· Private foundation
The John R Hershey and Anna L Hershey Family Foundation Inc
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
By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).
A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 48% of THE JOHN R HERSHEY AND ANNA L HERSHEY FAMILY FOUNDATION INC’s grantee dollars fall outside its nine largest cause areas, whether because the recipient carries no IRS cause code or because its cause sits in the long tail. A chart would be mostly one residual band and misrepresent the portfolio.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k25 grants · $123k
- $10k–50k11 grants · $138k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $66k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| WASHINGTON COUNTY MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS | $65,500 |
| SAN MAR FAMILY & COMMUNITY | $25,000 |
| BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF WASHINGTON COUNTY | $20,000 |
| EASTER SEALS | $12,500 |
| YMCA | $10,000 |
| CASA INC | $10,000 |
| SAINT JAMES SCHOOL | $10,000 |
| MIDDLETOWN VALLEY FOOD BANK | $10,000 |
| WASHINGTON COUNTY COMMISSION ON THE AGING | $10,000 |
| UNITED WAY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY | $10,000 |
| SECOND CHANCE GARAGE INC | $10,000 |
| BUTTONWOOD NATURE CENTER | $10,000 |
| HUMANE SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON CO | $7,500 |
| WASHINGTON COUNTY COUNCIL OF CHURCHES | $7,500 |
| CHILDREN IN NEED INC | $7,500 |
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 (FY17–25, $201k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 6%. 79% of those 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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 100% of The John R Hershey and Anna L Hershey Family Foundation Inc’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another. Read by recipient address, 91% of the giving stays in MD; read by stated purpose it is 0% — less of the work is directed home than the recipients' locations suggest.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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.
53 repeat relationships — 29 still active in FY2025, 24 since wound down; 8 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (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 FY2025, 84% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $53k 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
- WCWASHINGTON COUNTY MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS9× · 2017–2025 · $127k · revenue +25%
- TMTHE MARYLAND THEATRE ASSOCIATION9× · 2017–2025 · $114k · revenue +27%
- MHMERITUS HEALTH FOUNDATION INC4× · 2018–2024 · $103k · revenue +468%
Funded once
- SCSTAR COMMUNITY INCone grant, 2024 · $11k · revenue -5%
- HAHAGERSTOWN AVIATION MUSEUM INCone grant, 2022 · $10k · revenue -81%
- MSMARYLAND SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA INCgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $10k · revenue +35%
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 organization is charged with fostering an interest in the history of washington county, maryland and the vicinity.
Provide leadership development programs to enhance economic development and the quality of life in washington county, maryland.
Washington college challenges and inspires emerging citizen leaders to discover lives of purpose and passion.core valueswe share these values of our founding patron, george washington: integrity, determination, curiosity, civility,…
To represent the business community of howard county, maryland
Provide behavioral guidance and promote health, social, educational and vocational development of boys and girls six to eighteen years of age.
Promotes the arts and related activities at local, state and national levels
To promote and advance the interest of the washington county business community.
To work together with our interdisciplinary team to provide quality, coordinated, comprehensive patient and family-centered care that addresses the physical, spiritual, emotional and practical needs of our patients. we encourage our…
Create a more accessible, sustainable, prosperous and livable national capital region by being a discussion forum, expert resource, issue advocate, and catalyst for action.
The washington conservatory of music provides exceptional musical learning & listening experiences for students and the community. its vision is a community inspired and informed by the experience of music.
The mission of washington heritage museums is to preserve, promote and maintain its five 18th century properties in fredericksburg, virginia and develop dynamic educational resources and programs to engage and inspire the intrest of…
To create and support one-to-one mentoring relationships that ignite the power and promise of youth.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Washington County Chamber of Commerce Inc and the most unlike its peers is Foxcroft School. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 43 years old; the field is 21. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 19% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% 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.
37 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. 37 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 WASHINGTON COUNTY MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS ↗
- Who funds THE MARYLAND THEATRE ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds MERITUS HEALTH FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds GIRLS INCORPORATED OF WASHINGTON COUNTY ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN IN NEED INC ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF WASHINGTON COUNTY ↗
- Who funds HUMANE SOCIETY OF WASHINGTON COUNTY INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds SECOND CHANCES GARAGE INC ↗
- Who funds BROOKES HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds SAINT JAMES SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FREE CLINIC INC ↗
- Who funds WASHINGTON COUNTY COMMISSION ON AGING INC/AREA AGENCY ON AGING ↗
- Who funds CEDAR CREST COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds Potomac Playmakers Inc ↗
- Who funds ARC OF WASHINGTON COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds WASHINGTON COUNTY COMMUNITY ACTION COUNCIL INC ↗
- Who funds BUTTONWOOD NATURE CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds WOMEN OF VALOR MINISTRIES INC ↗
- Who funds MASON-DIXON COUNCIL INC BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA ↗
- Who funds TOTEM POLE PLAYHOUSE ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN'S VILLAGE OF WASHINGTON COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds IT'S A BLESSING TO BE A BLESSING ↗
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 Community Foundation of Washington County Maryland Inc · Nora Roberts Foundation · Alice V & David W Fletcher Foundation Inc · Richard N Funkhouser Foundationinc · The Hamilton Family Foundation Inc · Kershner Sisters Foundation · Michael G Callas Charitable Trust · The Jone L Bowman Foundation Inc · Albert E & Naomi B Sinnisen Foundation · Nisource Charitable Foundation · Delaplaine Foundation Inc · Holzapfel Family Charitable Foundation C/O James Holzapfel
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 R Hershey and Anna L Hershey Family 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.
- Meritus Health Foundation Inc — 94% of income from government
- Potomac Playmakers Inc — 31% of income from government
- San Mar Children's Home Inc — 29% of income from government
- Washington County Commission On Aging Inc/Area Agency On Aging — 19% of income from government
- Washington County Community Action Council Inc — 7% of income from government
- Maryland Symphony Orchestra Inc — 5% of income from government
- Washington County Museum of Fine Arts — 2% of income from government
- Star Community Inc — 2% 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.
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How do I get to The John R Hershey and Anna L Hershey Family Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to The John R Hershey and Anna L Hershey Family 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.