· Private foundation
The Elva & Lawrence O'Brien Family
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 $10k3 grants · $12k
- $10k–50k5 grants · $104k
- $250k+1 grant · $270k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| NATIONAL ARCHIVES FOUNDATION | $270,000 |
| CITY WILDLIFE | $37,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $30,000 |
| AMERICAN RESILIENCE PROJECT | $15,000 |
| HOLY TRINITY CHURCH | $12,000 |
| SANDY HOOK PROMISE | $10,000 |
| COTUIT LIBRARY | $5,000 |
| BARNSTABLE LAND TRUST | $5,000 |
| BIRDSEY CAPE WILDLIFE CENTER | $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 (FY21–22, $4k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, 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.
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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +33% since the first grant, against +19% for the ones you funded once.
18 repeat relationships — 7 still active in FY2024, 11 since wound down; 2 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, 98% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $7k 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
- NANATIONAL ARCHIVES FOUNDATION8× · 2017–2024 · $440k · revenue +20%
- CWCity Wildlife Inc7× · 2018–2024 · $103k · revenue +143%
SANDY HOOK PROMISE FOUNDATION4× · 2021–2024 · $43k · revenue +105%
Funded once
- USUNITED STATES CAPITOL HISTORICAL SOCIETYone grant, 2023 · $10k · revenue +19%
- CTCOMMITTEE TO PROTECT JOURNALISTS INCone grant, 2023 · $5k · revenue +9%
- MPMARYLAND PROVINCE JESUITSone grant, 2022 · $5k
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 american enterprise institute is a community of scholars and supporters committed to expanding liberty, increasing individual opportunity, and strengthening free enterprise. aei pursues these ideals through independent thinking and the…
Eastern national promotes the public's understanding and support of america's national parks and other public trust partners by providing quality educational experiences, products and services.
Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
The organization's mission is to conserve and promote new england's native plants to ensure healthy, biologically diverse landscapes.
The foreign policy research institute (frpi) is dedicated to producing the highest quality scholarship and nonpartisan policy analysis focused on crucial foreign policy and national security challenges facing the united states. we educate…
The National Academy of Public Administration is an independent, 501(c)(3) nonprofit, non partisan Organization established in 1967 and chartered by Congress in 1984. See Schedule O
The npr foundation ("foundation") is organized and operated exclusively for the benefit of its sole supported organization, national public radio, inc. ("npr inc."). the foundation supports npr inc. through various activities such as…
To sustain, restore, and enhance the nation's fish, wildlife, plants, and habitats.
Natural History Institute is organized to provide leadership and resources for a revitalized practice of natural history that integrates art, science, and humanities to promote the health and well-being of humans and the rest of the…
Founded in 1889, the national association of regulatory utility commisioners (naruc) is a non-profit organization dedicated to representing the state public service commisions who regulate the utilities that provide essential services such…
National public radio, inc. ("npr") works collaboratively with member public radio station licensees ("member stations") to create a more informed public, one that is challenged and invigorated by a deeper understanding and appreciation of…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Center for American Progress and the most unlike its peers is Piney Woods School. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
15 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. 15 of the 23 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 NATIONAL ARCHIVES FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds City Wildlife Inc ↗
- Who funds SANDY HOOK PROMISE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds American Resilience Project Inc ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS ↗
- Who funds JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY LIBRARY FOUNDATION INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds BARNSTABLE LAND TRUST INC ↗
- Who funds ALLIANCE TO PROTECT NANTUCKET SOUND INC ↗
- Who funds UNITED STATES CAPITOL HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds Piney Woods School ↗
- Who funds The Bhutan Foundation ↗
- Who funds ENVIRONMENTAL INVESTIGATION AGENCY ↗
- Who funds COMMITTEE TO PROTECT JOURNALISTS INC ↗
- Who funds BEAU BIDEN FOUNDATION FOR THE PROTECTION OF CHILDREN INC ↗
- Who funds NEW ENGLAND WILDLIFE 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: The Ford Foundation · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Ge Aerospace Foundation · Silicon Valley Community Foundation · American Endowment Foundation · National Philanthropic Trust · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Paypal Charitable Giving Fund
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 Elva & Lawrence O'Brien Family 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.
- Barnstable Land Trust Inc — 4% of income from government
- New England Wildlife Center Inc — 1% of income from government
- Sandy Hook Promise Foundation — 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 Elva & Lawrence O'Brien Family?
Find your warmest path to The Elva & Lawrence O'Brien Family 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.