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The Marion and Herbert Hess Charitable Trust C/O Gregory Pond at a glance

· Private foundation

The Marion and Herbert Hess Charitable Trust C/O Gregory Pond

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.

$223k
Granted FY2024still arriving
7
Grants FY2024still arriving
3
States reached
$96k
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its granteesRead
04Its fieldRead
05Through PlinthRead
01What it funds
01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2024.

Education$761kHealth$420kAnimals$212kPhilanthropy$129kArts & Culture$124kFood & Nutrition$124k
02FY2024 · 7 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2024

  • $10k–50k6 grants · $127k
  • $50k–250k1 grant · $96k
$15,635
Median grant
3
States reached
$4.7M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
SKIDMORE COLLEGE$96,045
THE SEEING EYE INC$37,972
THE SHELTER CONNECTION$26,804
CITY MEALS ON WHEELS$15,635
FEDERATION OF JEWISH PHILANTHROPIES$15,635
HELEN KELLER NATIONAL CENTER$15,635
AMERICAN FRIENDS OF DURRELL$15,635
02The need
03

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Its human-services grants (FY17–24, $420k) land where the poverty rate runs at 5%, against an area that typically sits at 6%. 0% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.

area typical 6%HELEN KELLER NATIONAL CENTER: $19k → 6%THE SEEING EYE INC: $45k → 4%HELEN KELLER NATIONAL CENTER: $18k → 6%THE SEEING EYE INC: $43k → 4%HELEN KELLER NATIONAL CENTER: $18k → 6%THE SEEING EYE INC: $43k → 4%HELEN KELLER NATIONAL CENTER: $17k → 6%THE SEEING EYE INC: $41k → 4%HELEN KELLER NATIONAL CENTER: $16k → 6%THE SEEING EYE INC: $39k → 4%HELEN KELLER NATIONAL CENTER: $16k → 6%THE SEEING EYE INC: $39k → 4%HELEN KELLER NATIONAL CENTER: $16k → 6%THE SEEING EYE INC: $38k → 4%THE SEEING EYE INC: $12k → 4%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount
How this is measured
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.
How this is measured
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.
03Its grantees
repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

100%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$1.8M · 7 repeat orgs$0 to everyone else

7 repeat relationships: 7 still active in FY2024, 0 since wound down.

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

7
0

Total granted

$1.8M
$0

Still filing today

71%
0%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.

50%100%’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24
RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24
Human ServicesEducationAnimalsFood & NutritionOther
How this is measured
First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

  • SC
    SKIDMORE COLLEGE
    8× · 2017–2024 · $761k · revenue +34%
  • TS
    THE SEEING EYE INC
    8× · 2017–2024 · $301k · revenue +52%
  • TS
    THE SHELTER CONNECTION INC
    8× · 2017–2024 · $212k · revenue +17% · 28% of their budget

Funded once

    How this is measured

    Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

    04Its field
    04the grantee network

    5 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

    Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

    How this is measured

    Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 5 of the 7 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

    Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

    1
    Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
    0
    Early backer (in before they grew)
    5/5
    Grantees still filing
    5/5
    Grew since first funded

    Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

    SKIDMORE COLLEGE: $761,051 · EducationSKIDMORE COLLEGETHE SEEING EYE INC: $300,882 · Human ServicesTHE SEEING EYE INCHelen Keller Services: $119,087 · Human ServicesHelen Keller ServicesFEDERATION OF JEWISH PHILANTHROPIES: $128,695 · OtherFEDERATION OF JE…AMERICAN FRIENDS OF DURRELL: $123,891 · OtherAMERICAN FRIENDS…THE SHELTER CONNECTION INC: $212,389 · AnimalsTHE SHELTER C…CITYMEALS-ON-WHEELS: $123,891 · Food & Nutrition
    Education$761,051Human Services$419,969Other$252,586Animals$212,389Food & Nutrition$123,891

    Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

    25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetSKIDMORE COLLEGE: $761,051 over 8y, 0.1% of budgetTHE SEEING EYE INC: $300,882 over 8y, 0.2% of budgetTHE SHELTER CONNECTION INC: $212,389 over 8y, 28% of budgetCITYMEALS-ON-WHEELS: $123,891 over 8y, 0.1% of budgetHelen Keller Services: $119,087 over 7y, 0.1% of budget
    Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

    A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

    • Who funds SKIDMORE COLLEGE ↗
    • Who funds THE SEEING EYE INC ↗
    • Who funds THE SHELTER CONNECTION INC ↗
    • Who funds CITYMEALS-ON-WHEELS ↗
    • Who funds Helen Keller Services ↗

    How much its grantees rely on government

    Each dot is one organization The Marion and Herbert Hess Charitable Trust C/O Gregory Pond funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Marion and Herbert Hess Charitable Trust C/O Gregory Pond. Bigger dots raise more.

    2025
    ’20’21’22’23’24’25
    no gov · 00%2%8%17%30%funder's share of their income ↑0%3%5%8%10%share of the org’s income from government →median 0%
    • The Seeing Eye Inc: 0% of income from government
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    1report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–10%
    typical government reliance, FY20–25
    How this is measured
    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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.
    05Through Plinth

    Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

    How do I get to The Marion and Herbert Hess Charitable Trust C/O Gregory Pond?

    Find your warmest path to The Marion and Herbert Hess Charitable Trust C/O Gregory Pond 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.

    On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 7 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

    How this is measured
    Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears.

    Generated from the IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2024, released 2024. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

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    More from the funding graph

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    The endowment market
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