· Private foundation
The Catalyst Foundation
Its FY2021 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 FY2017–2021.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MANNA FOOD CENTER | $7,000 |
| MARYLAND FOOD BANK | $6,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $5,000 |
| INTERNATIONAL RESCUE COMMITTEE | $5,000 |
| AMERICAN RED CROSS | $5,000 |
| GREATER WASHINGTON FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| EARTH JUSTICE | $4,000 |
| CLEAN AIR TASK FORCE | $4,000 |
| CENTER FOR CARBON REMOVAL | $4,000 |
| CORNERSTONE | $3,000 |
| SHEPHERD'S TABLE | $1,100 |
| WETA | $1,100 |
| NOURISH NOW | $1,000 |
| CAPITAL AREA FOOD BANK | $1,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $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 (FY17–21, $12k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 91% 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.
37 repeat relationships — 34 still active in FY2021, 3 since wound down; 3 grantees were first funded in FY2021 (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 FY2021, 80% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $12k 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
- IRInternational Rescue Committee INC3× · 2019–2021 · $15k · revenue +67%
- ANAmerican National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches3× · 2019–2021 · $15k · revenue +39%
SARAH LAWRENCE COLLEGE2× · 2017–2019 · $12k · revenue +14%
Funded once
- ANACLU NATIONAL FOUNDATIONone grant, 2017 · $3k
- AMACLU MARYLAND FOUNDATIONone grant, 2017 · $3k
- LSLUMINA STUDIO THEATRE INCone grant, 2017 · $2k · revenue -5%
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 mission of the george washington university (gw) is to educate individuals in liberal arts, languages, sciences, learned professions, and other courses and subjects of study, and to conduct scholarly research and publish the findings…
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.
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.
The union of concerned scientists puts rigorous, independent science into action, developing solutions and advocating for a healthy, safe, and just future.
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
Create a more accessible, sustainable, prosperous and livable national capital region by being a discussion forum, expert resource, issue advocate, and catalyst for action.
The University of New Haven is a student-centered comprehensive university with an emphasis on excellence in liberal arts and professional education. Our mission is to prepare our students to lead purposeful and fulfilling lives in a…
To educate students to be ethical and socially responsible leaders in a global community.
Central indiana corporate partnership (cicp) is an alliance of indiana's business and research university leaders coming together to foster long-term prosperity for the region. cicp's mission is to transform the economy of indiana in order…
As a diverse community of learners, we cultivate integrity, curiosity, connection and resilience.
Washington college challenges and inspires emerging citizen leaders to discover lives of purpose and passion.core valueswe share these values of our founding patron, george washington: integrity, determination, curiosity, civility,…
The organization's mission is to educate students for creative occupations in diverse fields of arts and media.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Soul Fire Farm Institute Inc and the most unlike its peers is International Rescue Committee 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 43 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.
48 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. 48 of the 74 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 International Rescue Committee INC ↗
- Who funds American National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches ↗
- Who funds SARAH LAWRENCE COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds MANNA FOOD CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds CORNERSTONE CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds ADOPTIONS TOGETHER INC DBA AS PATHS FOR FAMILIES ↗
- Who funds THE TRUSTEES OF MOUNT HOLYOKE COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds 4MONTGOMERYS KIDS INC ↗
- Who funds THE MARYLAND FOOD BANK INC ↗
- Who funds GREATER WASHINGTON EDUCATIONAL TELECOMMUNICATIONS ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds EARTHJUSTICE ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR CARBON REMOVAL ↗
- Who funds CLEAN AIR TASK FORCE INC ↗
- Who funds The Shepherds Table Inc ↗
- Who funds SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds COUNCIL ON THE ENVIRONMENT INC ↗
- Who funds MONTGOMERY COLLEGE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds LUMINA STUDIO THEATRE INC ↗
- Who funds TEAM RUBICON INC ↗
- Who funds THE CARTER CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds CONNECTICUT COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds COMMON CAUSE ↗
- Who funds WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds CAPITAL AREA FOOD BANK INC ↗
- Who funds SOME INC ↗
- Who funds MOZILLA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds A WIDER CIRCLE INC ↗
- Who funds MONTGOMERY HOSPICE INC ↗
- Who funds HABITAT FOR HUMANITY 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: Greater Washington Community Foundation · Healthcare Initiative Foundation · The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation · Jack R Anderson Foundation · The Gary & Carol Berman Family Foundation Inc · John Edward Fowler Memorial Foundation · The Carl M Freeman Foundation Inc · Clark-Winchcole Foundation · Silicon Valley Community Foundation · Network for Good · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust 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 Catalyst 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.
- The Maryland Food Bank Inc — 11% of income from government
- A Wider Circle Inc — 6% of income from government
- Manna Food Center Inc — 1% of income from government
- Wesleyan University — 1% of income from government
- The Trustees of Mount Holyoke College — 1% of income from government
- Connecticut College — 0% of income from government
- Adoptions Together Inc Dba As Paths for Families — 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 Catalyst Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Catalyst 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.