· Private foundation
The Owens 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 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 · FY2025
- $10k–50k2 grants · $35k
- $50k–250k5 grants · $539k
- $250k+1 grant · $1.6M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA | $1,574,500 |
| MARINE BIOLOGICAL LAB | $164,000 |
| WHITEHEAD INSTITUTE FOR BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH | $125,000 |
| NVNA & HOSPICE | $100,000 |
| WELLINGTON MANAGEMENT FOUNDATION | $100,000 |
| SOUTH SHORE HEALTH SYSTEM FOUNDATION | $50,000 |
| BUZZARDS BAY COALITION | $25,000 |
| HISTORIC NEW ENGLAND | $10,000 |
Does the money reach high-need areas?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.
Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 98% of its 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
Where the work is directed
The same grants placed two ways: where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose sends the money.
About 6% of The Owens Family Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked for a different county than the recipient’s own address. By recipient address, 34% of the giving stays in MA; by stated purpose, 28%.
How this is measured
Who it funds again
Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.
11 repeat relationships: 8 still active in FY2025, 3 since wound down.
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
- WMWELLINGTON MANAGEMENT FOUNDATION8× · 2017–2025 · $875k · revenue +23%
- BIBETH ISRAEL DEACONESS MEDICAL CENTER INC5× · 2017–2024 · $785k · revenue +99%
- NVNorwell Visiting Nurse Association Inc8× · 2018–2025 · $700k · revenue +119%
Funded once
THE COLLEGE FOUNDATION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIAgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $1.1M · revenue +216%- MBMARINE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORYgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $231k · revenue +37%
- UOUNIVERITY OF VIRGINA HEALTH FOUNDATIONone grant, 2021 · $100k
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 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 bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
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.…
Dartmouth College educates the most promising students and prepares them for a lifetime of learning and of responsible leadership, through a faculty dedicated to teaching and the creation of knowledge.
Wentworth institute of technology is a nationally recognized private coeducational and residential university of higher education with a mission to empower, inspire and innovate through experiential learning with a core purpose of career…
Northeast college of health sciences (the college) is committed to academic excellence, leadership, and professional best practices in the health sciences.
Education and Research
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)
Western new england university, a comprehensive private institution with a tradition of excellence in teaching and scholarship and a commitment to service, awards undergraduate, master's, and doctoral degrees in various departments from…
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…
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…
Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.
How this is measured
10 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. 10 of the 17 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 THE COLLEGE FOUNDATION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA ↗
- Who funds WELLINGTON MANAGEMENT FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds BETH ISRAEL DEACONESS MEDICAL CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds Norwell Visiting Nurse Association Inc ↗
- Who funds WHITEHEAD INSTITUTE FOR BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH ↗
- Who funds MARINE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY ↗
- Who funds SOCIETY FOR THE PRESERVATION OF NEW ENGL ↗
- Who funds FOCUSED ULTRASOUND FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds President and Fellows of Harvard College ↗
- Who funds BUZZARDS BAY COALITION ↗
Co-funders
Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.
Open a dossier: National Philanthropic Trust · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund
How this is measured
How much its grantees rely on government
Each dot is one organization The Owens Family Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Owens Family Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.
- Buzzards Bay Coalition: 37% of income from government
- Marine Biological Laboratory: 20% of income from government
- President and Fellows of Harvard College: 7% of income from government
- Whitehead Institute for Biomedical Research: 7% of income from government
- Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Inc: 6% of income from government
- Society for the Preservation of New Engl: 2% of income from government
How this is measured
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to The Owens Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Owens 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.
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