· Private foundation
The River 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–50k3 grants · $80k
- $50k–250k3 grants · $216k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ANCIENT EGYPT RESEARCH ASSOCIATES | $100,000 |
| BETH ISRAEL DEACONESS MEDICAL CENTER | $60,000 |
| MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS | $56,000 |
| COLD SPRING HARBOR LABORATORY | $40,000 |
| SOCIETY FOR SCIENCE AND THE PUBLIC | $25,000 |
| HARVARD ART MUSEUM | $15,000 |
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 15%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 90% 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
Who it funds again
Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.
Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +29% since the first grant, against -16% for those funded once.
9 repeat relationships: 6 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
- BIBETH ISRAEL DEACONESS MEDICAL CENTER INC7× · 2019–2025 · $420k · revenue +77%
MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS9× · 2017–2025 · $360k · revenue +29%- AEAncient Egypt Research Associates Inc4× · 2018–2025 · $347k · revenue +2%
Funded once
- BFBROOKLINE FOOD PANTRY INCone grant, 2021 · $20k · revenue -16%
- AFACLU FOUNDATIONone grant, 2018 · $10k
NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE & EDUC FUND INCone grant, 2020 · $10k · revenue -54%
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 museum's mission statement is: "to discover, interpret, and disseminate - through scientific research and education - knowledge about human cultures, the natural world, and the universe."
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
The institute for advanced study (the institute) is one of the world's leading centers for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. see schedule o.
The Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) is a world-renowned center for biological discovery and training that is notably affiliated with more than 60 Nobel Prize winners. Research is conducted by full-time faculty as well as hundreds of the…
As a leading research university with a distinctive commitment to undergraduate education, Rice University aspires to path breaking research, unsurpassed teaching, and contributions to the betterment of our world. It seeks to fulfill this…
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'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…
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 Morgan Library & Museum celebrates and shares the history and process of human creativity from antiquity to the present day through the preservation, study, and interpretation of a dynamic and growing collection.
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…
Education and Research
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.
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 15 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 BETH ISRAEL DEACONESS MEDICAL CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS ↗
- Who funds Ancient Egypt Research Associates Inc ↗
- Who funds SOCIETY FOR SCIENCE & THE PUBLIC ↗
- Who funds COLD SPRING HARBOR LABORATORY ↗
- Who funds BOSTON BALLET INC ↗
- Who funds BROOKLINE FOOD PANTRY INC ↗
- Who funds President and Fellows of Harvard College ↗
- Who funds NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE & EDUC FUND INC ↗
- Who funds Real News Project Inc ↗
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: Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile Foundation
How this is measured
How much its grantees rely on government
Each dot is one organization The River Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The River Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.
- President and Fellows of Harvard College: 7% of income from government
- Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center Inc: 6% of income from government
- Boston Ballet Inc: 0% of income from government
- Museum of Fine Arts: 0% of income from government
How this is measured
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to The River Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The River 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 River’s filings →