Skip to content

· Private foundation

The Sachem Foundation

Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.

$165k
Granted FY2025still arriving
3
Grants FY2025still arriving
3
States reached
$65k
Largest
01What it funds
01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2019 to 2025.

Arts & Culture$2.3MHousing & Shelter$5k
02FY2025 · 3 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

$50,000
Median grant
3
States reached
$2.7M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTRY ASSOCIATION$65,000
HOPE CLUB PRESERVATION FUND$50,000
AMERICAN REVOLUTION INSTITUTE OF THE SOCIETY OF THE CINCINNATI$50,000
02The need
03

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:

Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY19–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 99% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 12%INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTRY ASSOCIATION: $65k → 14%SOCIETY OF THE CINCINNATI: $299k → 14%THE BATTLE OR RI ASSOCIATION: $10k → 7%NATHANIEL GREENE HOMESTEAD: $5k → 7%RHODE ISLAND SOCIETY OF THE CINCINNATI: $500k → 14%INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTRY ASSOCIATION: $25k → 14%AMERICAN REVOLUTION INSTITUTE OF THE SOCIETY OF THE CINCINNATI: $60k → 14%RHODE ISLAND SOCIETY OF THE CINCINNATI: $24k → 14%AMERICAN REVOLUTION INSTITUTE OF THE SOCIETY OF THE CINCINNATI: $50k → 14%PROVIDENCE PRESERVATION SOCIETY: $5k → 14%SOCIETY OF THE CINCINNATI: $27k → 14%RISD MUSEUM: $1.0M → 14%SOCIETY OF THE CINCINNATI: $18k → 14%HOPE CLUB PRESERVATION FUND: $50k → 14%THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION INSTITUTE OF THE SOCIETY OF THE CINCINNATI: $13k → 14%HOPE CLUB PRESERVATION FUND: $50k → 14%SOCIETY OF THE CINCINNATI: $5k → 14%HOPE CLUB PRESERVATION FUND: $50k → 14%MILE OF HISTORY ASSOCIATION: $8k → 14%PRESERVE RHODE ISLAND - LIPPITT HOUSE MUSEUM: $4k → 14%0%20%40%50%more need →
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.
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.

55%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$1.2M · 4 repeat orgs$1.0M to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +8% since the first grant, against -30% for those funded once.

4 repeat relationships: 3 still active in FY2025, 1 since wound down.

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

4
6

Total granted

$1.2M
$1.0M

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+8%
-30%

Still filing today

75%
17%

New vs renewed · share of each year

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

50%100%’19’20’21’22’23’24’25
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.

Backed again, and grew

  • RI
    RHODE ISLAND SOCIETY OF THE CINCINNATI
    2× · 2019–2020 · $524k
  • TS
    THE SOCIETY OF THE CINCINNATI
    7× · 2019–2025 · $472k · revenue +8%
  • HC
    HOPE CLUB PRESERVATION FUND
    3× · 2023–2025 · $150k · revenue +61% · 40% of their budget

Funded once

  • RM
    RISD MUSEUM
    one grant, 2019 · $1.0M
  • TB
    THE BATTLE OR RI ASSOCIATION
    one grant, 2023 · $10k
  • MO
    MILE OF HISTORY ASSOCIATION
    one grant, 2023 · $8k
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
04the grantee network

4 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. 4 of the 10 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.

1
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
1
Early backer (in before they grew)
4/4
Grantees still filing
2/4
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

RISD MUSEUM: $1,000,000 · OtherRISD MUSEUMRHODE ISLAND SOCIETY OF THE CINCINNATI: $524,330 · OtherRHODE ISLAND SOCIETY OF THE CINCINNATI+4 more: $26,000 · OtherTHE SOCIETY OF THE CINCINNATI: $472,104 · Arts & CultureTHE SOCIETY OF THE CINCINNATIHOPE CLUB PRESERVATION FUND: $150,000 · Arts & CultureHOPE CLUB PRESERVATION FUNDINTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY FOUNDATION INC: $90,000 · Arts & CultureINTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY FOUNDATIO…+1 more: $5,000 · Arts & Culture
Other$1,550,330Arts & Culture$717,104

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetTHE SOCIETY OF THE CINCINNATI: $472,104 over 7y, 3.9% of budgetHOPE CLUB PRESERVATION FUND: $150,000 over 3y, 40% of budgetINTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY FOUNDATION INC: $90,000 over 2y, 0.5% of budgetPROVIDENCE PRESERVATION SOCIETY: $5,000 over 1y, 0.4% of budget
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 SOCIETY OF THE CINCINNATI ↗
  • Who funds HOPE CLUB PRESERVATION FUND ↗
  • Who funds INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY FOUNDATION INC ↗
  • Who funds PROVIDENCE PRESERVATION SOCIETY ↗

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 Philmoney TrustRI13.6× affinity4 shared granteesties to 1 of 1Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: The Philmoney Trust · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund

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 Sachem Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Sachem Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%3%13%28%50%funder's share of their income ↑0%6%13%19%25%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–25%
    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 Sachem Foundation?

    Find your warmest path to The Sachem 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.

    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 10 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 2025, released 2025. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

    Play a game based on Sachem’s filings →

    More from the funding graph