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· Public charity
THE BETTER ANGELS SOCIETY INC
Ensure historical documentary films are funded/shared thru educational outreach & civic discourse.
$9.5M
Granted FY2025
9
Grants
8
Communities
$8.6M
Largest
01What you fund
0196% classified
What you funded, over time
Every grant clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2017–2025.
Arts & Culture$86MEducation$466kOther$3.6M
02beneath the categories
Past the labels — and the year it shifted
Beneath the NTEE codes, this is what the grant descriptions actually say.
…and in their own words, year by year
2018
contentproducerweta
2019
contentproducerwetalibrary congresslavine
2020
prize prizeprize awardloc lavinepbsrevenuemillionbroadcasting
2021
loc lavinefilm productionpbsrevenuemillionbroadcastingrecorded
2022
prize runner-upfilmmakerslibrary congresscongress lavinestudentlavine kenken burns
2023
next generationproduction education
2024
recognition awardsawards studentproduction education
2025
fiscal sponsorsfilm festivalfestival sponsorsrecognition awardsawards studentproduction education
Words distinctive to each year’s grant purposes (TF-IDF) · event-driven terms in cyan.
03FY2025 · 9 grants
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k1 grant · $9k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $98k
- $50k–250k3 grants · $393k
- $250k+1 grant · $8.6M
$40,000
Median grant
8
States reached
$20M
Total assets
Largest grants
- GREATER WASHINGTON EDUCATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATIONS ASSOCIATION INC$8,632,443
- LINCOLN PRESIDENTIAL FOUNDATION$188,000
- WGBH EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION$139,500
- WNET$65,100
- NATIONAL HISTORY DAY$40,000
- CENTRAL PARK FILM PROJECT INC$32,500
- ADAMS COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY$15,000
- DCDOX$10,000
- HINDSIGHT FILM FESTIVAL$9,398
02The need
04
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.
show:
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 7% — the area typically sits at 11%. 6% of your dollars reach neighborhoods with above-average need. Your grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount
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; 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, United Way ALICE — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.
03Your edge
repeat funding
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.
99%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.
$89M · 11 repeat orgs$616k to everyone else
11 repeat relationships — 7 still active in FY2025, 4 since wound down; 2 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).
How the two cohorts compare
Re-uppedFunded once
Organizations
11
18
Total granted
$89M
$596k
Median revenue growth · since first grant
+16%
+74%
Still filing today
73%
33%
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2025, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $19k went to new ones.
RenewedFirst-time
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
Arts & CultureEducationOther
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
- GWGREATER WASHINGTON EDUCATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATIONS ASSOCIATION INC9× · 2017–2025 · $83M · revenue +37%
PBS FOUNDATION3× · 2020–2024 · $431k · revenue +478%- NHNATIONAL HISTORY DAY6× · 2020–2025 · $210k · revenue +15%
Funded once
- SMSKIFF MOUNTAIN FILMSone grant, 2022 · $150k
- CSCHOI SOO LEE DOCUMENTARY LLCone grant, 2021 · $50k
- SCSTORY CENTER FILMS LLCone grant, 2020 · $50k
Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
04Your field
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.
1
The Filmmaker Fund
Philanthropy
2
National Film Preservation Foundation
The NFPF helps nonprofit and public organizations across all 50 states to preserve American films that are unlikely to survive without public support. Through our grants and projects, 2,856 films have been saved and made publicly available…
Arts & Culture
3
Block Island Film Festival
Arts & Culture
4
Film Independent
To support independent filmmakers and to promote independent filmmaking to the public.
Arts & Culture
5
Public Broadcasting Foundation
Wgte is dedicated to enabling personal development and civic improvement by the innovative use of technology to educate, enlighten, enrich, engage, entertain, empower, and explore.
Arts & Culture
6
Film Pittsburgh
To present independent films from around the world to deepen audiences' understanding of culture, tolerance, and common humanity.
Arts & Culture
7
Independent Film Alliance
—
8
Mountainfilm
To use the power of film, art and ideas to inspire audiences to create a better world.
Arts & Culture
9
Silicon Valley Jewish Film Festival
Bringing community together through films that show the jewish culture and traditions.
Arts & Culture
10
Siff
Seattle international film festival (siff) believes in film's unique power to share original stories, diverse perspectives, and rich emotional journeys. beginning in 1976 with the annual seattle international film festival, then expanding…
Youth Development
11
Northwest Film Forum
Northwest Film Forum incites public dialogue and creative action through collective cinematic experiences. A nonprofit film and arts center located in Seattle, Northwest Film Forum presents hundreds of films, festivals, community events,…
Arts & Culture
12
Iowa Pbs Foundation
The iowa pbs foundation exists to foster giving to iowa pbs.
—
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Middleburg Film Festival and the most unlike its peers is Wgbh Educational Foundation. 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
15 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2017–2025.
Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue.
2
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
5
Early backer (in before they grew)
15/15
Grantees still filing
10/15
Grew since you first funded
Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee
Arts & Culture$85,606,447Other$3,552,152Education$466,000
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 GREATER WASHINGTON EDUCATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATIONS ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds WGBH EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds WNET ↗
- Who funds PBS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds LINCOLN PRESIDENTIAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL HISTORY DAY ↗
- Who funds MIDDLEBURG FILM FESTIVAL ↗
- Who funds TALL GRASS EDUCATIONAL FILMS INC ↗
- Who funds JEZEBEL PRODUCTIONS ↗
- Who funds ADAMS COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds THE CIESLA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE REEL BLUES FEST INC ↗
- Who funds INSIDE OUT MEDIA ↗
- Who funds DCDOX ↗
- Who funds PHILADELPHIA FILM SOCIETY ↗
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.
Greater Washington Community FoundationDC12.4× affinity4 shared granteesties to 4 of 4Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →
Open a dossier: Greater Washington Community Foundation · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust 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 organisation THE BETTER ANGELS SOCIETY INC 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.
2025
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
1get no government money at all
0rely on government for over half their income
typical government reliance, FY20–25
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. 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.
05Through Plinth
Through Plinth
Your grantmaking, live and operational
This dossier was generated cold from public filings. In Plinth it’s a working system — every applicant assessed and every grant monitored. Here’s a taste, run on one of your grantees: JEZEBEL PRODUCTIONS.
Agentic due diligence · confidence × risk
Financial management
low risk
~6 months of operating runway; revenue grew over 7 filed years.
Track record & reputation
low risk
7 years of Form 990 filings, still active; revenue up 4.2× since.
Legal standing
low risk
US 501(c)(3); EIN 133346540 on file with current IRS Form 990 filings.
Governance
Live in Plinth
Board composition & governance documents — verified live in Plinth from the applicant.
Compliance & sanctions
Live in Plinth
OFAC / UN sanctions screening — run live in Plinth at assessment.
Program capacity
Live in Plinth
Staffing, M&E and activity alignment — assessed live in Plinth from submitted proposals.
Live · Plinth’s real DD engine
Run the actual assessment on JEZEBEL PRODUCTIONS, cold from public data.
Generated live from public IRS filings + open web sources by Plinth’s agentic engine. Shown as an illustration of the product, not a formal assessment.
Post-award monitoring · continuous checks
- On trackFinancial stability— Roughly 6 months of cash on hand.
- On trackSustained operations— Filing through 2024; revenue grew over the period.
- On trackReliance on your funding— Your grants peaked at 33% of their budget — diversified.
- Awaiting reportEvidence of delivery— Plinth collects the grantee's own monitoring reports post-award.
What you see here is static and public. In Plinth it’s operational — the full six-pillar framework on every applicant (with their own documents + live registry and sanctions checks), monitoring dashboards on every award, custom board reports, and eligibility routing for intake.
Agentic due diligenceMonitoring dashboardsCustom board reportsEligibility routing
Preview generated from this grantee’s public IRS filings and independent reporting. Pillars marked “live in Plinth” require the applicant’s submitted documents. Shown as illustration, not a formal assessment.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPro
How do I get to The Better Angels Society Inc?
Find your warmest path to The Better Angels Society Inc through people who sit on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the introduction across shared trustees and officers.
Every link is a documented governance overlap in public IRS 990 filings — not a personal network — and each hop carries its own confidence tier. Low-confidence or distant paths are held back rather than guessed.
More from the funding graph
The regranting layer
51% of grant dollars pass through an intermediary
The DAF merry-go-round
$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds
Strange bedfellows
the named clusters of US funding
The camps
funders cluster by geography, not ideology
By state
where grant money is based, and what stays home
State money flows
the interactive map of money crossing state lines