerable, empower individuals and strengthen families. (continued on schedule o)
UF Health's mission is to promote health through outstanding and high-quality patient care, innovative and rigorous education in the health professions and biomedical sciences, and high-impact research across the spectrum of basic,…
Improve the food value chain in developing countries by mobilizing corporate volunteers to share knowledge and expertise with small and growing food processors.
Assist banner health complete its mission to make health care easier so life can be better by providing integrated & coordinated care & population health management.
Food bank for nyc has been the city's major hunger-relief organization driven by our mission to empower every new yorker to achieve food security for good. we harness the collective power of our network of food providers, partners, and…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County Inc and the most unlike its peers is Center for Creative Education. 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 51 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
30 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. 30 of the 32 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 PLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION OF AMERICA INC ↗
- Who funds American National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches ↗
- Who funds FEEDING SOUTH FLORIDA INC ↗
- Who funds NEWARK SCHOOL OF THE ARTS ↗
- Who funds Community Food Bank Of New Jersey Inc ↗
- Who funds The New York and Presbyterian Hospital ↗
- Who funds Caridad Center Inc ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR CREATIVE EDUCATION ↗
- Who funds Urban League of Palm Beach County Inc ↗
- Who funds United Way of Palm Beach County Inc ↗
- Who funds UNITED NEGRO COLLEGE FUND INC ↗
- Who funds SPEAK UP FOR KIDS OF PALM BEACH COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds JEWISH FEDERATION OF PALM BEACH COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INC ↗
- Who funds THE FERD AND GLADYS ALPERT JEWISH FAMILY & CHILDREN SERVICE OF PALM BEACH C OUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds Jupiter Medical Center Inc ↗
- Who funds Palm Beach County Food Bank Inc ↗
- Who funds FEED THE CHILDREN INC ↗
- Who funds INTERFAITH FOOD PANTRY INC ↗
- Who funds FOUNDCARE INC ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF PBC ↗
- Who funds JEWISH FEDERATION OF GREATER METROWEST NJ ↗
- Who funds JEWISH FAMILY SERVICE OF METROWEST NJ A NEW JERSEY NONPROFIT CORP ↗
- Who funds Save The Children Federation Inc ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF NORTHERN NEW JERSEY INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICARES FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds GLOBALGIVING FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Hospice of the Valley ↗
- Who funds WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN INC ↗
- Who funds FREESTORE FOODBANK 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: Lost Tree Village Charitable Foundation · Community Foundation for Palm Beach and Martin Counties Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving 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 Bess Family Foundation 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.
- Save the Children Federation Inc — 30% of income from government
- Newark School of the Arts — 20% of income from government
- Foundcare Inc — 6% of income from government
- Feeding South Florida Inc — 5% of income from government
- United Way of Northern New Jersey Inc — 3% of income from government
- Center for Creative Education — 2% of income from government
- Jupiter Medical Center Inc — 2% of income from government
- Feed the Children Inc — 1% of income from government
- United Way of Palm Beach County Inc — 1% of income from government
- Palm Beach County Food Bank Inc — 0% of income from government
- Americares Foundation Inc — 0% of income from government
- Caridad Center 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to The Bess Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Bess Family 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.