· Private foundation
The Dear 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 FY2023–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k3 grants · $13k
- $10k–50k7 grants · $70k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| THRIVE DC | $10,000 |
| CHESAPEAKE WILDLIFE HERITAGE | $10,000 |
| SOCIETY OF ST VINCENT DE PAUL | $10,000 |
| RED WIGGLER FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| ADKINS ARBORETUM | $10,000 |
| THE NATURE CONSERVANCY | $10,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $10,000 |
| FATHER MCKENNA CENTER | $5,000 |
| PROJECT GIVEBACK COMMUNITY SERVICE ORG | $5,000 |
| PHILLIPS WHARF ENVIRONMENTAL CENTER | $2,500 |
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 (FY24–24, $15k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 7%. 100% 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.
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.
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.
Cultivate local food systems prioritizing health, equity, and sustainability, from farm forward.
The maryland food bank is a nonprofit hunger-relief organization dedicated to feeding people, strengthening communities, and ending hunger for more marylanders.
We mobilize and educate our community to ensure equitable access to nutritious and familiar food. we do this by raising, and soliciting funds for the acquisition, storage, growing, collection and distribution of food to low income citizens…
To conserve, enhance, and encourage the wise use of natural resources. ttcd's core values are to meet the needs of our stakeholders and to foster cooperative relationships.
Advancing sustainability in the western area of the united states through a series of programs and activities designed to promote better ranching practices. a strong focus is to provide ranchers with the information, tools, technical…
Community gardening, land conservation and environmental education are the primary activities. the community gardening program assists in development and maintenance of gardens with materials and neighborhood outreach. the land program…
Freshfarm is a washington, dc-based nonprofit that builds a more equitable, sustainable, and resilient food system in the mid-atlantic region by producing innovative solutions in partnership with local communities and organizations. we…
The Center brings together diverse interests from the agricultural, forestry, and environmental communities for the purpose of retaining Maryland's working landscapes and the industries they support while protecting and improving the…
To provide food assistance through a network of partners, while educating and engaging our communities in the elimination of hunger and its causes.
To end hunger in communities throughout new york city. (see schedule o)to end hunger in communities throughout new york city. we do this through food rescue and distribution, education, and other practical, innovative solutions.
Healthy chesapeake is committed to building a culture of wellness that supports, sustains and advocates for a healthier chesapeake. to achieve this, healthy chesapeake recognizes that health and well-being are interconnected with social,…
Plant with purpose, a christian nonprofit organization, reverses deforestation and poverty around the world by transforming the lives of the rural poor. we do this through: - watershed restoration & regenerative agriculture - savings…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Chesapeake Wildlife Heritage Inc and the most unlike its peers is Adkins Arboretum Ltd. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
9 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. 9 of the 11 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 CAPITAL AREA FOOD BANK INC ↗
- Who funds THRIVE DC ↗
- Who funds RED WIGGLER FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds ADKINS ARBORETUM LTD ↗
- Who funds CHESAPEAKE WILDLIFE HERITAGE INC ↗
- Who funds THE FATHER MCKENNA CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds PROJECT GIVEBACK COMMUNITY SERVICE ORG ↗
- Who funds Phillips Wharf Environmental Center 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: 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 organization The Dear 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.
- Phillips Wharf Environmental Center Inc — 21% 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 Dear Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Dear 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.