· Private foundation
The Sherman Family Foundation
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
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 · FY2025
- Under $10k10 grants · $24k
- $10k–50k6 grants · $60k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| PREBLE STREET | $10,000 |
| WAYSIDE FOOD PROGRAM | $10,000 |
| FRIENDS OF PORTLAND ADULT EDUCATION | $10,000 |
| BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF SOUTHERN ME | $10,000 |
| GOOD SHEPHERD FOOD BANK | $10,000 |
| GULF OF MAINE RESEARCH INSTITUTE | $10,000 |
| CAMPFIRE INSTITUE | $5,000 |
| THE TELLING ROOM | $3,000 |
| MY PLACE TEEN CENTER | $3,000 |
| SWEETSER | $2,500 |
| CAMP SUNSHINE | $2,500 |
| SOUTH PORTLAND FOOD CUPBOARD | $2,500 |
| STRIVE | $2,500 |
| I'M YOUR NEIGHBOR BOOKS | $1,000 |
| OPPORTUNITY ALLIANCE | $1,000 |
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 (FY17–25, $117k) land where the poverty rate runs at 7%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 15% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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.
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.
29 repeat relationships — 15 still active in FY2025, 14 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).
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, 99% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $1k 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
- WFWayside Food Programs9× · 2017–2025 · $90k · revenue +99%
- PSPREBLE STREET7× · 2019–2025 · $86k · revenue +203%
- GOGULF OF MAINE RESEARCH INSTITUTE9× · 2017–2025 · $85k · revenue +102%
Funded once
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2017 · $13k
- BGBOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF SOUTHERN MAINE - LEWISTONAUBURN CLUBone grant, 2019 · $5k
- CMCHILDREN'S MUSEUM AND THEATRE OF MAINEgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $5k · revenue +52%
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.
To provide access to outdoor gear and know-how through a collaborative, equity-centered approach.
Fork Food Lab is a nonprofit food business incubator and shared commercial kitchen focused on growing the local food economy. We support the growth of sustainable Maine-based businesses by providing entrepreneurs with work space,…
A broad multi-disciplinary network that works to ensure we can all live healthy, engaged, and secure lives as we age in our homes and communities. With the voices of people with lived experience, we work on policy issues related to…
Maine Media Workshops & College educates and inspires visual artists and storytellers to achieve their creative potential. We provide lifelong learning opportunities for those pursuing the fine arts and media-related professions. We are…
The Greater Portland Immigrant Welcome Center serves as a hub of collaboration that strengthens the immigrant community through language acquisition, economic integration and civic engagement.
Portland Public Library is a welcoming cultural center that brings people together and connects them with trusted resources, ideas, experiences, and information. We build a stronger community by inspiring learning, creativity, and…
Cei integrates financing, small business and industry expertise, and policy solutions to grow a vibrant future for people and communities in maine and rural regions.
Ronald McDonald House Charities of Maine creates, finds and supports programs that directly improve the health and well being of children statewide; provides affordable home away from home lodging which increases access to medical care for…
To recognize the resiliency of people who use drugs and to work in collaboration to create access points for overdose prevention and harm reduction services in Maine.
The mission of Islesboro Islands Trust is to enhance the quality of residents' lives through the preservation of open space, educate all residents as to the value of the island's natural ecosystems, and act as an environmental advocate on…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Children's Museum and Theatre of Maine and the most unlike its peers is Portland Esl Scholarship Fund. 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 36 years old; the field is 18. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 18% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 4% lost their exemption, against 10% 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.
25 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. 25 of the 42 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 Wayside Food Programs ↗
- Who funds PREBLE STREET ↗
- Who funds GULF OF MAINE RESEARCH INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds Good Shepherd Food Bank ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF PORTLAND ADULT EDUCATION ↗
- Who funds The Telling Room ↗
- Who funds My Place Teen Center Inc ↗
- Who funds CAMPFIRE INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds Sweetser ↗
- Who funds CAMP SUNSHINE AT SEBAGO LAKE INC ↗
- Who funds The Opportunity Alliance ↗
- Who funds WAYNFLETE SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds Konbit Sante Cap Haitien Health ↗
- Who funds SOUTH PORTLAND FOOD CUPBOARD ↗
- Who funds Portland Community Squash ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN'S MUSEUM AND THEATRE OF MAINE ↗
- Who funds Portland ESL Scholarship Fund ↗
- Who funds Cape Elizabeth Land Trust ↗
- Who funds Texas Low-Income Housing Information Service ↗
- Who funds MAINE BEHAVIORAL HEALTHCARE ↗
- Who funds THOMAS MEMORIAL LIBRARY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MAINE ADAPTIVE SPORTS & RECREATION ↗
- Who funds CAPE ELIZABETH EDUCATION FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE ROOT CELLAR ↗
- Who funds I'm Your Neighbor Books ↗
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: Maine Community Foundation Inc · Sam L Cohen Foundation · Saco & Biddeford Savings Charitable Foundation · The Widgeon Point Charitable Foundation · Elmina B Sewall Foundation · Davis Family Foundation · The Smith Family Charitable Ta · Vincent B and Barbara G Welch Supporting Organization · United Way Inc · John T Gorman Foundation · Stephen & Tabitha King Foundation Inc · Karen Anne Bollwerk Burke and William a Burke Family Charitable Trust
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 Sherman Family Foundation 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 or a single department — and drag the year to watch it move.
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 Sherman Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Sherman Family 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.