· Public charity
The Leary Firefighters Foundation
The foundation's mission is to provide funding and resources for fire departments to obtain the highest level of equipment, technology and training.
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 $10k20 grants · $152k
- $10k–50k39 grants · $751k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MOSCOW FIRE DEPARTMENT | $28,931 |
| NORTH BELLE VERNON VFD | $28,000 |
| VERONA FIRE DEPARTMENT | $26,660 |
| MID-COUNTY FIRE PROTECTION DISTRICT | $26,071 |
| LT JOSEPH DIBERNARDO FOUNDATION | $25,000 |
| RINGWOOD BOROUGH VOLUNTEER FIRE CO NO 1 | $25,000 |
| FDNY FOUNDATION | $25,000 |
| WEST SUBURBAN FIRE PROTECTION DIST | $24,992 |
| WOOLWICH FIRE DEPARTMENT | $24,637 |
| DUNCAN FIRE DEPARTMENT | $24,500 |
| MCINTOSH COUNTY VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT | $23,925 |
| WINDHAM FIRE DEPARTMENT | $23,554 |
| CITY OF CORINTH FIRE DEPARTMENT | $23,545 |
| MONTCLAIR FIRE DEPARTMENT | $22,990 |
| FREEPORT VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT | $21,326 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 73% of your 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.
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 +320% since the first grant, against +26% for the ones you funded once.
8 repeat relationships — 4 still active in FY2024, 4 since wound down; 55 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, 8% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $834k 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
- WPWORCESTER PUBLIC LIBRARY5× · 2017–2022 · $355k
- FFFDNY FOUNDATION INC8× · 2017–2024 · $280k · revenue +24%
- LJLIEUTENANT JOSEPH P DIBERNARDO MEMORIAL FOUNDATION INC8× · 2017–2024 · $200k · revenue +320% · 26% of their budget
Funded once
- GRGLENBURN RURAL FIRE PROTECTION DISTRICTone grant, 2021 · $50k
- LPLUNA PIER (MICHIGAN) VFDone grant, 2021 · $48k
- DPDETROIT PUBLIC SAFETY FOUNDATIONgraduatedone grant, 2018 · $46k · revenue +163%
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.
Mission for burnsville vfd burnsville wv the burnsville vfd provides fire protection fire safety and emergency rescue services to the citizens in its designated area. bvfd serves in a safe efficient manner serving all stakeholders.
Provide Fire Prevention & Protection Services
Fire and ems protection
Provide fire protection for over 100 members
The organization provides emergency, medical, and fire fighting services to the citizens in and around the Burkeville, Virginia area.
Volunteer fire dept
To protect the lives and property of the citizens and visitors of Hampden-Sydney and surrounding counties as requested.
Provide fire and rescue services to the citizens of our fire district
Provide fire fighting services
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Falls Township Fire Co No 1 and the most unlike its peers is Sequoia Parks Conservancy. 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 22 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 13% of your grantees by number, and just 8% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.4% 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.
65 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. 65 of the 267 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
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
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 FDNY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds LIEUTENANT JOSEPH P DIBERNARDO MEMORIAL FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds DETROIT PUBLIC SAFETY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds North Belle Volunteer Volunteer Fire Department ↗
- Who funds COVE CREEK-PEARSON VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPT ↗
- Who funds Ralston Volunteer Fire Department Rescue Squad ↗
- Who funds RINGWOOD BOROUGH VOLUNTEER FIRE CO ↗
- Who funds ARBUTUS VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT OF BALTIMORE COUNTY 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: Firehouse Subs Public Safety Foundation Inc · New Jersey Health Officers Association · Center for Technology and Civic Life · Fm Foundation · Sustainable Jersey · National Recreation and Park Association · National Arbor Day Foundation · Gary Sinise Foundation · AARP · Community Initiatives · California Fire Foundation · Project Lead the Way 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 Leary Firefighters 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.
- West Fairlee Volunteer Fire Department Inc — 100% of income from government
- Hampstead Volunteer Fire and Hose Company NO1 — 68% of income from government
- Pikesville Volunteer Fire Co Inc — 32% of income from government
- Barton Hose Company No 1 Inc — 18% of income from government
- Hyattsville Volunteer Fire Dept Inc — 4% 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 Leary Firefighters Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Leary Firefighters 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.