· Private foundation
The Blue Waters Foundation
Its FY2024 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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k2 grants · $15k
- $10k–50k3 grants · $65k
- $50k–250k8 grants · $839k
- $250k+3 grants · $1.0M
Anchored by a single position — about 98% of reported assets are held in Berkshire Hathaway A.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ST MARY'S SCHOOL | $405,648 |
| THE SALISBURY FOUNDATION | $306,916 |
| ST ANNE'S SCHOOL OF ANNAPOLIS | $304,896 |
| HISTORIC ANNAPOLIS | $149,862 |
| BLUES FOUNDATION | $122,284 |
| JAZZ FOUNDATION | $104,533 |
| ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY WATERSHEDS STEWARDS ACADEMY | $100,899 |
| ST MARY'S ROYAL BLUE CLUB | $100,711 |
| ARUNDEL RIVER FEDERATION | $100,689 |
| CHESAPEAKE CONSERVANCY | $99,694 |
| MARYLAND HALL FOR THE CREATIVE ARTS | $60,010 |
| SPCA OF ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY | $30,000 |
| FROM THE HEART PRODUCTIONS | $25,000 |
| BALTIMORE BLUES SOCIETY | $10,000 |
| DC BLUES SOCIETY | $8,000 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 8%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 18% of your dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 21% of The Blue Waters Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another. Read by recipient address, 88% of the giving stays in MD; read by stated purpose it is 69% — less of the work is directed home than the recipients' locations suggest.
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 foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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 +52% since the first grant, against +45% for the ones you funded once.
13 repeat relationships — 10 still active in FY2024, 3 since wound down; 6 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 75% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $488k 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
- CCCHESAPEAKE CONSERVANCY INC5× · 2020–2024 · $439k · revenue +78%
- SAST ANNE'S SCHOOL OF ANNAPOLIS INC5× · 2017–2024 · $388k · revenue +115%
- TBThe Blues Foundation Inc8× · 2017–2024 · $243k · revenue +49%
Funded once
- SPSEVERNA PARK HIGH SCHOOLone grant, 2023 · $12k
- VLVANDEGRIFT LACROSSE CLUB BOOSTERSone grant, 2023 · $3k
- FBFIRST BAPTIST CHURCH OF ANNAPOLIS MARYLAND INCone grant, 2020 · $2k
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.
To restore the quality of baltimore's rivers, streams and harbor to foster a healthy environment, a strong economy, and thriving communities.
The chesapeake audubon society works in the maryland region to promote the stewardship of natural ecosystems through conservation, restoration, education, and advocacy.
Greater Baybrook Alliance GBA is a non-profit community development organization whose mission is to act as a catalyst and conduit for equitable development and reinvestment in the Brooklyn, Brooklyn Park, Curtis Bay neighborhoods and…
The north baltimore aquatic club leads the nation in competitive swimming. our diligently designed, professionally coached and internationally renowned program encourages the development of character and self-discipline. these qualities,…
The museum is an educational corporation formed to ignite a life-long passion for exploring, discovering, and valuing nature and science.
Protect and Restore the Chesapeake Bay particularly the Severn River
To foster an appreciation of the quality and diversity of life on cape ann, past and present; to further the knowledge and enjoyment of cape ann history and art; to collect and preserve significant information and artifacts; and to…
To protect and restore the Anacostia River for all those who live work and play in the watershed and to advocate for a clean healthy river for all its communities.
To preserve and protect the Presidential yacht Potomac for use as a classroom and museum dedicated to imparting to present and future generations the continuing impact of the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Era. All programming initiatives at…
Provide citizens a means to protect the beauty, health and heritage of the Mobile Bay Watershed, Alabamas waterways and coastal communities.
Preserve the history of Harford County, Maryland
The annapolis maritime museum educates youth and adults about the annapolis areas rich maritime heritage and the ecology of the chesapeake bay through programs, exhibits, and community events. continued on schedule o
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Historic Annapolis Inc and the most unlike its peers is Peninsula Athletic League Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
16 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. 16 of the 23 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 CHESAPEAKE CONSERVANCY INC ↗
- Who funds ST ANNE'S SCHOOL OF ANNAPOLIS INC ↗
- Who funds The Blues Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds WEST NOTTINGHAM ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds HISTORIC ANNAPOLIS INC ↗
- Who funds ARUNDEL RIVERS FEDERATION INC ↗
- Who funds Anne Arundel County Watershed Stewards Academy Inc ↗
- Who funds ST MARYS ROYAL BLUE CLUB INC ↗
- Who funds MARYLAND HALL FOR THE CREATIVE ARTS INC ↗
- Who funds SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS OF ANNE ARUNDEL COUNTY MD INC ↗
- Who funds CHESAPEAKE BAY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds From The Heart Productions ↗
- Who funds Baltimore Blues Society Inc ↗
- Who funds DC BLUES SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds Peninsula Athletic League Inc ↗
- Who funds LIGHTHOUSE 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: Community Foundation of Anne Arundel Co · T Rowe Price Program for Charitable Giving Inc · The Keith Campbell Foundation for the Environment Inc · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · American Endowment Foundation · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Network for Good · National Philanthropic Trust · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · American Online Giving 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 Blue Waters 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.
- Historic Annapolis Inc — 45% of income from government
- Chesapeake Conservancy Inc — 27% of income from government
- Arundel Rivers Federation Inc — 19% of income from government
- Maryland Hall for the Creative Arts Inc — 3% of income from government
- Chesapeake Bay Foundation Inc — 2% 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.