· Private foundation
The Gregory E Bulger 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 FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k3 grants · $7k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $35k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $100k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | $50,000 |
| BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | $50,000 |
| SPEAKEASY STAGE CO | $25,000 |
| BARRINGTON STAGE COMPANY | $10,000 |
| LONGWOOD SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | $2,500 |
| BOSTON EARLY MUSIC FESTIVAL | $2,500 |
| GREATER BOSTON LEGAL SVCS | $1,500 |
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 16%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 98% 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.
11 repeat relationships — 6 still active in FY2025, 5 since wound down.
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
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
- BSBOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC9× · 2017–2025 · $918k · revenue +38%
- SSSpeakeasy Stage Company Inc9× · 2017–2025 · $105k · revenue +26%
- BSBARRINGTON STAGE COMPANY INC9× · 2017–2025 · $60k · revenue +20%
Funded once
- MLMASSACHUSETTS LEAGUE OF COMMUNITY Hone grant, 2019 · $100
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.
Stage live opera performances.
The organization operates america's first permanent period orchestra and chorus which reach local, national, and international audiences through a subscription series, touring engagements, recordings, and broadcasts.
Presenting orchestra classical music to underserved communities. Our mission is to make great music accessible to diverse audiences and to harness the power of music to forge lasting relationships with our community.
The Actors Company of Natick ACON creates theatre with purpose. At ACON, we celebrate artists and challenge community perspectives through equitable, professional and accessible productions.
Boston lyric opera inspires, entertains, and connects communities through compelling opera performances, programs, and gatherings.
Outreach and educational music organization
The LYDIAN QUARTET corporation has been formed for charitable purposes, to promote the educational, cultural and artistic enrichment of the residents of Massachusetts and the United States.
Organize and perform orchestra and chamber music performances for the south shore of boston and beyond.
To build a structurally sound and musically vital ensemble which seeks to explore and present music of the 20th century. all schools, movements and styles from the turn of the century to the present day will be offered. it is the practical…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Longwood Symphony Orchestra Inc and the most unlike its peers is New Repertory Theatre Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
8 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. 8 of the 12 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 BOSTON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC ↗
- Who funds Speakeasy Stage Company Inc ↗
- Who funds BARRINGTON STAGE COMPANY INC ↗
- Who funds BOSTON EARLY MUSIC FESTIVAL INC ↗
- Who funds LONGWOOD SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INC ↗
- Who funds GREATER BOSTON LEGAL SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds NEW REPERTORY THEATRE INC ↗
- Who funds 18 DEGREES 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: 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 The Gregory E Bulger 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.
- 18 Degrees Inc — 60% of income from government
- Longwood Symphony Orchestra Inc — 4% of income from government
- Greater Boston Legal Services Inc — 3% of income from government
- Boston Symphony Orchestra 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.