· Private foundation
The Brightwater Fund
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.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k10 grants · $30k
- $10k–50k17 grants · $333k
- $50k–250k3 grants · $200k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Global Impact | $100,000 |
| New York Presbyterian Hospital | $50,000 |
| Weill Cornell Medical College | $50,000 |
| White Plains Hospital | $45,000 |
| ACLU | $40,000 |
| New Yorkers for Children | $40,000 |
| Bigger Picture Community Fund | $30,000 |
| Planned Parenthood Federation of America | $25,000 |
| Fool Proof Foundation | $20,000 |
| Saint Jude Children's Research Hospital | $20,000 |
| Marshall Project | $15,000 |
| Carver Center | $15,000 |
| Smiletrain | $13,000 |
| Nantucket Cottage Hospital | $10,000 |
| Vera Institue of Justice | $10,000 |
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, $278k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 39% 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.
54 repeat relationships — 29 still active in FY2025, 25 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
- RHROBIN HOOD FOUNDATION3× · 2017–2020 · $753k · revenue +49%
PLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION OF AMERICA INC9× · 2017–2025 · $240k · revenue +12%- WPWhite Plains Hospital Medical Center5× · 2021–2025 · $200k · revenue +57%
Funded once
- SCSchwab Charitable Donor Advised Fund for Jarecki Family Philanthropic Fundone grant, 2019 · $185k
- NCNATIONAL CENTER FOR REASON AND JUSTICE INCone grant, 2017 · $119k
THE KEEWAYDIN FOUNDATIONgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $50k · revenue +174%
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.
The open markets institute works to help people relearn how to use competition policy to build stronger democracies, more just and equitable societies, more innovative and sustainable economies, and a more secure and peaceful world.
CITY REPORT, INC. serves the people of New York through independent journalism that answers their information needs and holds the powerful to account.
The committee to protect journalists promotes press freedom worldwide and defends the right of journalists to report the news safely and without fear of reprisal. cpj ensures the free flow of news and commentary by taking action wherever…
Free press was created to give people a voice in the crucial decisions that shape our media. we believe that positive social change, racial justice and meaningful engagement in public life require equitable access to technology, diverse…
The center for justice innovation is a non-profit organization that works to create a fair, effective, and humane justice system and build strong, thriving communities.
The council on foreign relations (cfr) is an independent, nonpartisan membership organization, think tank, and publisher dedicated to being a resource for its members, government officials, business executives, journalists, educators and…
Free press action fund fights for your rights to connect and communicate. we fight to save the free and open internet, curb runaway media consolidation, protect press freedom, and promote digital civil rights. we believe that change…
Operate a state-of-the-art, world-class genomic research center that creates and uses advanced genomics to understand the genetic basis of disease. for more information, see schedule o.
The npr foundation ("foundation") is organized and operated exclusively for the benefit of its sole supported organization, national public radio, inc. ("npr inc."). the foundation supports npr inc. through various activities such as…
Children's rights is a national advocacy organization that investigates, exposes, and combats violations of the rights of children. through strategic advocacy and civil rights impact litigation, children's rights holds governments…
To bring quality public television programs and resources to communities throughout new jersey and its tri-state neighbors. its content, both on-air and online, aims to reflect the diverse
The federation for american immigration reform's (fair) mission is to educate the public about the economic, sociological, environmental, demographic and other effects of mass immigration to the united states.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is New Yorkers for Children Inc and the most unlike its peers is Falconwood Foundation. 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 31 years old; the field is 18. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 19% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 10% 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.
60 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. 60 of the 82 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 ROBIN HOOD FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds FALCONWOOD FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds The Eisenhower Project Inc ↗
- Who funds PLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION OF AMERICA INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL PHILANTHROPIC TRUST ↗
- Who funds White Plains Hospital Medical Center ↗
- Who funds NEW YORKERS FOR CHILDREN INC ↗
- Who funds PORT CHESTER CARVER CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds WNET ↗
- Who funds IONA UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds Goodnation Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL CENTER FOR REASON AND JUSTICE INC ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR STUDY OF RESPONSIVE LAW ↗
- Who funds Global Impact ↗
- Who funds THE INNOCENCE PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds MASTERS SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds COALITION FOR THE HOMELESS INC ↗
- Who funds NORTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds MEALS-ON-WHEELS OF WHITE PLAINS INC ↗
- Who funds LIFTING UP WESTCHESTER INC ↗
- Who funds DRUG POLICY ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds WILLIAM J BRENNAN CENTER FOR JUSTICE INC ↗
- Who funds VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE INC ↗
- Who funds THE KEEWAYDIN FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds HUMAN RIGHTS FIRST ↗
- Who funds RUTGERS UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds NEW YORK SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL ↗
- Who funds FISHER HOUSE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL 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: Weissman Family Foundation Inc · The New York Community Trust · National Philanthropic Trust · The Pfizer Foundation Inc · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Network for Good · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · 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 Brightwater Fund 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.
- Northeastern University — 7% of income from government
- New England Life Flight Inc — 5% of income from government
- Rutgers University Foundation — 0% of income from government
- Place of Hope Inc — 0% of income from government
- Shriners Hospitals for Children — 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 Brightwater Fund?
Find your warmest path to The Brightwater Fund 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.