· Private foundation
The Morningstar 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.
Read this first · the figures below need context
91% of The Morningstar Family Foundation’s FY2025 grant dollars went to Combined Jewish Philanthropies Of Greater Boston Inc, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2025 names 1 organization directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2021, the last year The Morningstar Family Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 7 organizations, $303k. It is dated, not current.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What it funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.
Where the money goes
Grants by size, and the largest recipients.
By grant size · FY2021
- Under $10k3 grants · $8k
- $10k–50k7 grants · $105k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $190k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ATLANTIC COUNCIL | $100,000 |
| STANFORD LAW SCHOOL | $90,000 |
| WELLESLEY CENTERS FOR WOMEN | $30,000 |
| LUNGEVITY FOUNDATION | $15,000 |
| BRIGHAM AND WOMEN'S HOSPITAL | $15,000 |
| OUR SISTERS SCHOOL | $15,000 |
| ANTI DEFAMATION LEAGUE | $10,000 |
| FREEDOM HOUSE | $10,000 |
| NEW BEDFORD WHALING MUSEUM | $10,000 |
| BOSTON MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS | $3,000 |
| WELLESLEY COLLEGE | $2,500 |
| MGH DIABETES RESEARCH FUND | $2,500 |
Does the money reach high-need areas?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.
Its human-services grants (FY17–18, $10k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
How this is measured
How this is measured
Who it funds again
Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.
Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +63% since the first grant, against +32% for those funded once.
12 repeat relationships: 10 still active in FY2021, 2 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2021 (too recent to call). Read against FY2021, the last year this funder named its own grantees directly; its giving has since run through a sponsor, which reports no donor behind each grant.
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, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
How this is measured
Backed again, and grew
- ACATLANTIC COUNCIL OF THE UNITED STATES INC6× · 2019–2024 · $600k · revenue +3%
- WCWellesley College6× · 2017–2022 · $163k · revenue +63%
Old Dartmouth Historical Society5× · 2017–2021 · $50k · revenue +283%
Funded once
- HFHARVARD FACULTY OF ARTS AND SCIENCESone grant, 2018 · $63k
SUFFOLK UNIVERSITYone grant, 2020 · $50k · revenue +9%- ACAMERICAN COUNCILSone grant, 2017 · $25k
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.
Closest unfunded matches
The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
The university's goal in the coming decade is to advance learning through the integration of teaching, research and service to others. the core of this goal is to prepare graduates to engage with the world and lead lives of meaning. to do…
The mission of mit is to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century.
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…
Education and Research
As a diverse community of learners, we cultivate integrity, curiosity, connection and resilience.
Rooted in the liberal arts & sciences & lutheran expression of the christian faith, & is committed to offering a challenging education that develops qualities of mind, spirit, & body necessary for a rewarding life of leadership & service…
Organization's mission: boston university is an international, comprehensive, private research university, committed to educating students to be reflective, resourceful individuals ready to live, adapt, and lead in an interconnected world.…
The primary mission of furman as a liberal arts institution is to provide a distinctive education in fine arts, humanities, social sciences, mathematics and the sciences, as well as selected professional disciplines.
Research, education and general - princeton university is a private not-for-profit, non-sectarian institution of higher learning with approximately 5,700 undergraduate and 3,300 graduate students. 2,500 students graduated in the 2024-2025…
Wpi transforms lives, turns knowledge into action to confront global challenges, and revolutionizes stem through distinctive and inclusive education, projects and research. (http://www.wpi.edu/about/mission.html)
Northeast college of health sciences (the college) is committed to academic excellence, leadership, and professional best practices in the health sciences.
How this is measured
13 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. 13 of the 20 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.
Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee
Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing
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 Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston Inc ↗
- Who funds ATLANTIC COUNCIL OF THE UNITED STATES INC ↗
- Who funds THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds Wellesley College ↗
- Who funds OUR SISTERS SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds President and Fellows of Harvard College ↗
- Who funds Old Dartmouth Historical Society ↗
- Who funds SUFFOLK UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds LUNGEVITY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds FREEDOM HOUSE ↗
- Who funds LUNG CANCER RESEARCH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds LOWELL SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds STORE TO DOOR ↗
How much its grantees rely on government
Each dot is one organization The Morningstar Family Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Morningstar Family Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.
- President and Fellows of Harvard College: 7% of income from government
- Old Dartmouth Historical Society: 2% of income from government
- Wellesley College: 1% of income from government
- Suffolk University: 1% of income from government
- Our Sisters School: 0% of income from government
How this is measured
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to The Morningstar Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Morningstar 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.
Play a game based on Morningstar Family’s filings →