· Private foundation
The Ferris Family Foundation
Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k31 grants · $57k
- $10k–50k10 grants · $225k
- $250k+1 grant · $344k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| BOYS AND GIRLS CLUBS OF GREATER WASHINGTON INC(BGCGW) | $344,279 |
| TRINITY COLLEGE | $26,000 |
| NOYES CHILDRENS LIBRARY FOUNDATION | $25,500 |
| CENTER FOR INSPIRED TEACHING | $25,000 |
| PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL | $25,000 |
| SECOND STORY | $25,000 |
| A WIDER CIRCLE | $25,000 |
| ST IGNATIOUS LOYOLA ACADEMY | $25,000 |
| COMMUNITY OF HOPE | $25,000 |
| SAINT JAMES SCHOOL | $13,500 |
| CENTRAL UNION MISSION | $10,000 |
| BOYS AND GIRLS CLUBS OF SANTA BARBARA | $9,856 |
| ST THOMAS EPISCOPAL CHURCH | $7,000 |
| NPH USA | $5,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA | $4,000 |
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, $158k) land where the poverty rate runs at 6%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 2% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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.
54 repeat relationships — 30 still active in FY2024, 24 since wound down; 10 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, 94% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $40k 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
- AAABUSED AND HOMELESS CHILDREN'S REFUGE INC6× · 2019–2024 · $145k · revenue +71%
TRINITY COLLEGE6× · 2019–2024 · $131k · revenue +49%- COCOMMUNITY OF HOPE6× · 2019–2024 · $130k · revenue +51%
Funded once
- BABOYS AND GIRLS CLUBS OF GREATER WASHINGTON-GEORGE FERRIS JR CLUBHOUSE 6one grant, 2017 · $80k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2019 · $51k
- SIST IGNATIUS LOYOLA ACADEMYone grant, 2017 · $27k
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 mission of the george washington university (gw) is to educate individuals in liberal arts, languages, sciences, learned professions, and other courses and subjects of study, and to conduct scholarly research and publish the findings…
The University of New Haven is a student-centered comprehensive university with an emphasis on excellence in liberal arts and professional education. Our mission is to prepare our students to lead purposeful and fulfilling lives in a…
The mission of mit is to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century.
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.
Washington college challenges and inspires emerging citizen leaders to discover lives of purpose and passion.core valueswe share these values of our founding patron, george washington: integrity, determination, curiosity, civility,…
The primary mission of furman as a liberal arts institution is to provide a distinctive education in fine arts, humanities, social sciences, mathematics and the sciences, as well as selected professional disciplines.
To educate students to be ethical and socially responsible leaders in a global community.
Wilson college empowers students to be confident and critical thinkers, creative visionaries, effective communicators, honorable leaders, and agents of justice.
To graduate people of uncommon integrity, competence, and maturity, who are effective lifelong learners and responsible citizens, and who are prepared to contribute substantially to the world in which they live.
Rooted in the liberal arts & sciences & lutheran expression of the christian faith, & is committed to offering a challenging education that develops qualities of mind, spirit, & body necessary for a rewarding life of leadership & service…
Provides innovative education in a dynamic urban setting. dedicated to academic excellence and community engagement,we prepare students of diverse backgrounds with the knowledge, skill,and experience to lead meaningful lives as informed…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Friends of the Orphans D/B/a Nph-Usa and the most unlike its peers is Friends of Wellsrobertson House Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 46 years old; the field is 18. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 1% of your grantees by number, and just 8% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 1% lost their exemption, against 12% 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.
67 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.
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 2017–2026, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 67 of the 126 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 ABUSED AND HOMELESS CHILDREN'S REFUGE INC ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR INSPIRED TEACHING ↗
- Who funds NOYES CHILDREN'S LIBRARY FOUNDATIONINC ↗
- Who funds TRINITY COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY OF HOPE ↗
- Who funds I DREAM PUBLIC CHARTER SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds A WIDER CIRCLE INC ↗
- Who funds SAINT JAMES SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION ↗
- Who funds CHESAPEAKE BAY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds CENTRAL UNION MISSION ↗
- Who funds TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA ↗
- Who funds SUFFIELD ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds MARTHA'S TABLE INC ↗
- Who funds SOME INC ↗
- Who funds THE HOLTON ARMS SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds BULLIS SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE ORPHANS D/B/A NPH-USA ↗
- Who funds WORLD WILDLIFE FUND INC ↗
- Who funds THE DC CENTRAL KITCHEN 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: Greater Washington Community Foundation · Richard E & Nancy P Marriott Foundation · Clark-Winchcole Foundation · The Gary and Pennie Abramson Charitable Foundation · The Bessemer Giving Fund · American Endowment Foundation · National Philanthropic Trust · Nora Roberts Foundation · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc · The Ayco Charitable Foundation · T Rowe Price Program for Charitable Giving Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program
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 Ferris Family 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.
- A Wider Circle Inc — 6% of income from government
- Nantucket Conservation Foundation Inc — 4% of income from government
- Chesapeake Bay Foundation Inc — 2% of income from government
- Manna Food Center Inc — 1% of income from government
- Trinity College — 0% of income from government
- Drew University — 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 Ferris Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Ferris Family 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.