· Private foundation
The Fine Fund
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 $10k9 grants · $29k
- $10k–50k16 grants · $253k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| NEW WORLD FOUNDATION | $30,000 |
| SUSTAINABLE MARKETS FOUNDATION | $30,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $25,000 |
| WEST VIRGINIA RIVERS COALITION | $20,000 |
| NEW WORLD FOUNDATION | $20,000 |
| COMING CLEAN | $20,000 |
| CENTER FOR POLITICAL ECOLOGY | $15,000 |
| GENERATION COMMON GOOD | $13,000 |
| HABITABLE | $10,000 |
| HEALTH CARE WITHOUT HARM | $10,000 |
| TOXIC-FREE FUTURE | $10,000 |
| JUST TRANSITION ALLIANCE | $10,000 |
| SILENT SPRING INSTITUTE | $10,000 |
| ORION SOCIETY | $10,000 |
| DEPLOYUS | $10,000 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 84% of your 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 +45% since the first grant, against +2% for the ones you funded once.
31 repeat relationships — 15 still active in FY2024, 16 since wound down; 5 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, 76% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $56k 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
- CCCOMING CLEAN INC8× · 2017–2024 · $180k · revenue +244%
- SMSUSTAINABLE MARKETS FOUNDATION5× · 2017–2024 · $155k · revenue +270%
- EIESSENTIAL INFORMATION INC6× · 2018–2023 · $120k · revenue +17%
Funded once
- CFCLEAN FUTURES PROJECT (SPONSOR SUSTAINABLE MARKETS FOUNDATION)one grant, 2023 · $30k
- PDPUBLIC DEMOCRACY AMERICAone grant, 2022 · $20k · revenue -19%
Potential Energy Coalition Incgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $10k · revenue +45%
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 union of concerned scientists puts rigorous, independent science into action, developing solutions and advocating for a healthy, safe, and just future.
Improving the transparency and scientific integrity of climate solutions through open data and tools.
To establish and promote programs to protect the global climate, forests, wildlife and the natural environment, through research, advocacy, and investigation.
Friends of the earth strives for a more healthy and just world by defendng the environment and human health while advancing social and economic justice by conducting research and education, transforming the economy so it protects the…
Environment next supports individuals, nonprofits and businesses around the world on solutions to complex climate issues. we provide leadership, outreach and communication support, grants, and investments to empower leaders and their ideas…
E3g is a leading international not-for-profit think tank specialising in climate diplomacy harnessing expertise in the politics and economics of climate change.
Environmental Law Foundation's (ELF) mission is to protect the environment, communities, and consumers against harmful toxics and other environmental harms. Our work consistently improves environmental quality for those most at risk by…
Partnership for Policy Integrity (PFPI) uses data-driven advocacy and litigation to fight for forests, communities and the climate.
Educational & charitable. to provide legal and scientific information to public interest attorneys and scientists in numerous countries.
Climate catalyst sparks collective action to tackle the biggest climate challenges we face today: cutting emissions in heavy industries.
To safeguard the public from health hazards that impact families, workers, and the environment
To investigate, research, write, publish, present conferences and teach with respect to global, regional, transboundary, and comparative environmental issues and to make the findings from such activities available to the general public; to…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Defend Our Health and the most unlike its peers is Highstead Foundation 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 29 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 2% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
59 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. 59 of the 70 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 COMING CLEAN INC ↗
- Who funds SUSTAINABLE MARKETS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ESSENTIAL INFORMATION INC ↗
- Who funds RACHEL'S NETWORK INC ↗
- Who funds SILENT SPRING INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds HABITABLE ↗
- Who funds DEPLOYUS INC ↗
- Who funds DEFEND OUR HEALTH ↗
- Who funds THE ORION SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR POLITICAL ECOLOGY ↗
- Who funds TRUSTEES OF BOSTON UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds NEW VENTURE FUND ↗
- Who funds THE NEW WORLD FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE PROGRAM FOR PRESERVING THE NATURAL WORLD INC ↗
- Who funds TOXIC-FREE FUTURE F/K/A WASHINGTON TOXICS COALITION ↗
- Who funds PROTEUS FUND INC ↗
- Who funds WEST VIRGINIA RIVERS COALITION INC ↗
- Who funds VIRGINIA ORGANIZING INC ↗
- Who funds HEALTH CARE WITHOUT HARM ↗
- Who funds CARNEGIE INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds PUBLIC DEMOCRACY AMERICA ↗
- Who funds Massachusetts Institute of Technology ↗
- Who funds Global Impact ↗
- Who funds Generation Common Good Inc ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF JACKSON HOLE ↗
- Who funds ENVIRONMENTAL LEAGUE OF MASSACHUSETTS INC ↗
- Who funds Potential Energy Coalition Inc ↗
- Who funds Science & Environmental Health Network ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Pesticide Action Network North America ↗
- Who funds CROATAN INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds JUST TRANSITION ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN FRIENDS OF REICHMAN UNIVERSITY INC ↗
- Who funds ENVIRONMENTAL HEALTH SCIENCES ↗
- Who funds NEW ENGLAND GRASSROOTS ENVIRONMENT FUND 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: Maine Community Foundation Inc · Boston Foundation Inc · Impactassetsinc · The Marisla Foundation · Park Foundation Inc · United States Energy Foundation · The John Merck Fund · Patagoniaorg · Forsythia Foundation Inc · The Passport Foundation · Cloud Mountain Foundation · Cedar Tree 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 The Fine Fund 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.
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology — 35% of income from government
- Mystic River Watershed Association Inc — 18% of income from government
- Trustees of Boston University — 12% of income from government
- Silent Spring Institute Inc — 12% of income from government
- East Quabbin Land Trust Inc — 9% of income from government
- Northeast Wilderness Trust Corporation — 2% of income from government
- The Orion Society Inc — 2% of income from government
- Emerald Necklace Conservancy Inc — 0% of income from government
- Boston Foundation 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 The Fine Fund?
Find your warmest path to The Fine Fund 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.