· Private foundation
The Boston Capital Foundation
Its FY2019 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 FY2017–2019.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2019
- Under $10k32 grants · $86k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $67k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| JOHN F KENNEDY LIBRARY FOUNDATION | $23,560 |
| FAMILY AID BOSTON | $21,250 |
| BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATERS | $12,140 |
| COMPASS FOR AFFORDABLE HOUSING | $10,000 |
| THE COMMUNITY BUILDERS | $9,650 |
| MGH ASPIRE | $8,800 |
| BOSTON CARES HANDS AT WORK | $7,500 |
| ALLIANCE FOR BUSINESS LEADERSHIP | $5,000 |
| LIFESTEPS | $5,000 |
| YMCA OF THE NORTH SHORE | $5,000 |
| BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF LAWRENCE | $5,000 |
| BOSTON UNIVERSITY | $5,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $4,850 |
| Individual grant recipient | $4,340 |
| CARITAS COMMUNITIES INC | $2,600 |
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 (FY17–19, $11k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 33% of those 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.
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.
21 repeat relationships — 16 still active in FY2019, 5 since wound down; 19 grantees were first funded in FY2019 (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 FY2019, 64% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $54k 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
- FBFAMILYAID BOSTON INC2× · 2018–2019 · $49k · revenue +270%
- TCTHE COMMUNITY BUILDERS INC3× · 2017–2019 · $24k · revenue +48%
- LILIFESTEPS INC3× · 2017–2019 · $15k · revenue +34%
Funded once
- EMEDWARD M KENNEDY INSTITUTE FOR THE UNITED STATES SENATE INCgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $23k · revenue +178%
LAWRENCE BOYS & GIRLS CLUB INCgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $5k · revenue +68%- ARAMERICAN RED CROSS (HURRICANE HARVEY RELIEF)one grant, 2017 · $3k
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.
Neighborhealth's mission is to promote and sustain healthy communities, families, and individuals by providing accessible, person-centered, and compassionate, high-quality health care services to all who live and work in our service area,…
Metro housing boston mobilizes wide-ranging resources to provide innovative and personalized services that lead families and individuals to housing stability, economic security, and an improved quality of life.
Maha breaks down barriers facing first-time and first-generation home buyers and owners through education, counseling, advocacy, and grassroots organizing.
Mhic's mission is to be an innovative private financier of afforable housing and community development throughout new england, providing financing that would not otherwise be available, and extending the impact of that financing to ensure…
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
The mission of the boston health care for the homeless program (bhchp) is to provide or assure access to the highest quality health care for all individuals and families experiencing homelessness in our community.
Our mission is to ensure that the people of greater boston benefit from a vibrant, resilient, and inclusive waterfront, harbor, and islands; these spaces are equitable, accessible, and adapted to climate change; and to ensure our public,…
Mfhc is committed to ending systemic housing discrimination and creating inclusive communities through education, outreach, advocacy, housing counseling and enforcement.
Provider of pediatric healthcare, education, research & community service
Mass general brigham health plan's mission is to promote the health and wellness of our members, and to help ensure equitable, affordbale health care for the diverse communities we serve.
The organization's primary exempt purpose is to provide access to and conduct activities in furtherance of higher education.
The mission of mit is to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Saint Francis House Inc and the most unlike its peers is Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Inc. 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 41 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 4% lost their exemption, against 11% 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.
45 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. 45 of the 68 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 JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY LIBRARY FOUNDATION INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds FAMILYAID BOSTON INC ↗
- Who funds THE COMMUNITY BUILDERS INC ↗
- Who funds EDWARD M KENNEDY INSTITUTE FOR THE UNITED STATES SENATE INC ↗
- Who funds YOUTHBUILD GLOBAL INC ↗
- Who funds LIFESTEPS INC ↗
- Who funds THE ALLIANCE FOR BUSINESS LEADERSHIP INC ↗
- Who funds BRIDGE OVER TROUBLED WATERS INC ↗
- Who funds CARITAS COMMUNITIES INC ↗
- Who funds LOW INCOME HOUSING INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds LAWRENCE BOYS & GIRLS CLUB INC ↗
- Who funds TRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds YMCA OF THE NORTH SHORE INC ↗
- Who funds ROSIE'S PLACE INC ↗
- Who funds CRYSTAL SPRINGS INC ↗
- Who funds THE MIAMI FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Inc ↗
- Who funds BAY COVE HUMAN SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds THE BOTTOM LINE INC ↗
- Who funds St John Community Development Corporation Inc ↗
- Who funds BOSTON PRESERVATION ALLIANCE INC ↗
- Who funds MASSACHUSETTS MILITARY HEROES FUND INC ↗
- Who funds BOSTON AREA GLEANERS INC ↗
- Who funds Young Women's Christian Association of Newburyport ↗
- Who funds VIETNAM VETERANS WORKSHOP INC DBA NEW ENGLAND CENTER AND HOME FOR VETERANS ↗
- Who funds LOCAL INITIATIVES SUPPORT CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds HOMES FOR AMERICA INC ↗
- Who funds NEIGHBORHOOD HOUSING SERVICES OF LOS ANGELES COUNTY ↗
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: Eastern Bank Foundation · Boston Foundation Inc · Liberty Mutual Foundation Inc · Cummings Foundation Grants Inc (Fka Oneworld Boston Inc) · The Hamilton Company Charitable Foundation · Cambridge Savings Charitable Foundation Inc · Salem Five Charitable Foundation Inc · Arbella Insurance Foundation · American Tower Corporation Foundation Inc · United Way Of Massachusetts Bay Inc · Eversource Energy Foundation Inc · Enterprise Community Partners Inc
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 Boston Capital 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.
- Bay Cove Human Services Inc — 70% of income from government
- Youthbuild Global Inc — 69% of income from government
- Vietnam Veterans Workshop Inc Dba New England Center and Home for Veterans — 66% of income from government
- Crystal Springs Inc — 57% of income from government
- Bridge Over Troubled Waters Inc — 32% of income from government
- Greater Boston Food Bank Inc — 22% of income from government
- Boston Area Gleaners Inc — 20% of income from government
- Saint Francis House Inc — 18% of income from government
- Trustees of Boston University — 12% of income from government
- Homes for America Inc — 8% of income from government
- School On Wheels of Massachusetts Inc — 7% of income from government
- Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Inc — 7% of income from government
- Ymca of the North Shore Inc — 6% of income from government
- The Community Builders Inc — 4% of income from government
- Familyaid Boston Inc — 4% of income from government
- Handel and Haydn Society — 2% of income from government
- Cradles to Crayons Inc — 2% of income from government
- House of Hope Inc — 1% of income from government
- Worcester County Food Bank Inc — 1% of income from government
- The Bottom Line Inc — 0% of income from government
- Rosie's Place 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.