· Private foundation
The Sidney and Betty Shames Foundation Inc
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.
Read this first · the figures below need context
100% of The Sidney and Betty Shames Foundation Inc’s FY2025 grant dollars went to Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2025 names 0 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2023, the last year The Sidney and Betty Shames Foundation Inc named its own grantees at scale: 10 organizations, $68k. It is dated, not current.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
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 · FY2023
- Under $10k16 grants · $28k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $40k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| JCC OF MID WESTCHESTER | $20,100 |
| FEEDING WESTCHESTER | $20,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $5,000 |
| HIAS | $5,000 |
| JCC ON THE HUDSON | $2,000 |
| AMERICAN JEWISH JOINT DISTRIBUTION COMMITTE INC (JDC) | $2,000 |
| AUTISTIC SELF ADVOCACY NETWORK INC | $2,000 |
| UJA FEDERATION | $2,000 |
| OSSINING CHILDREN'S CENTERILDREN | $2,000 |
| PLANNED PARENTHOOD | $2,000 |
| CAMP NEJEDA | $1,000 |
| PHELPS MEMORIAL HOSPITAL | $1,000 |
| WESTCHESTER MEDICAL CENTER FOUNDATION | $1,000 |
| THIRTEENWNET | $1,000 |
| YIVO | $500 |
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 (FY17–22, $15k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 0% 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.
Which US states your grants reach
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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +31% since the first grant, against +3% for the ones you funded once.
31 repeat relationships — 15 still active in FY2023, 16 since wound down; 3 grantees were first funded in FY2023 (too recent to call). Read against FY2023, 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
Organizations
Total granted
Median revenue growth · since first grant
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2023, 87% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $9k 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
- FWFEEDING WESTCHESTER INC4× · 2020–2023 · $80k · revenue +31%
- WMWestchester Medical Center Foundation7× · 2017–2023 · $30k · revenue +40%
MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC6× · 2017–2022 · $22k · revenue +98%
Funded once
- CFCENTER FOR DISASTER PHILANTHROPYone grant, 2022 · $5k
CITY HARVEST INCone grant, 2020 · $3k · revenue +3%
THE BREAST CANCER RESEARCH FOUNDATION INCgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $1k · revenue +34%
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.
Mjhs health system is a charitable not-for-profit established to support the activities of affiliated organizations. mjhs is built on the core values of compassion, dignity and respect, first established by the four brooklyn ladies in…
The network is an international membership association of more than 170 non profit human service agencies in the united states, canada and israel. its members provide a full range of human services for the jewish community and beyond,…
Long island jewish medical center is part of the northwell health ("northwell"), which strives to improve the health of the communities it serves and is committed to providing the highest quality clinical care; educating the current and…
To pursue anti-hunger initiatives through the west side campaign against hunger (wscah) program whose mission is to alleviate hunger by ensuring that all new yorkers have access with dignity to a choice of healthy food and supportive…
We strive to maximize participation in, and support for, federally funded nutrition assistance programs including supplemental nutrition assistance program (snap), the school breakfast program and national school lunch program, the summer…
See schedule othe organization is a not-for-profit, public charity established in 1911 to provide for the quality and continuity of jewish life in western new york and around the world through private philanthropy. the foundation seeks,…
Since its founding, over 120 years ago, as a medical dispensary to meet the needs of the impoverished and underserved jewish community of the lower east side, beth israel medical center has been committed to the care of persons of all…
As one of the most preeminent and comprehensive blood centers in theworld, nybc operates under a four-part mission. for more information,see sch. o and part iii, 4a-c.
Mjhs home care is a not-for-profit, certified home health agency (chha), committed to providing skilled nursing and rehabilitation services for individuals recuperating at home from an acute episode, often elderly and at-risk members of…
The fsmb serves as the voice for state medical boards, supporting them through education, assessment, research and advocacy while providing services and initiatives that promote patient safety, quality health care and regulatory best…
Operating as isabella center for rehabilitation and nursing care, isabella is a 705-bed not-for-profit organization that is a member of the mjhs health system family. isabella is committed to providing exceptional short-term, sub-acute…
The national council of jewish women is a grassroots nonpartisan organization of volunteers and advocates who strive for social justice by improving the quality of life for women, children and families.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Feeding Westchester Inc and the most unlike its peers is Multiple Sclerosis Foundation Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 43 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 19% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 11% 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.
21 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. 21 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 FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ↗
- Who funds FEEDING WESTCHESTER INC ↗
- Who funds Westchester Medical Center Foundation ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds PHELPS MEMORIAL HOSPITAL ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds UNITED JEWISH APPEAL-FEDERATION OF JEWISH PHILANTHROPIES OF NEW YORK INC ↗
- Who funds CAMP NEJEDA FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds OSSINING CHILDREN'S CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds HIAS INC ↗
- Who funds The American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee Inc ↗
- Who funds AMNESTY INTERNATIONAL OF THE USA INC ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds CITYMEALS-ON-WHEELS ↗
- Who funds SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds SPCA OF WESTCHESTER INC ↗
- Who funds Ossining Food Pantry ↗
- Who funds CITY HARVEST INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL YIDDISH BOOK CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds AUTISTIC SELF ADVOCACY NETWORK INC ↗
- Who funds THE BREAST CANCER RESEARCH FOUNDATION INC ↗
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: The Bessemer Giving Fund · Network for Good · The Pfizer Foundation Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Paypal Charitable Giving Fund · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile Foundation
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 Sidney and Betty Shames Foundation Inc 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, a single department, or state — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Hias Inc — 88% of income from government
- National Yiddish Book Center Inc — 2% of income from government
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.
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