· Private foundation
The Hollis Family Foundation
Its FY2024 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Read this first · the figures below need context
87% of The Hollis Family Foundation’s FY2024 grant dollars went to The Vermont Community Foundation, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2024 names 22 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2023, the last year The Hollis Family Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 14 organizations, $40k. 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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2023
- Under $10k21 grants · $19k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $21k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| FOR THE LOVE OF DOGS | $21,475 |
| PETA | $3,000 |
| WAKE ROBIN CORP | $2,000 |
| GENTLE GIANTS | $1,500 |
| VERMONT FOODBANK | $1,500 |
| HUMANE SOCIETY OF CHITTENDON COUNTY | $1,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $1,000 |
| HABITAT FOR HUMANITY | $1,000 |
| NATURE CONSERVANCY | $1,000 |
| SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER | $1,000 |
| DANA FARBER CANCER INSTITUTE | $1,000 |
| WORLD WILDLIFE FUND | $500 |
| ACLU | $500 |
| VERMONT PBS | $500 |
| HUMANE SOCIETY US | $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.
Your human-services grants (FY20–23, $18k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 0% 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +27% since the first grant, against -14% for the ones you funded once.
29 repeat relationships — 18 still active in FY2023, 11 since wound down; 10 grantees were first funded in FY2023 (too recent to call). Read against FY2023, 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 FY2024, 93% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2k 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
- WRWAKE ROBIN CORPORATION4× · 2020–2023 · $18k · revenue +27%
- IIIllinois Institute of Technology4× · 2017–2022 · $12k · revenue +27%
- PFPEOPLE FOR THE ETHICAL TREATMENT OF ANIMALS INC6× · 2018–2024 · $10k · revenue +108%
Funded once
- LBLONG BEACH PUBLIC LIBRARY FOUNDATIONone grant, 2018 · $6k · revenue -11%
United States Association for UNHCRone grant, 2022 · $5k · revenue -62%- TJThe Joel Foundationone grant, 2021 · $3k · revenue +6%
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 prevent cruelty to animals, we promote enacting and enforcing good public policies. enacting good laws depends upon electing good lawmakers, and we remind voters which candidates care about and support animal issues.
Founded in 1877, american humane association, dba american humane society (american humane) is committed to ensuring the safety, welfare and well-being of animals. our leadership programs are first to serve in promoting and nurturing the…
World animal protection is a global organization working to end factory farming and wildlife exploitation. we expose cruel systems, promote animal-friendly alternatives, and influence policy change. for over 75 years, we've been rewriting…
Inspiring communities to save wildlife for future generations.
HUMANE WORLD FOR ANIMALS INTERNATIONAL, FKA HUMANE SOCIETY INTERNATIONAL (HSI), works around the globe to promote the human-animal bond, rescue and protect dogs and cats, improve farm animal welfare, protect wildlife, promote animal-free…
To pass animal protection laws, educate the public, and support humane candidates for office.
To save the lives of animals through rescue, rehabilitation and adoption; to promote learning, eliminate animal cruelty and be a leader in advancing the highest standards in animal welfare.
We exist to end the abuse of animals raised for food. this mission is executed by persuading companies and institutions to adopt animal welfare policies through negotiation and pressure campaigns, and then holding them accountable to their…
Humane World for Animals, Inc., formerly known as the Humane Society of the United States (The Organization), seeks to tackle the root causes of animal cruelty and suffering. CONTINUED ON SCHEDULE O
Ci works to spotlight and secure the critical benefits that nature provides to humanity.
The american wild horse campaign is the nation's leading conservation organization dedicated to preserving the freedom and habitat of wild horses and burros. through its initiatives in advocacy, conservation, land preservation, and legal…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Humane Society of Chittenden County and the most unlike its peers is The Joel Foundation. 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 38 years old; the field is 21. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 16% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 2% lost their exemption, against 8% 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.
39 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. 39 of the 62 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 THE VERMONT COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds WAKE ROBIN CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds Illinois Institute of Technology ↗
- Who funds PEOPLE FOR THE ETHICAL TREATMENT OF ANIMALS INC ↗
- Who funds Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Inc ↗
- Who funds LONG BEACH PUBLIC LIBRARY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds VERMONT FOODBANK ↗
- Who funds United States Association for UNHCR ↗
- Who funds HABITAT FOR HUMANITY INC ↗
- Who funds SHELBURNE FARMS ↗
- Who funds The Joel Foundation ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds GENTLE GIANTS ↗
- Who funds THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS ↗
- Who funds NORTH COUNTRY ANIMAL LEAGUE INC ↗
- Who funds THE SHRINERS' HOSPITAL FOR CHILDREN ↗
- Who funds HUMANE SOCIETY OF CHITTENDEN COUNTY ↗
- Who funds SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds SHELBURNE MUSEUM INC ↗
- Who funds THE SHORELINE SOUP KITCHENS & PANTRIES INC ↗
- Who funds ROOM TO READ ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds HOPEWORKS ↗
- Who funds Given Tufts Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds Physicians Committee for Responsible Med ↗
- Who funds Vermont Public Radio ↗
- Who funds WORLD WILDLIFE FUND INC ↗
- Who funds TURNING POINTE DONKEY RESCUE 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: The Pfizer Foundation Inc · The Vermont Community Foundation · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · Network for Good · Paypal Charitable Giving Fund · American Endowment Foundation · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · American Online Giving Foundation 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 Hollis 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.
- Vermont Foodbank — 13% of income from government
- Shelburne Museum Inc — 9% of income from government
- Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Inc — 7% of income from government
- The Shriners' Hospital for Children — 6% of income from government
- Shelburne Farms — 3% of income from government
- Wake Robin Corporation — 0% of income from government
- The Vermont Community Foundation — 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.