· Private foundation
The Helen J Serini Foundation Inc
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 FY2020–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k5 grants · $20k
- $10k–50k16 grants · $227k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| BEYOND SHELTER FREDERICK | $20,000 |
| MARYLAND HUNGER SOLUTIONS AN INITIATIVE OF THE FOOD RESEARCH ACTION CENTER | $20,000 |
| THE FREDERICK CENTER | $20,000 |
| HOMELESS PERSONS REPRESENTATION PROJECT | $20,000 |
| COMMUNITY WEALTH BUILDERS FISCALLY SPONSORED BY MARYLAND PHILANTHROPY NETWO | $20,000 |
| MARYLAND CENTER ON ECONOMIC POLICY | $20,000 |
| PATHS TOGETHER (FORMERLY ADOPTIONS TOGETHER) | $15,000 |
| BALTIMORE COMMUNITY TOOLBANK | $12,000 |
| LITERACY COUNCIL OF FREDERICK COUNTY | $10,000 |
| FREESTATE JUSTICE | $10,000 |
| MARYLAND CITIZENS HEALTH INITIATIVE FUND | $10,000 |
| BANNER NEIGHBORHOODS COMMUNITY | $10,000 |
| HEALTHCARE ACCESS MARYLAND | $10,000 |
| CASH CAMPAIGN OF MARYLAND INC | $10,000 |
| IMPACT HUB BALTIMORE FISCALLY SPONSORED BY MARYLAND PHILANTHROPY NETWORK | $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.
Your human-services grants (FY20–24, $185k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 47% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants spread fairly evenly across need levels.
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 +41% since the first grant, against +34% for the ones you funded once.
31 repeat relationships — 14 still active in FY2024, 17 since wound down; 7 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, 61% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $97k 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
- MCMARYLAND CENTER ON ECONOMIC POLICY INC5× · 2020–2024 · $92k · revenue +23%
- MPMARYLAND PHILANTHROPY NETWORK5× · 2020–2024 · $88k · revenue +60%
- BCBALTIMORE COMMUNITY TOOLBANK INC5× · 2020–2024 · $75k · revenue +16%
Funded once
- FCFREDERICK COUNTY HEALTHCARE COALITION INCgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $30k · revenue +277% · 50% of their budget
- BSBaltimore Safe Haven Corpgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $15k · revenue +302%
- MPMARYLAND PHILANTHROPY NETWORKIMPACT HUB BALTIMOREone grant, 2022 · $15k
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.
To cultivate career advancement opportunities for local talent, facilitate talent acquisition for local employers, increase access to capital for local entrepreneurs' social ventures, and foster cross-sector collaboration to address city…
Inspire volunteerism and connect motivated people and businesses to nonprofit organizations leading to stronger communities. our programs connect the right people with the right organizations.
To promote, strengthen, and advocate for the community development sector throughout Marylands urban, suburban, and rural communities.
Cultivating inclusive communities through relationships, innovation and high-quality services.
The council was organized for the purpose of providing its members with adequate representation in various union related matters.
To advocate fair housing and improving tenant/landlord relations.
Nonprofit community based organization that works to foster an enviornment where residents, business owners,and stateholders feel confident to invest their time,energy,and money. we are a healthy neighborhoods and baltimore main streets…
The legal aid justice center partners with communities and clients to achieve justice by dismantling systems that create and perpetuate poverty.
To offer assistance and support to the homeless, poor and needy of baltimore with services contributing toward their independence and stability.
Maryland inclusive housing corporation's (mih) mission is to help people with intellectual and other developmental disabilities (idd) successfully access and maintain inclusive, affordable, and accessible housing of their choice by…
Community law center is maryland's only legal services organization dedicated solely to strengthening neighborhoods and the nonprofit sector. for over 30 years, community law center's attorneys have been providing learning opportunities…
Health care for the homeless works to end homelessness through racially equitable health care, housing and advocacy in partnership with those of us who have experienced it.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Children of Incarcerated Parents Partnership Inc and the most unlike its peers is Hearts of Hope 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 25 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 5% 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.
60 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. 60 of the 92 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 MARYLAND CENTER ON ECONOMIC POLICY INC ↗
- Who funds MARYLAND PHILANTHROPY NETWORK ↗
- Who funds BALTIMORE COMMUNITY TOOLBANK INC ↗
- Who funds ADOPTIONS TOGETHER INC DBA AS PATHS FOR FAMILIES ↗
- Who funds CASH CAMPAIGN OF MARYLAND INC ↗
- Who funds THE LIGHT HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds LITERACY COUNCIL OF FREDERICK COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds FREESTATE JUSTICE INC ↗
- Who funds BANNER NEIGHBORHOODS COMMUNITY CORP ↗
- Who funds BEYOND SHELTER FREDERICK INC ↗
- Who funds HEALTHCARE ACCESS MARYLAND INC ↗
- Who funds FREDERICK COUNTY HEALTHCARE COALITION INC ↗
- Who funds MARYLAND NEW DIRECTIONS INC ↗
- Who funds MARYLAND VOLUNTEER LAWYERS SERVICE INC ↗
- Who funds ADOPTION EXCHANGE ASSOCIATION INC DBA NATIONAL ADOPTION ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds ROBS BARBERSHOP COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF FREDERICK COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds MENTAL HEALTH ASSOCIATION OF FREDERICK COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds THE FREDERICK CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds LANGTON GREEN INC ↗
- Who funds MARYLAND CITIZENS' HEALTH INITIATIVE EDUCATION FUND INC ↗
- Who funds PROJECT OWN INC ↗
- Who funds HOMELESS PERSONS REPRESENTATION PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds LIFE ASSET INC ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF ANNE ARUNDEL CO ↗
- Who funds INTERFAITH HOUSING ALLIANCE INC ↗
- Who funds Baltimore Safe Haven Corp ↗
- Who funds Black Women Build - Baltimore 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: Ausherman Family Trust · Ausherman Family Foundation · The Abell Foundation Inc · The United Way of Central Maryland Inc · Delaplaine Foundation Inc · Baltimore Community Foundation Inc · The Community Foundation of Frederick County Maryland Inc · Annie E Casey Foundation Inc · United Way of Frederick County Inc · France-Merrick Foundation Inc · Zanvyl and Isabelle Krieger Fund Inc · T Rowe Price 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 Helen J Serini Foundation Inc 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.
- Baltimore Safe Haven Corp — 28% of income from government
- Interfaith Housing Alliance Inc — 27% of income from government
- Everyman Theatre Inc — 15% of income from government
- Neighborhood Design Center Inc — 14% of income from government
- The Maryland Food Bank Inc — 11% of income from government
- Cash Campaign of Maryland Inc — 11% of income from government
- Black Women Build - Baltimore Inc — 10% of income from government
- Spanish-Speaking Community of Maryland Inc — 10% of income from government
- Maryland New Directions Inc — 8% of income from government
- Maryland Volunteer Lawyers Service Inc — 7% of income from government
- Banner Neighborhoods Community Corp — 6% of income from government
- The Delaplaine Arts Center Inc — 5% of income from government
- Public Justice Center Inc — 5% of income from government
- Wide Angle Youth Media Inc — 3% of income from government
- Digital Harbor Foundation — 2% of income from government
- Downtown Frederick Partnership Inc — 2% of income from government
- The United Way of Central Maryland Inc — 2% of income from government
- Adoptions Together Inc Dba As Paths for Families — 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
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Find your warmest path to The Helen J Serini Foundation Inc 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.