· Private foundation
The Dobbins Foundation Co Michele Dodge Director
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 clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k30 grants · $71k
- $10k–50k3 grants · $35k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| VENTFORT HALL ASSOCIATION INC | $15,000 |
| CHRISTIAN CENTER OF PITTSFIELD | $10,000 |
| BERKSHIRE HUMANE SOCIETY | $10,000 |
| BARRINGTON STAGE COMPANY | $8,000 |
| HANCOCK SHAKER VILLAGE | $7,500 |
| YMCA | $7,000 |
| BERKSHIRE THEATRE GROUP | $5,000 |
| MASS MOCA | $3,500 |
| MICHAEL J FOX FDN | $3,000 |
| TRUSTEES OF RESERVATIONS | $2,500 |
| NORMAN ROCKWELL MUSEUM | $2,000 |
| NEW ENGLAND NORDIC SKIING ASSOCIATION | $2,000 |
| CHESTER THEATRE COMPANY | $2,000 |
| COMMUNITY ACCESS TO THE ARTS CATA | $2,000 |
| THE MOUNT | $2,000 |
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 (FY17–24, $76k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 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.
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.
32 repeat relationships — 30 still active in FY2024, 2 since wound down; 3 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, 97% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $4k 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
- VHVENTFORT HALL ASSOCIATION INC8× · 2017–2024 · $149k · revenue +135%
- BHBERKSHIRE HUMANE SOCIETY INC8× · 2017–2024 · $79k · revenue +171%
- BSBARRINGTON STAGE COMPANY INC7× · 2017–2024 · $57k · revenue +20%
Funded once
- ESELEANOR SONSINI ANIMAL SHELTERone grant, 2017 · $5k
- KKRIPALAone grant, 2017 · $2k
- BDBERKSHIRE DREAM CENTER INCone grant, 2018 · $1k · revenue -65%
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 bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
See schedule o for organization's mission statementmission statement: the huntington theatre company engages, inspires, entertains and challenges audiences with theatrical productions that range from the classics to new works; we train and…
Organization's mission statement true to the ambitious vision of its founder and her spirit of creative risk-taking, the mission of the isabella stewart gardner museum is: - to bring to life and preserve the rich historic collection; - to…
Shaker museum elevates shaker material culture to animate shaker values and beliefs and inspire individuals and communities to deepen bonds and seek meaningful approaches to social, economic, environmental, and spiritual issues.
Seeks to expand the boundaries of theater, producing, performing and presenting works of literary, experimental and educational value. provide a home for outstanding artists, a training ground for young artists (including an extensive…
The Morgan Library & Museum celebrates and shares the history and process of human creativity from antiquity to the present day through the preservation, study, and interpretation of a dynamic and growing collection.
To connect people, communities, and cultures through experience of art. collect the most significant works of art available in an effort to shape the quality/scope of the permanent collection while adhering to the institution's…
To engage audiences and artists alike with exceptional performances, inspired writing and superior productions that motivate us to think harder, to feel more deeply, to laugh more fully and to reflect on ourselves and the world in which we…
Boston court creates and nurtures innovative, boundary-pushing art that invokes the power of collective imagination to illuminate our common humanity.
The berkshire athenaeum, pittsfield's public library, exists to initiate, nurture and feed a passion for knowledge and learning. the library offers people of all ages the materials and services necessary to satisfy an appetite for…
The mwm owns and operates the waterworks museum (the "museum"), including a community meeting room. the museum is a single condominium unit of the museum building condominium, one of separate condominium building regimes on the site. the…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Trustees of Reservations and the most unlike its peers is The Christian Center of Pittsfield. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 50 years old; the field is 21. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 19% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% lost their exemption, against 9% 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.
28 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. 28 of the 42 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 VENTFORT HALL ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds BERKSHIRE HUMANE SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds THE CHRISTIAN CENTER OF PITTSFIELD ↗
- Who funds BARRINGTON STAGE COMPANY INC ↗
- Who funds Hancock Shaker Village Inc ↗
- Who funds BERKSHIRE THEATRE GROUP INC ↗
- Who funds THE TRUSTEES OF RESERVATIONS ↗
- Who funds JACOB'S PILLOW DANCE FESTIVAL INC ↗
- Who funds MASSACHUSETTS MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds BERKSHIRE COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds NORMAN ROCKWELL MUSEUM AT STOCKBRIDGE INC ↗
- Who funds THE MICHAEL J FOX FOUNDATION FOR PARKINSON'S RESEARCH ↗
- Who funds CHESTER THEATRE COMPANY INC ↗
- Who funds STERLING AND FRANCINE CLARK ART INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds 18 DEGREES INC ↗
- Who funds EDITH WHARTON RESTORATION INC ↗
- Who funds ELIZABETH FREEMAN CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds GUTHRIE CENTER CORP ↗
- Who funds MASSACHUSETTS AUDUBON SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds BERKSHIRE GARDEN CENTER INC DBA BERKSHIRE BOTANICAL GARDEN INC ↗
- Who funds HILLTOWN LAND TRUST INC ↗
- Who funds MISS HALL'S SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds WAMC ↗
- Who funds ST LAWRENCE UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds BERKSHIRE DREAM CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds SHAKESPEARE & COMPANY 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: Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation Inc · The Feigenbaum Foundation Inc · Berkshire Bank Foundation Inc · Jane and Jack Fitzpatrick Trust · Ge Aerospace Foundation · Claudia K Perles Family Foundation Inc · Lee Bank Foundation Inc · Josephine and Louise Crane Foundation · Jewish Communal Fund · The John & Katherine Morris Foundation · The Buchwald Family Foundation · Berkshire United Way 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 Dobbins Foundation Co Michele Dodge Director 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.
- Elizabeth Freeman Center Inc — 76% of income from government
- 18 Degrees Inc — 60% of income from government
- Berkshire Dream Center Inc — 7% of income from government
- Community Access to the Arts Inc — 2% of income from government
- The Trustees of Reservations — 2% of income from government
- Chester Theatre Company Inc — 2% of income from government
- Hancock Shaker Village Inc — 1% of income from government
- Massachusetts Audubon Society Inc — 1% of income from government
- Guthrie Center Corp — 1% of income from government
- Edith Wharton Restoration Inc — 1% of income from government
- Shakespeare & Company Inc — 1% of income from government
- Berkshire Theatre Group Inc — 1% of income from government
- Norman Rockwell Museum at Stockbridge Inc — 1% of income from government
- Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival Inc — 1% of income from government
- Berkshire Garden Center Inc Dba Berkshire Botanical Garden 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.