· Private foundation
The Goldberg Family Foundation
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
Read this first · the figures below need context
86% of The Goldberg Family Foundation’s FY2025 grant dollars went to Combined Jewish Philanthropies Of Greater Boston Inc, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2025 names 3 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2017, the last year The Goldberg Family Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 12 organizations, $280k. It is dated, not current.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2017
- Under $10k14 grants · $20k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $10k
- $50k–250k3 grants · $250k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CONGREGATION KEHILLATH ISRAEL | $104,768 |
| UNITED WAY OF MASSACHUSETTS BAY | $95,000 |
| PUTNEY SCHOOL | $50,000 |
| TEACH FOR AMERICA - MASSACHUSETTS | $10,000 |
| BERSHIRE HILLS MUSIC ACADEMY | $6,250 |
| BOSTON COLLEGE LAW SCHOOL | $5,000 |
| PALM BEACH COUNTRY CLUB FOUNDATION | $2,000 |
| EDWARD M KENNEDY INSTITUTE | $2,000 |
| SPORTMEN'S TENNIS & ENRICHMENT CENTER | $2,000 |
| BOSTON COLLEGE CAROLL SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENT | $1,500 |
| GREATER BOSTON FOOD BANK | $540 |
| HOMES FOR OUR TROOPS | $360 |
| COMMONWEALTH INSTITUTE INC | $250 |
| OUIMET SCHOLARSHIP FUND | $180 |
| PLANNED PARENTHOOD | $150 |
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 (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 88% 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.
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 +86% since the first grant, against +34% for the ones you funded once.
24 repeat relationships — 15 still active in FY2017, 9 since wound down; 12 grantees were first funded in FY2017 (too recent to call). Read against FY2017, the last year this funder named its own grantees directly; its giving has since run through a sponsor, which reports no donor behind each grant.
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, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
- BIBETH ISRAEL DEACONESS MEDICAL CENTER INC5× · 2020–2024 · $500k · revenue +50%
- PSPUTNEY SCHOOL INC5× · 2017–2025 · $225k · revenue +47%
Woodwell Climate Research Center Inc2× · 2020–2022 · $150k · revenue +123%
Funded once
- DFDANA FARBER CANCER CENTERone grant, 2018 · $3k
- TSTHE SPORTSMEN'S TENNIS & ENRICHMENT CENTER INCgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $2k · revenue +273%
- UWUNITED WAY - PALM BEACHone grant, 2018 · $2k
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 bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
The organization's primary exempt purpose is to provide access to and conduct activities in furtherance of higher education.
Organization's mission: boston university is an international, comprehensive, private research university, committed to educating students to be reflective, resourceful individuals ready to live, adapt, and lead in an interconnected world.…
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.
Bates is a college of the liberal arts and sciences, and is a coeducational, nonsectarian, residential college with special commitments to academic rigor, and to assuring in all of its efforts the dignity of each individual, and access to…
Brighton marine, inc. provides military and veteran families with comprehensive campus-based quality health care, as well as affordable and supportive housing for at-risk veterans and their families.
New england law/boston dedicates itself to preparing students to be successful lawyers and leaders in the public and private sectors through integrated practical, theoretical and ethical education of the highest caliber and to contributing…
Our mission is to ensure that the people of greater boston benefit from a vibrant, resilient, and inclusive waterfront, harbor, and islands; these spaces are equitable, accessible, and adapted to climate change; and to ensure our public,…
The mission of the roundtable is to make massachusetts the most desirable place to live, work and do business by engaging private sector executives and public leaders to ensure access to a robust, diverse and talented workforce that…
Provider of pediatric healthcare, education, research & community service
Mission strengthened by more than a century and a half of dedication to academic excellence, boston college commits itself to the highest standards of teaching and research in undergraduate, graduate and professional programs and to the…
To improve the business, social and civic environment of the greater boston area and to become the leading representative in the boston area in the consideration of local, state and national issues.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Jewish Federation of Palm Beach County Inc and the most unlike its peers is General Israel Orphan Home for Girls. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 37 years old; the field is 15. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 14% 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.
26 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. 26 of the 41 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 Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston Inc ↗
- Who funds BETH ISRAEL DEACONESS MEDICAL CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds United Way Of Massachusetts Bay Inc ↗
- Who funds PUTNEY SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds Woodwell Climate Research Center Inc ↗
- Who funds ASSOCIATION TO PRESERVE CAPE COD INC ↗
- Who funds BERKSHIRE HILLS MUSIC ACADEMY INC ↗
- Who funds EDWARD M KENNEDY INSTITUTE FOR THE UNITED STATES SENATE INC ↗
- Who funds BRANDEIS UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds Boston Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds JEWISH FEDERATION OF CAPE COD INC ↗
- Who funds JEWISH FEDERATION OF PALM BEACH COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds PALM BEACH COUNTRY CLUB FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds GREATER BOSTON FOOD BANK INC ↗
- Who funds JEWISH VOCATIONAL SERVICE INC ↗
- Who funds THE SPORTSMEN'S TENNIS & ENRICHMENT CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds BOSTON ARTS ACADEMY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds JOSLIN DIABETES CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds CAPE AND ISLANDS UNITED WAY INC ↗
- Who funds THE TRUSTEES OF RESERVATIONS ↗
- Who funds HOMES FOR OUR TROOPS INC ↗
- Who funds THE WOMEN'S EDGE ↗
- Who funds THE BEAVER COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds Palm Beach Civic Association Inc ↗
- Who funds HARVARD CLUB OF BOSTON ↗
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: Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston Inc · Joseph and Rae Gann Charitable Foundation · Boston Foundation Inc · Eastern Bank Foundation · The Chicago Community Trust · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Raymond James Charitable Endowment Fund · National Philanthropic Trust · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc
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 Goldberg 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.
- Association to Preserve Cape Cod Inc — 100% of income from government
- Berkshire Hills Music Academy Inc — 63% of income from government
- Jewish Vocational Service Inc — 39% of income from government
- Joslin Diabetes Center Inc — 35% of income from government
- United Way of Massachusetts Bay Inc — 23% of income from government
- Greater Boston Food Bank Inc — 22% of income from government
- Woodwell Climate Research Center Inc — 11% of income from government
- Brandeis University — 9% of income from government
- Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Inc — 6% of income from government
- The Trustees of Reservations — 2% of income from government
- Boston Arts Academy Foundation 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 Goldberg Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Goldberg 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.