· Private foundation
The Mellen Foundation Inc
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 $10k11 grants · $20k
- $50k–250k3 grants · $150k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| BENJAMIN EYE INSTITUTE | $50,000 |
| UCLA JULES STEIN INSTITUTE | $50,000 |
| SUMMIT LAND CONSERVANCY | $50,000 |
| WEBER STATE UNIVERSITY | $3,000 |
| DELANCY ST FOUNDATION | $3,000 |
| GRACE INSTITUTE | $2,500 |
| WARRIOR STORY FIELD | $2,500 |
| HOME FOR THE BRAVE | $1,500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $1,500 |
| FRIENDS OF THE LIBRARY MONROE CT | $1,500 |
| MONROE FOOD PANTRY | $1,250 |
| Individual grant recipient | $1,000 |
| JEWISH FAMILY SERVICES | $1,000 |
| HABITAT FOR HUMANITY OF COASTAL FAIRFIELD COUNTY | $750 |
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 (FY17–23, $191k) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 88% 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.
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.
52 repeat relationships — 10 still active in FY2024, 42 since wound down; 4 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, 40% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $102k 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
- TITHE INNOCENCE PROJECT INC6× · 2017–2023 · $150k · revenue +135%
- SLSummit Land Conservancy7× · 2017–2024 · $69k · revenue +138%
- ACAMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF UTAH5× · 2017–2021 · $20k · revenue +206%
Funded once
- MRMS RESEARCH CENTER OF NYone grant, 2017 · $50k
- IHINTERMOUNTAIN HEALTHCARE FUNDone grant, 2020 · $10k
- CCCLOTHING CHILDREN NEED INCone grant, 2021 · $4k
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.
Utah foundation's mission is to produce objective, thorough and well- reasoned research and analysis that promotes the effective use of public resources, a thriving economy, a well-prepared workforce and a high quality of life for utahns.…
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 strenghten people's ability to guarantee their individual and collective right to a healthy environment, via the development, implementation, and effective enforcement of national and international law.
Assist banner health complete its mission to make health care easier so life can be better by providing integrated & coordinated care & population health management.
The organization's mission is to end domestic violence in utah through advocacy, education, collaboration, and leadership. the organization is the nationally recognized domestic violence coalition for the state of utah.
The organization's mission is to help survivors of torture living in utah to heal from their physical and psychological injuries and rebuild their lives.
The organization's mission is to preserve and promote individual civil rights and civil liberties as guaranteed by the united states and utah constitutions and the civil rights laws within the state of utah.
In partnership with indigenous peoples to: campaign, lobby & protest for: indigenous rights; investigate, expose and confront atrocities committed by governments and big business; amplify indigenous voices around the world
The connecticut humane society is the leading resource in the state for companion animal welfare, enriching the lives of families and communities through adoption services, medical care, education, and prevention of cruelty.
Oad strives to ensure that poor people convicted of felonies receive full and equal access to justice by providing exceptional appellate representation, improving the quality of indigent defense representation through education & training,…
The organization's mission is to keep the past alive, not only for preservation, but to inspire and provoke a more creative present and sustainable future.
Provide clinical instruction to and supervision of medical school students, interns and residents and, incident thereto, rendering professional services.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Bridgeport Rescue Mission Inc and the most unlike its peers is Covenant House California. 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 34 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) — 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 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.
28 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. 28 of the 67 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 THE INNOCENCE PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds Summit Land Conservancy ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF UTAH ↗
- Who funds WARRIOR STORYFIELD ↗
- Who funds GRACE INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds PARAGON SERVICE DOGS ↗
- Who funds BRIDGEPORT RESCUE MISSION INC ↗
- Who funds People's Health Clicnic ↗
- Who funds HEALTHY ENVIRONMENT ALLIANCE OF UTAH ↗
- Who funds Southern Center for Human Rights ↗
- Who funds Adopt-A-Native Elder ↗
- Who funds 4 PAWS FOR ABILITY INC ↗
- Who funds THE OPEN DOOR SHELTER INC ↗
- Who funds COVENANT HOUSE CALIFORNIA ↗
- Who funds AFTER THE FINISH LINE ↗
- Who funds MONROE VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT # 1 INC ↗
- Who funds New York School for the Deaf ↗
- Who funds St Vincent's Medical Center ↗
- Who funds ULYSSES S GRANT FOUNDATION ↗
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 Pfizer Foundation Inc · American Endowment Foundation · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Paypal Charitable Giving Fund · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · 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 Mellen 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.
- Save the Sound — 37% of income from government
- The Open Door Shelter Inc — 14% 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 Mellen Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to The Mellen 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.