· Private foundation
The John and Gertrude Donovan 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.
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 · FY2024
- Under $10k26 grants · $31k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $23k
Anchored by a single position — about 93% of reported assets are held in Truist.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CIRCLE OF HOPE | $23,121 |
| JEFF'S PLACE | $5,000 |
| FOCUS ON TANZANIAN COMMUNITIES | $3,000 |
| ST BENEDICT'S PREP | $2,500 |
| CAPE COD HOUSING ASSISTANCE CORPORATION | $2,000 |
| GUIDE DOGS OF AMERICA | $2,000 |
| FALMOUTH SERVICE CENTER | $1,500 |
| AMERICAN LEGION | $1,200 |
| DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS | $1,000 |
| ST JUDES RESEARCH HOSPITAL | $1,000 |
| MARA ELEPHANT PROJECT | $1,000 |
| HABITAT FOR HUMANITY | $1,000 |
| PAN MASS CHALLENGE | $1,000 |
| WOMEN TO WOMEN INTERNATIONAL | $1,000 |
| TUFTS COLLEGE | $1,000 |
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 (FY17–24, $26k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 9% 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 +39% since the first grant, against +30% for the ones you funded once.
46 repeat relationships — 24 still active in FY2024, 22 since wound down; 3 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, 95% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $3k 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
- COCIRCLE OF HOPE INC8× · 2017–2024 · $182k · revenue +181%
TRINITY COLLEGE3× · 2021–2023 · $31k · revenue +13%- HEHALE EDUCATION INC7× · 2017–2023 · $25k · revenue +141%
Funded once
- OHOLLIE'S HOUSEone grant, 2017 · $3k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2019 · $2k
- TSTHE SATO PROJECTgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $2k · revenue +77%
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.
Wentworth institute of technology is a nationally recognized private coeducational and residential university of higher education with a mission to empower, inspire and innovate through experiential learning with a core purpose of career…
The mission of the women's institute is to promote economic resilience and stable homes by developing and preserving high quality affordable and supportive housing, with an emphasis on under-served populations.
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
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,…
Mhic's mission is to be an innovative private financier of afforable housing and community development throughout new england, providing financing that would not otherwise be available, and extending the impact of that financing to ensure…
As america's first animal shelter, founded in 1869, women's humane society dba women's animal center (wac), assists people in the community, saves the lives of animals, and improves the health of pets through its shelter and adoptions…
The organization's primary exempt purpose is to provide access to and conduct activities in furtherance of higher education.
Wheaton college provides a transformative liberal arts education, combining theory and practice, for intellectually curious students within a collaborative and vibrant extended community and network that values and strives to create an…
Rainforest trust saves endangered wildlife and protects our planet by creating rainforest reserves through partnerships, community engagement, and donor support.
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.
Metro housing boston mobilizes wide-ranging resources to provide innovative and personalized services that lead families and individuals to housing stability, economic security, and an improved quality of life.
Marin humane transforms lives through exceptional animal care, humane education, and advocacy. every day, marin humane inspires compassion and positive relationships between people and animals.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Special Olympics Massachusetts Inc and the most unlike its peers is Westwood Historical Society 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 40 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) — 7% of your grantees by number, and just 2% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 11% 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.
42 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. 42 of the 79 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 CIRCLE OF HOPE INC ↗
- Who funds TRINITY COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds HALE EDUCATION INC ↗
- Who funds Jeff's Place Children's Bereavement Center Inc ↗
- Who funds HABITAT FOR HUMANITY INC ↗
- Who funds FOCUS ON TANZANIAN COMMUNITIES INC ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds FALMOUTH SERVICE CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds The American Legion ↗
- Who funds HOUSING ASSISTANCE CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds Westwood Land Trust Inc ↗
- Who funds BOSTON RESCUE MISSION INC ↗
- Who funds MARA ELEPHANT PROJECT USA INC ↗
- Who funds PAN-MASSACHUSETTS CHALLENGE INC ↗
- Who funds Trustees of Tufts College ↗
- Who funds PINE STREET INN INC ↗
- Who funds CHRISTMAS IN THE CITY INC ↗
- Who funds WESTWOOD COMMUNITY CHEST ↗
- Who funds AFRICAN WILDLIFE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds AMHERST COLLEGE TRUSTEES ↗
- Who funds THE SATO PROJECT ↗
- Who funds MASSACHUSETTS SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS ↗
- Who funds JOSLIN DIABETES CENTER 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: Boston Foundation Inc · Eastern Bank Foundation · Rockland Trust - Blue Hills Charitable Foundation · Rockland Trust Charitable Foundation Inc · The Altamira Foundation · Massachusetts Bankers Association Charitable Foundation Inc · Liberty Mutual Foundation Inc · American Tower Corporation Foundation Inc · Citizens Charitable Foundation · The Bromley Charitable Trust · Arbella Insurance Foundation · Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston 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 John and Gertrude Donovan 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.
- Joslin Diabetes Center Inc — 35% of income from government
- Trustees of Tufts College — 13% of income from government
- Pine Street Inn Inc — 11% of income from government
- Housing Assistance Corporation — 10% of income from government
- Special Olympics Massachusetts Inc — 1% of income from government
- Trinity College — 0% of income from government
- Amherst College Trustees — 0% of income from government
- Rosie's Place Inc — 0% of income from government
- Pan-Massachusetts Challenge 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.