· Private foundation
Elster Forbes Foundation
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 FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k5 grants · $25k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $35k
- $50k–250k5 grants · $282k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Michael J Fox Foundation | $82,000 |
| Mental Health America | $50,000 |
| Cure Alzheimer Fund | $50,000 |
| Feeding America | $50,000 |
| Recovery Institute of MGH | $50,000 |
| Babies Need Bottoms | $25,000 |
| Not One More Vet | $10,000 |
| Rock Steady Boxing Inc | $5,000 |
| SCVets Care Foundation | $5,000 |
| Asheville Buncombe Com Christ Minis | $5,000 |
| NAMI Central Texas | $5,000 |
| Calebs Closet | $5,000 |
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 (FY21–25, $20k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 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.
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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 45% of Elster Forbes Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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.
12 repeat relationships — 7 still active in FY2025, 5 since wound down; 5 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (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 FY2025, 93% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $25k 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
Feeding America6× · 2020–2025 · $280k · revenue +40%- MHMENTAL HEALTH AMERICA INC5× · 2021–2025 · $250k · revenue +20%
FAMILY PROMISE INC3× · 2020–2022 · $200k · revenue +63%
Funded once
- WFWake Forest Baptist Healthone grant, 2020 · $100k
- RRRecovery Research Institute ofone grant, 2020 · $50k
- RRRecovery Research Institute of Massone grant, 2021 · $50k
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.
NAMI provides advocacy, education, support and public awareness so that all individuals and families affected by mental illness can build better lives.See Schedule O
Inseparable Inc is focused on creating a world where mental health is treated as a critical and equal piece of overall health, and where systems are designed with their impact on mental health in mind. Inseparable, Inc. is a growing…
We seek to improve the quality of life for people living with mental health conditions, their families, and their caregivers. we work to ensure that all people impacted by a mental health condition receive the support they need when they…
The Academy's mission is to enhance member career fulfillment and promote brain health for all.
The National Association of State Mental Health Program Directors (NASMHPD) is organized to reflect and advocate for the collective interest of state mental health authorities and their directors at the national level. NASMHPD analyzes…
By leveraging innovative technology and research, we are shaping mental health policy and systems to create a world where everyone has access to the support they need anytime, anywhere.
NAMI St. Louis provides education, advocacy, and support essential to the recovery, resilience, and well-being of all who have mental health needs and for their families, caregivers, and the community.
The agency provides mutual support, education, and adovacacy to improve the quality of life, ensure dignity and respect for persons with serious brain disorders, and to support their families through their work of its members and nearly 60…
To empower Coloradans affected by mental health conditions and providing them with skills and tools necessary to achieve their personal wellness goal.
To champion public awareness of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and challenges confronting our countrys heroes and rally support for shelter animal adoption by connecting heroes and companions.
To improve the quality of life for individuals affected by mental health conditions, as well as their families, through advocacy, education, and support. We are committed to ensuring the dignity of those living with mental illness by…
The american psychiatric association (apa) was incorporated in 2000 as a 501(c)(6) trade association. its 38,000 u.s. and international physician members specialize in the diagnosis and treatment of mental health and disorders, including…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Family Promise Inc and the most unlike its peers is Scvets Care Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
20 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. 20 of the 30 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 Feeding America ↗
- Who funds MENTAL HEALTH AMERICA INC ↗
- Who funds FAMILY PROMISE INC ↗
- Who funds UNITED STATES FUND FOR UNICEF ↗
- Who funds THE MICHAEL J FOX FOUNDATION FOR PARKINSON'S RESEARCH ↗
- Who funds K9S FOR WARRIORS INC ↗
- Who funds NOT ONE MORE VET INC ↗
- Who funds Babies Need Bottoms Inc ↗
- Who funds INTERNATIONAL CENTER FOR CLUBHOUSE DEVELOPMENT INC ↗
- Who funds Lines for Life ↗
- Who funds PALMETTO ANIMAL ASSISTED LIFE SERVI ↗
- Who funds NAMI Central Texas ↗
- Who funds ROCK STEADY BOXING INC ↗
- Who funds ASSISTANCE LEAGUE OF ST LOUIS ↗
- Who funds SCVETS CARE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CALEBS CLOSET ↗
- Who funds Literacy Together ↗
- Who funds The Finger Lakes Land Trust Inc ↗
- Who funds ROSSMAN SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds Homeless Prenatal Program 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: The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · 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 Elster Forbes 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 or a single department — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Lines for Life — 70% of income from government
- Family Promise Inc — 2% of income from government
- K9S for Warriors 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Elster Forbes Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Elster Forbes 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.