How much does The Ellen Knowles Harcourt Foundation give?

The Ellen Knowles Harcourt Foundation reported 22 grants totaling $202,110 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 16 and 22 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does The Ellen Knowles Harcourt Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Education (34%), Human Services (20%), Environment (9%).

Who are The Ellen Knowles Harcourt Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: Partners for Sustainable Healthy Communities Inc ($70k), Northville Volunteer Fire Department ($50k), University of the Cumberlands Inc ($46k).

Does The Ellen Knowles Harcourt Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 20% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does The Ellen Knowles Harcourt Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it accepts unsolicited grant applications.

Which funders back the same organizations as The Ellen Knowles Harcourt Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include The Connecticut Community Foundation, Union Savings Bank Foundation Inc, Savings Bank of Danbury Foundation Inc.

Where is The Ellen Knowles Harcourt Foundation based?

The Ellen Knowles Harcourt Foundation is based in CT.

The Ellen Knowles Harcourt Foundation

The Ellen Knowles Harcourt Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

The Ellen Knowles Harcourt Foundation

Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.

$202k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$30k

Largest

01What it funds

0199% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2024.

Education$485kHuman Services$289kEnvironment$133kArts & Culture$115kPublic Safety & Disaster$81kFood & Nutrition$65kAnimals$53kHealth$46kOther$0

02FY2025 · 22 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k13 grants · $70k
$10k–50k9 grants · $132k

$8,000

Median grant

States reached

$3.7M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
JOHN PETTIBONE SCHOLARSHIP FUND	$30,000
FISH OF NORTHWESTERN CONNECTICUT INC	$20,000
TOWN OF NEW MILFORD SOCIAL SERVICES DEPARTMENT	$15,000
PARTNERS FOR SUSTAINABLE HEALTHY COMMUNITIES	$15,000
WATER WITCH HOSE CO NO 2	$11,810
NEW MILFORD YOUTH AGENCY	$10,000
NORTHWEST CT LAND CONSERVANCY	$10,000
AFTER SCHOOL ARTS PROGRAM	$10,000
MVP SOS FOUNDATION	$10,000
CONNECTICUT COMMUNITY FOUNDATION	$8,500
CT ANTIQUE MACHINERY ASSOCIATION	$8,000
RENEWAL HOUSE DANBURY	$7,500
MERRYALL COMMUNITY CENTER	$7,500
SOULFUL SYDNEY INC	$7,500
THE SHERMAN PLAYERS	$7,200

02The need

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Its human-services grants (FY17–25, $104k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 0% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

How this is measured

Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.

How this is measured

US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

86%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$1.4M · 40 repeat orgs$233k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +47% since the first grant, against +29% for those funded once.

40 repeat relationships: 16 still active in FY2025, 24 since wound down; 5 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$1.4M

$200k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+47%

+29%

Still filing today

70%

55%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 83% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $33k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

Arts & CultureEnvironmentEducationHuman ServicesPublic Safety & DisasterAnimalsOther

How this is measured

First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

PF
PARTNERS FOR SUSTAINABLE HEALTHY COMMUNITIES INC
5× · 2017–2025 · $70k · revenue +552%
NV
NORTHVILLE VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT
3× · 2019–2024 · $50k · revenue +21%
UO
UNIVERSITY OF THE CUMBERLANDS INC
5× · 2018–2024 · $46k · revenue +90%

Funded once

NM
NEW MILFORD PUBLIC LIBRARY
one grant, 2022 · $20k
GV
GAYLORDSVILLE VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPT
one grant, 2023 · $20k · revenue -9%
FC
FIRST CONGREGATIONAL CHURCH - NEW MILFORD
one grant, 2022 · $20k

How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

Newtown Forest Association Inc

The Newtown Forest Association is the oldest private land trust organization in Connecticut. It has been dedicated for one hundred years to securing for the residents of Newtown and for posterity generally the benefits derived from open…

Environment

Wyndham Land Trust Inc

Conserve the natural resources of northeast connecticut-the watercourses, swamps, woodlands and open spaces, the plant and animal life therein, and the scenic natural and historic sites.

Environment

Winchester Historical Society

—

Redding Land Trust Inc

The primary mission of Redding Land Trust is to preserve the natural resources of the Town of Redding, CT and to promote the scientific and educational study of local and natural resources, and to acquire, by gift or purchase, land or…

Environment

Northern Connecticut Land Trust Inc

Preserve the natural resources on the northern CT region including agricultural land and other ecologically significant open space.

Environment

Candlewood Valley Regional Land Trust

The Candlewood Valley Regional Land Trust protects open spaces that contribute to the Candlewood Valley iconic rural New England character.

—

New Milford Economic Development Corporation

The principal objective of the organization is to benefit the community by increasing employment opportunities and the establishment and expansion of business and industry for the citizens of new milford.

Community Improvement

Vna Home Inc Co RVNAhealth

The mission of VNA Home, Inc. is to provide short-term or long-term non-medical home care services to people who reside in the greater New Milford, Connecticut area.

—

Watertown Land Trust

Preservation of open space in watertown, ct; maintenance of owned and conserved properties and public education of enviromental issues.

—

Farmington Land Trust

The Farmington Land Trust Inc protects open space in the town of Farmington CT through the acquisition of open space, stewardship of acquired land, education of the public about the importance of open space and advocacy that ensures…

Environment

Burrillville Land Trust

The burrillville land trust is dedicated to maintaining the town's rural character by preserving open space, protecting the beauty and viability of our farms, and preserving the woodlands, meadows, ponds, and rivers around us.

Environment

Kestrel Land Trust

Kestrel land trust conserves and cares for forests, farms, and riverways in the connecticut river valley of western massachusetts while nurturing an enduring love of the land

Environment

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Northwest Connecticut Land Conservancy Inc; the most unlike its peers is Ripley Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

04the grantee network

49 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2026, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 49 of the 75 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

48/49

Grantees still filing

35/49

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$1,061,310Education$174,325Human Services$103,900Environment$103,250Arts & Culture$86,250Public Safety & Disaster$77,700Philanthropy$38,500

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

The Connecticut Community FoundationCT56.2× affinity25 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: The Connecticut Community Foundation · Union Savings Bank Foundation Inc · Savings Bank of Danbury Foundation Inc · The Kestrel Foundation · Murray & Susan Haber Charitable Foundation · Northwest Connecticut Community Foundation Inc · Northwest Community Bank Foundation Inc · Connecticut Humanities Council Inc · The Diebold Foundation Inc · Albert and Helen Meserve Mem Fund · Eversource Energy Foundation Inc · Fairfield County's Community Foundation Inc

How this is measured

Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization The Ellen Knowles Harcourt Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Ellen Knowles Harcourt Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

18get no government money at all

12report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

2rely on government for over half their income

typical government reliance, FY20–25

How this is measured

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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to The Ellen Knowles Harcourt Foundation?

Find your warmest path to The Ellen Knowles Harcourt 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.

Play a game based on Ellen Knowles Harcourt’s filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions

grants reported with no recipient in the public record

The regranting layer

51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer

The DAF merry-go-round

$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds

The endowment market

who holds foundation money, and what just moved

The camps

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

By state

where grant money is based, and what stays home