How much does The Prospect Fund give?

The Prospect Fund reported 27 grants totaling $146,500 in its FY2024 IRS filing. It funded between 17 and 31 organizations a year over FY2017 to FY2023.

What does The Prospect Fund fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Philanthropy (85%), Arts & Culture (7%), Health (2%).

Who are The Prospect Fund's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: Museum of Fine Arts ($198k), The Lenny Zakim Fund ($80k), Coolidge Corner Theatre Foundation Inc ($79k).

Does The Prospect Fund fund new organizations?

In FY2023, 71% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does The Prospect Fund accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

Which funders back the same organizations as The Prospect Fund?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include The Vermont Community Foundation, National Life Group Charitable Foundation Inc, Eastern Bank Foundation.

Where is The Prospect Fund based?

The Prospect Fund is based in VT.

The Prospect Fund

The Prospect Fund at a glance Mostly funded, not a grantmaker: see who funds it →

· 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.

$147k

Granted FY2024still arriving

Grants FY2024still arriving

States reached

$30k

Largest

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

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’22

’23

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Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.

01What it funds

0196% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.

Philanthropy$4.5MArts & Culture$362kHealth$132kEnvironment$104kFood & Nutrition$47kCivil Rights$42kEducation$28kCrime & Legal$25kOther$0

02FY2024 · 27 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2024

Under $10k22 grants · $77k
$10k–50k5 grants · $70k

$5,000

Median grant

States reached

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS	$30,000
NATIONAL NETWORK OF ABORTION FUNDS	$10,000
VERMONT INTERNATIONAL FILM FOUNDATION	$10,000
NATIONAL ABORTION FEDERATION	$10,000
Individual grant recipient	$10,000
SHELBURNE MUSEUM INC	$5,000
CHAMPLAIN HOUSING TRUST	$5,000
LAKE CHAMPLAIN COMMITTEE INC	$5,000
CONSERVATION LAW FOUNDATION -VERMONT	$5,000
SALVATION FARMS	$5,000
COMMITTEE ON TEMPORARY SHELTER	$5,000
VERMONT PUBLIC CO	$5,000
GREATER BURLINGTON YMCA	$5,000
LAKE CHAMPLAIN LAND TRUST	$5,000
INTERVALE CENTER INC	$5,000

02The need

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Its 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 its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

How this is measured

Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.

Which US states its grants reach

How this is measured

US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

91%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$808k · 47 repeat orgs$81k to everyone else

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

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$808k

$29k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+18%

+27%

Still filing today

70%

38%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

EnvironmentArts & CultureEducationHealthHousing & ShelterHuman ServicesOther

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.

Backed again, and grew

MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS
8× · 2017–2024 · $198k · revenue +29%
CC
COOLIDGE CORNER THEATRE FOUNDATION INC
6× · 2017–2022 · $79k · revenue +91%
BC
BROOKLINE COMMUNITY MENTAL HEALTH CENTER INC DBA THE BROOKLINE CENTER
6× · 2017–2022 · $60k · revenue +225%

Funded once

UO
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON FOUNDATION
one grant, 2022 · $5k · revenue -7%
CV
CHAMPLAIN VALLEY OFFICE OF ECONOMIC OPPORTUNITY INCgraduated
one grant, 2023 · $5k · revenue +27%
CL
CONSERVATION LAW FOUNDATION -VERMON
one grant, 2023 · $5k

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.

04Its field

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.

Boston Architectural College

The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.

—

Vermont Electric Cooperative Inc

Vermont electric cooperative is a member owned not-for-profit whose mission is to provide safe, affordable, and reliable energy services to its members.

—

Vermont Council On World Affairs Inc

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…

—

Native Plant Trust Inc

The organization's mission is to conserve and promote new england's native plants to ensure healthy, biologically diverse landscapes.

Environment

Wheaton College

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…

Education

Bartlett Arboretum Association Inc

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.

Environment

Saint Anselm College

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…

Education

Volunteer Lawyers Project of the Boston Bar Association Inc

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.

Crime & Legal

Vermont Energy Investment Corporation

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…

Environment

Vermont Businesses for Social Responsibility Inc

To leverage the power of business for positive social and environmental impact.

—

Massachusetts Higher Education Assistance Corporation

The organization's primary exempt purpose is to provide access to and conduct activities in furtherance of higher education.

—

Boston Harbor Now Inc

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,…

Environment

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Lenny Zakim Fund; 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.

04the grantee network

49 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. 49 of the 70 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.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

48/49

Grantees still filing

31/49

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Philanthropy$4,366,972Arts & Culture$302,000Other$349,967Environment$102,000Religion$80,015Education$41,750Human Services$31,000

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.

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.

The Vermont Community FoundationVT29.9× affinity13 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

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

How this is measured

Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization The Prospect Fund funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Prospect Fund. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

7get no government money at all

7report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

5rely on government for over half their income

typical government reliance, FY20–25

How this is measured

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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

05Through Plinth

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.

Play a game based on Prospect’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