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Foundation Dossiers

Connecticut · Private foundation

The Mustard Seed Foundation

Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.

$43k
Granted FY2022
8
Itemized grants FY2022
8
Organizations funded FY2022
38%
First-time grantees FY2022
Read the full brief
Itemized, FY2022
$29k
The rest is grants the schedule does not break out
Median grant, FY2022
$2,000
Largest grant, FY2022
$10,000
Organizations funded a year
8 to 13
FY2020 to FY2022
States reached, FY2022
1
Total assets, FY2022
$741k
Applications
Takes unsolicited applications
Per its most recent filing; check its own site

How open it is to new grantees

In FY2022, 38% of the organizations The Mustard Seed Foundation funded were first-time grantees, receiving 14% of its grant dollars.

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2022, 86% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $4k went to new ones.

50%100%’21’22
RenewedFirst-time
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.
The numbers by year
Fiscal yearOrganizations fundedTo those organizationsFirst-time grantees
FY20228$29k38%
FY202111$40k45%
FY202013$56kn/a
84% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2020 to 2024.

Education$68kRecreation & Sports$17kPhilanthropy$13kCrime & Legal$12kYouth Development$7kArts & Culture$3kHousing & Shelter$2kMembership Benefit$2kOther$0

Top grantees

Largest recipients by total granted, FY2020 to FY2022, and the share of each one’s budget the grants supplied at peak.

GranteeTotal grantedYearsShare of their budget
St Joseph High School$16,4252n/a
The Center for Family Justice Inc$12,40030%
Iona University$10,00010%
Connecticut Yankee Council Inc Boy Scouts of America$5,50020%
Cardinal Hayes High School$5,0001n/a
Trumbull Housing Corp.$1,5001n/a
American Heart Association Inc$50010%

Plus 14 recipients with no EIN on record ($74k), not named here.

Compare The Mustard Seed Foundation with peer funders

About The Mustard Seed Foundation

How much does The Mustard Seed Foundation give?
The Mustard Seed Foundation reported 8 itemized grants totaling $29,050, out of $43,100 in total grant expense reported on the return in its FY2022 IRS filing. It funded between 8 and 13 organizations a year over FY2020 to FY2022.
What does The Mustard Seed Foundation fund?
By grant dollars over FY2020 to FY2022, its largest causes are Education (23%), Recreation & Sports (6%), Philanthropy (4%).
Who are The Mustard Seed Foundation's largest grantees?
By total granted over FY2020 to FY2022: St Joseph High School ($16k), The Center for Family Justice Inc ($12k), Iona University ($10k).
Does The Mustard Seed Foundation fund new organizations?
In FY2022, 38% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.
Does The Mustard Seed Foundation accept unsolicited applications?
Its most recent filing reports that it accepts unsolicited grant applications.
Where is The Mustard Seed Foundation based?
The Mustard Seed Foundation is based in CT.

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 21 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 2022, released 2022. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Possibly out of date. A more recent filing (FY2024) is on record and reports $51k of grant expense with no grantee named in the published copy. A private foundation itemizes every grant it makes, so a return carrying none has filed its list as an attachment that the public copy does not include. The figures above are therefore from FY2022, the most recent year this funder’s grantee list reached the public record.

Source object · view filing

Play a game based on Mustard Seed’s filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions
grants reported with no recipient in the public record
The regranting layer
51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer
The DAF merry-go-round
$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds
The endowment market
who holds foundation money, and what just moved
The camps
funders cluster by geography, not ideology
By state
where grant money is based, and what stays home