· Private foundation
The Jane Henson 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 $10k17 grants · $73k
- $10k–50k8 grants · $115k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $85k
- $250k+1 grant · $500k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| AMERICAN MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE | $500,000 |
| CENTER FOR PUPPETRY ARTS | $85,000 |
| EUGENE O'NEILL THEATER CENTER | $25,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT FOUNDATION INC | $20,000 |
| THE PUPPETEERS OF AMERICA INC | $15,000 |
| UNIMA-USA INC | $15,000 |
| BLAIR THOMAS & COMPANY | $10,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND COLLEGE PARK FOUNDATION INC | $10,000 |
| NATIONAL MUSEUM OF AMERICAN HISTORY | $10,000 |
| JIM HENSON LEGACY | $10,000 |
| ACADEMY FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| NORTHWESTERN HIGH SCHOOL | $5,000 |
| MUSEUM OF POP CULTURE (MOPOP) | $5,000 |
| THE STRONG NATIONAL MUSEUM OF PLAY | $5,000 |
| COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF WASHINGTON COUNTY INC | $5,000 |
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 (FY24–25, $9k) land where the poverty rate runs at 7%, 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 +25% since the first grant, against +22% for the ones you funded once.
62 repeat relationships — 26 still active in FY2025, 36 since wound down.
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
- AMAMERICAN MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE9× · 2017–2025 · $1.4M · revenue +107%
- CFCENTER FOR PUPPETRY ARTSINC9× · 2017–2025 · $515k · revenue +9%
- TJTHE JIM HENSON FOUNDATION8× · 2017–2024 · $285k · revenue +19%
Funded once
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTIONone grant, 2019 · $20k · revenue +22%- HFHOME FOR CONTEMPORARY THEATER & ARTone grant, 2019 · $13k
- MAMISSISSIPPI ARTS & ENTERTAINMENTone grant, 2018 · $10k
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 museum's mission statement is: "to discover, interpret, and disseminate - through scientific research and education - knowledge about human cultures, the natural world, and the universe."
A center for exhibitions, information, and documentation about living artists since 1977, which continues to be a place of experimentation and a hub of new art and new ideas.
The Museum of Modern Art is a private, non-profit institution chartered by the State of New York Department of Education in 1929 to foster public awareness of modern and contemporary art. (Continued in Schedule O)
The Morgan Library & Museum celebrates and shares the history and process of human creativity from antiquity to the present day through the preservation, study, and interpretation of a dynamic and growing collection.
The mission of the jewish museum is to collect, preserve, exhibit and interpret art and jewish culture. see schedule o for more information.
The philadelphia museum of art - in partnership with the city, the region, and art museums around the globe - seeks to preserve, enhance, interpret, and extend the reach of its great collection in particular, and the visual arts in…
The mission of the brooklyn institute of arts and sciences, d/b/a brooklyn museum (the "museum") is to bring people together through art and experiences that inspire celebration, compassion, courage, and the will to act. (see schedule o).
The phillips collection is the oldest museum of modern and contemporary art in the u.s. in addition to presentation of works from the permanent collection and special exhibitions, the museum maintains active educational, academic,…
See schedule osfmoma believes the art of our time is vital and shares it with passion and purpose, and that art and the creative process can open minds and help build a better world. for that reason, we assemble unparalleled collections,…
The academy museum of motion pictures advances the understanding, celebration, and preservation of cinema through inclusive and accessible exhibitions, screenings, programs, initiatives, and collections. welcoming visitors from los angeles…
The museum of the city of new york fosters understanding of the distinctive nature of urban life in the world's most influential metropolis. it engages visitors by celebrating, documenting, and interpreting the city's past, present, and…
Munson-williams-proctor arts institute (mwpai) is a fine arts center dedicated to serving diverse audiences by advancing the appreciation, understanding, and enjoyment of the arts. the art institute aims to promote interest and…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Greenwich Historical Society Inc and the most unlike its peers is The Jim Henson Legacy 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 43 years old; the field is 18. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 19% startups (under 5 years old) — 1% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 10% 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.
73 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. 73 of the 114 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 AMERICAN MUSEUM OF THE MOVING IMAGE ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR PUPPETRY ARTSINC ↗
- Who funds THE JIM HENSON FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds EUGENE O'NEILL MEMORIAL THEATER CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds The Puppeteers of America Inc ↗
- Who funds THE JIM HENSON LEGACY INC ↗
- Who funds THE UNIVERSITY OF CONNECTICUT FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds UNIMA USA INC ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND COLLEGE PARK FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds SESAME WORKSHOP ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF WASHINGTON COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds MARGARET WOODBURY STRONG MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds THE MEAD SCHOOL FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INC ↗
- Who funds ARTSCONNECTION INC ↗
- Who funds ACADEMY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds PUPPET SHOWPLACE INC ↗
- Who funds Open Eye Theatre ↗
- Who funds AUTOMATA ARTS ↗
- Who funds Great Arizona Puppet Theater Inc ↗
- Who funds WNET ↗
- Who funds BOB BAKER MARIONETTE THEATER ↗
- Who funds SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION ↗
- Who funds THE NATIONAL MUSEUM OF WOMEN IN THE ARTS ↗
- Who funds MUSEUM OF WISCONSIN ART INC ↗
- Who funds Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival ↗
- Who funds PUPPETRY IN PRACTICE INC ↗
- Who funds BLACK CHERRY INC ↗
- Who funds THE NEW 42ND STREET 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 Jim Henson Foundation · New England Foundation for the Arts Incorporated · The Marc Dunworth Foundation for the Performing Arts · The Ford Foundation · Jerome Foundation Inc · The Howard Gilman Foundation Inc · Ibm International Foundation · The Shubert Foundation Inc · California Community Foundation · National Philanthropic Trust · Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management 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 Jane Henson 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 or a single department — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Cornwall Conservation Trust Inc — 30% of income from government
- Maryland Historical Society Inc — 9% of income from government
- Puppet Showplace Inc — 4% of income from government
- Eugene O'neill Memorial Theater Center Inc — 1% 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 Jane Henson Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Jane Henson 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.