· Private foundation
The Mark W Blackman & Deborah Blackman Family 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 clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2019–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k2 grants · $10k
- $10k–50k13 grants · $195k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $50k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| BRENNAN CENTER FOR JUSTICE | $50,000 |
| ACLU FOUNDATION OF CONNECTICUT | $35,000 |
| PERSON TO PERSON | $25,000 |
| NATURE CONSERVANCY | $25,000 |
| EQUAL JUSTICE INITIATIVE | $12,500 |
| DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERSUSA | $12,500 |
| PLANNED PARENTHOOD | $12,500 |
| NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE FUND | $12,500 |
| PRISON POLICY INITIATIVE | $10,000 |
| CONNECTICUT FOODSHARE | $10,000 |
| NORWALK COMMUNITY COLLEGE FOUNDATIO | $10,000 |
| SAVE THE SOUND | $10,000 |
| UNION OF CONCERNED SCIENTISTS | $10,000 |
| WILDERNESS SOCIETY | $10,000 |
| SUSTAINABLE MARKETS FOUNDATION | $5,250 |
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 (FY19–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 29% of your 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.
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 +17% since the first grant, against +10% for the ones you funded once.
17 repeat relationships — 13 still active in FY2025, 4 since wound down; 2 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, 96% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $10k 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
- ACAMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION FOUNDATION OF CONNECTICUT INC7× · 2019–2025 · $185k · revenue +95%
- PTPERSON TO PERSON INC6× · 2020–2025 · $145k · revenue +19%
MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC3× · 2023–2025 · $35k · revenue +1%
Funded once
- ACAMERICARES CLINICone grant, 2022 · $13k
- I-INSPIRCA -(ST LUKES LIFE WORKS)one grant, 2021 · $13k
- IIINSPIRICA INCone grant, 2023 · $5k · revenue +10%
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.
Protect Connecticuts farmland for agricultural use by purchasing and accepting donations of agricultural conservation easements
The organization's mission is to conserve and promote new england's native plants to ensure healthy, biologically diverse landscapes.
The University of New Haven is a student-centered comprehensive university with an emphasis on excellence in liberal arts and professional education. Our mission is to prepare our students to lead purposeful and fulfilling lives in a…
To establish and promote programs to protect the global climate, forests, wildlife and the natural environment, through research, advocacy, and investigation.
Council for court excellence's (cce's) mission is to bring people together to conduct research, educate, and advocate to make d.c.'s unique legal systems more just, equitable, and accountable to the community.
To advance economic and social liberties and a free enterprise society through strategic litigation, training, communication, activism and research. in addition, the center will train law students, lawyers and policy activists in the…
Eastern national promotes the public's understanding and support of america's national parks and other public trust partners by providing quality educational experiences, products and services.
The nantucket conservation foundation owns, protects, and stewards over 9,000 acres of land and coastal shoreline, conserves nantucket's rare and significant natural resources, and engages in impactful ecological research to inform…
Statewide Legal Services of Connecticut Inc. SLS empowers low-income people in Connecticut to obtain justice by providing tools to address their civil legal needs. SLS provides its clients with high volume brief or in-depth legal advice…
The union of concerned scientists puts rigorous, independent science into action, developing solutions and advocating for a healthy, safe, and just future.
See schedule onylcv is a non-partisan policy making and political action organization that works to make environmental protection a top priority with elected officials, decision-makers and the voters by evaluating incumbent performance and…
To drive transformational adaptation to protect communities across the country from higher seas, stronger storms, and more frequent flooding.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Connecticut Foodshare Inc and the most unlike its peers is Prison Policy Initiative. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
19 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. 19 of the 24 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 CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION FOUNDATION OF CONNECTICUT INC ↗
- Who funds PERSON TO PERSON INC ↗
- Who funds WILLIAM J BRENNAN CENTER FOR JUSTICE INC ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds NORWALK COMMUNITY COLLEGE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds EQUAL JUSTICE INITIATIVE ↗
- Who funds CONNECTICUT FOODSHARE INC ↗
- Who funds SAVE THE SOUND ↗
- Who funds Prison Policy Initiative ↗
- Who funds NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE & EDUC FUND INC ↗
- Who funds THE WILDERNESS SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds THE FOOD BANK OF LOWER FAIRFIELD COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds SHATTERPROOF A NONPROFIT CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds KIDS IN CRISIS INC ↗
- Who funds CONNECTICUT HUMANE SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds SUSTAINABLE MARKETS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds INSPIRICA INC ↗
- Who funds DARIEN NATURE 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: National Philanthropic Trust · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile Foundation
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 Mark W Blackman & Deborah Blackman Family 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.
- Kids in Crisis Inc — 49% of income from government
- Save the Sound — 37% of income from government
- Inspirica Inc — 30% of income from government
- Connecticut Foodshare Inc — 5% of income from government
- Person to Person Inc — 5% of income from government
- Shatterproof a Nonprofit Corporation — 2% of income from government
- Darien Nature Center 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to The Mark W Blackman & Deborah Blackman Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Mark W Blackman & Deborah Blackman Family 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.