· Private foundation
The Prospect Fund
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
99% of The Prospect Fund’s FY2025 grant dollars went to The Vermont Community Foundation, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2025 names 2 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2024, the last year The Prospect Fund named its own grantees at scale: 21 organizations, $147k. It is dated, not current.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k22 grants · $77k
- $10k–50k5 grants · $70k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS | $30,000 |
| NATIONAL NETWORK OF ABORTION FUNDS | $10,000 |
| NATIONAL ABORTION FEDERATION | $10,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $10,000 |
| VERMONT INTERNATIONAL FILM FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| LAKE CHAMPLAIN COMMITTEE INC | $5,000 |
| CONSERVATION LAW FOUNDATION -VERMONT | $5,000 |
| COMMITTEE ON TEMPORARY SHELTER | $5,000 |
| VERMONT PUBLIC CO | $5,000 |
| SALVATION FARMS | $5,000 |
| SHELBURNE MUSEUM INC | $5,000 |
| CHAMPLAIN HOUSING TRUST | $5,000 |
| INTERVALE CENTER INC | $5,000 |
| GREATER BURLINGTON YMCA | $5,000 |
| LAKE CHAMPLAIN LAND TRUST | $5,000 |
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 (FY20–24, $27k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 100% 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +29% since the first grant, against +27% for the ones you funded once.
47 repeat relationships — 16 still active in FY2024, 31 since wound down; 10 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call). Read against FY2024, 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
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
MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS8× · 2017–2024 · $198k · revenue +29%- CCCOOLIDGE CORNER THEATRE FOUNDATION INC6× · 2017–2022 · $79k · revenue +91%
- BCBROOKLINE COMMUNITY MENTAL HEALTH CENTER INC DBA THE BROOKLINE CENTER6× · 2017–2022 · $60k · revenue +225%
Funded once
- PPPLANNED PARENTHOOD FOUNDATION OF MAone grant, 2018 · $5k
- CLCONSERVATION LAW FOUNDATION -VERMONone grant, 2023 · $5k
- CVCHAMPLAIN VALLEY OFFICE OF ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY INCgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $5k · revenue +27%
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.
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
Vermont electric cooperative is a member owned not-for-profit whose mission is to provide safe, affordable, and reliable energy services to its members.
See schedule othe mission of the vermont council on world affairs is to promote awareness and understanding of the world and its people, places and cultures through education and engagement. the future of vermont depends upon the world…
The organization's mission is to conserve and promote new england's native plants to ensure healthy, biologically diverse landscapes.
Wheaton college provides a transformative liberal arts education, combining theory and practice, for intellectually curious students within a collaborative and vibrant extended community and network that values and strives to create an…
To cultivate and develop an expansive collection of trees, gardens, and plants for all to explore, enjoy and study; and to provide through education and stewardship, a greener, healthier, more beautiful environment.
Saint anselm is a catholic, benedictine college providing all of its students a distinctive liberal arts education that incorporates opportunities for professional and career preparation. it does so in a learning community that encourages…
The mission of the volunteer lawyers project of the boston bar association is to increase access to justice by delivering high quality pro bono civil legal services to eligible clients in the greater boston area.
Veic is a sustainable energy company on a mission to generate the energy solutions the world needs (continues in schedule o). (continued), working to combat the climate crisis, boost community resilience, and lower energy costs. for nearly…
To leverage the power of business for positive social and environmental impact.
The organization's primary exempt purpose is to provide access to and conduct activities in furtherance of higher education.
Our mission is to ensure that the people of greater boston benefit from a vibrant, resilient, and inclusive waterfront, harbor, and islands; these spaces are equitable, accessible, and adapted to climate change; and to ensure our public,…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Lenny Zakim Fund and the most unlike its peers is Kezar Lake Watershed Association. 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 41 years old; the field is 21. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 16% startups (under 5 years old) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 8% 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.
49 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. 49 of the 70 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 VERMONT COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS ↗
- Who funds THE LENNY ZAKIM FUND ↗
- Who funds COOLIDGE CORNER THEATRE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds BROOKLINE COMMUNITY MENTAL HEALTH CENTER INC DBA THE BROOKLINE CENTER ↗
- Who funds BROOKLINE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL NETWORK OF ABORTION FUNDS INC ↗
- Who funds EQUAL JUSTICE INITIATIVE ↗
- Who funds Vermont International Film Foundation ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL ABORTION FEDERATION ↗
- Who funds SHELBURNE FARMS ↗
- Who funds TIDES CENTER ↗
- Who funds HARTFORD ART SCHOOL ENDOWMENT INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL OUTDOOR LEADERSHIP SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds SAMARITANS INC ↗
- Who funds SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds MILTON ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds Acadia Center ↗
- Who funds LAKE CHAMPLAIN COMMITTEE INC ↗
- Who funds SHELBURNE MUSEUM INC ↗
- Who funds CHAMPLAIN HOUSING TRUST ↗
- Who funds VERMONT PUBLIC CO ↗
- Who funds Salvation Farms Inc ↗
- Who funds THE SECOND STEP INC ↗
- Who funds REACH INC ↗
- Who funds ROSIE'S PLACE INC ↗
- Who funds GREATER LOVELL LAND TRUST INC ↗
- Who funds GREATER BURLINGTON YMCA INC ↗
- Who funds COMMITTEE ON TEMPORARY SHELTER INC ↗
- Who funds LAKE CHAMPLAIN LAND TRUST INC ↗
- Who funds TIDES 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 Vermont Community Foundation · National Life Group Charitable Foundation Inc · Eastern Bank Foundation · Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston Inc · RUTH & PETER METZ FAMILY FOUNDATION co THOMAS PHELAN · Ben & Jerry's Foundation Inc · Boston Foundation Inc · Tulgey Wood Foundation · United Way of Northwest Vermont Inc · Lintilhac Foundation Inc · The Waterwheel Foundation · Ploughshares 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 Prospect Fund 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.
- Reach Inc — 85% of income from government
- Boston Area Rape Crisis Center Inc — 82% of income from government
- Steps to End Domestic Violence Inc — 71% of income from government
- Vermont Humanities Council — 67% of income from government
- Committee On Temporary Shelter Inc — 52% of income from government
- Dismas of Vermont Inc — 39% of income from government
- Samaritans Inc — 31% of income from government
- Salvation Farms Inc — 26% of income from government
- The Second Step Inc — 26% of income from government
- Champlain Valley Office of Economic Opportunity Inc — 23% of income from government
- Champlain Housing Trust — 15% of income from government
- Intervale Center Inc — 13% of income from government
- Silver Lining Mentoring Inc — 10% of income from government
- Shelburne Museum Inc — 9% of income from government
- Burlington City Arts Foundation Inc — 6% of income from government
- Shelburne Farms — 3% of income from government
- Lake Champlain Land Trust Inc — 1% of income from government
- Coolidge Corner Theatre Foundation Inc — 0% of income from government
- Vermont Public Co — 0% of income from government
- Inclusive Arts Vermont Inc — 0% of income from government
- Museum of Fine Arts — 0% of income from government
- Rosie's Place Inc — 0% of income from government
- Milton Academy — 0% of income from government
- The Vermont Community Foundation — 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 Prospect Fund?
Find your warmest path to The Prospect Fund 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.