How much does The Sheppard Foundation give?

The Sheppard Foundation reported 4 grants totaling $1,117,060 in its FY2024 IRS filing. It funded between 9 and 17 organizations a year over FY2017 to FY2023.

What does The Sheppard Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2024, its largest causes are Human Services (56%), Arts & Culture (10%), Education (9%).

Who are The Sheppard Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2024: Amagansett Historical Association ($320k), The Taft School Corporation ($282k), American National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches ($280k).

Does The Sheppard Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2023, 25% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does The Sheppard Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it accepts unsolicited grant applications.

Where is The Sheppard Foundation based?

The Sheppard Foundation is based in CT.

The Sheppard Foundation

The Sheppard Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

The Sheppard Foundation

Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.

$1.1M

Granted FY2024still arriving

Grants FY2024still arriving

States reached

$850k

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, FY2017 to 2024.

Human Services$2.5MArts & Culture$462kEducation$412kEnvironment$325kPublic Safety & Disaster$287kPhilanthropy$218kCrime & Legal$208kReligion$28kOther$0

02FY2024 · 4 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2024

$10k–50k1 grant · $10k
$50k–250k2 grants · $257k
$250k+1 grant · $850k

$206,869

Median grant

States reached

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
THE JOHN & LYNN SHEPPARD FAMILY FD	$850,191
THE JOHN & LYNN SHEPPARD FAMILY FD	$206,869
AMERICAN RED CROSS	$50,000
COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF SOUTH GEORG	$10,000

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 (FY17–24, $280k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, 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.

90%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$3.8M · 17 repeat orgs$421k to everyone else

17 repeat relationships: 2 still active in FY2024, 15 since wound down.

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$3.8M

$421k

Still filing today

71%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 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

EducationEnvironmentHuman ServicesArts & CultureCommunity ImprovementPhilanthropyOther

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

AH
AMAGANSETT HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
7× · 2017–2023 · $320k · revenue +99% · 84% of their budget
TT
THE TAFT SCHOOL CORPORATION
7× · 2017–2023 · $282k · revenue +135%
AN
American National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches
8× · 2017–2024 · $280k · revenue +46%

Funded once

TW
THE WADE SHEPPARD & GRACE GAO-
one grant, 2023 · $208k
TA
THE ANN & FRANK MORES FAMILY FUND
one grant, 2023 · $208k
MI
MONTEREY INST OF INTERNATIONAL STUD
one grant, 2017 · $3k

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.

United States Naval Institute

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.

—

Dutchess Land Conservancy Inc

Dutchess land conservancy (dlc) is dedicated to preserving the scenic, agricultural and environmental resources of dutchess county, new york, and the surrounding area. dlc, as a private non-profit land conservation organization, carries…

Environment

Harvard Conservation Trust

To preserve the unique character and natural resources of harvard.

Environment

Hampden-Sydney College

Since 1775, the mission of Hampden-Sydney College has been to form good men and good citizens in an atmosphere of sound learning.

Education

American Foreign Service Association

American foreign service association (afsa) is both the principal advocate for the long-term institutional wellbeing of the professional career foreign service and responsible for safeguarding the interest of afsa members. (continued on…

—

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

New Canaan Land Conservation Trust Inc

The mission of the new canaan land trust is to foster a connection between the new canaan community and its natural resources through the conservation and sustainable stewardship of our open space.

—

Northeast College of Health Sciences

Northeast college of health sciences (the college) is committed to academic excellence, leadership, and professional best practices in the health sciences.

Education

American Gas Association

American gas association's (the association) mission is to develop and advocate for informed, innovative, and durable policy that fulfills our nation's energy needs, environmental aspirations and economic potential. we are committed to…

—

Us Naval Academy Foundation Inc

To support, promote, and advance the mission of the naval academy.

Education

University of New Haven

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…

Education

Connecticut Aeronautical Historical Association Inc

The new england air museum's mission is to preserve and present the story of aviation and aerospace, with an emphasis on new england's role, and the genius and inspiration that made it possible. the museum also seeks to inspire young…

Arts & Culture

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Taft School Corporation; the most unlike its peers is The Nature Conservancy. 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

14 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.

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 2026, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 14 of the 24 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)

14/14

Grantees still filing

11/14

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$3,609,304Education$387,000Human Services$280,000Arts & Culture$59,000Environment$55,000Community Improvement$25,000Philanthropy$20,000Health$7,000

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.

How much its grantees rely on government

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

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

2get no government money at all

4report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

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 Sheppard Foundation?

Find your warmest path to The Sheppard 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 Sheppard’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