· Private foundation
The Sooner 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
- Under $10k51 grants · $70k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $23k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| BUZZARDS BAY COALITION | $12,500 |
| RFK COMMUNITY ALLIANCE | $10,000 |
| OLD DARTMOUTH HISTORICAL SOCIETY | $5,000 |
| WOODWELL CLIMATE RESEARCH | $5,000 |
| THE PARK SCHOOL | $4,000 |
| MILTON ACADEMY | $4,000 |
| PLANNED PARENTHOOD | $3,000 |
| MASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL | $3,000 |
| THE HENRY FERGUSON MUSEUM | $2,500 |
| MT AUBURN HOSPITAL | $2,500 |
| THE FISHERS ISLAND LIBRARY | $2,500 |
| JOHN F KENNEDY LIBRARY | $2,500 |
| LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY | $2,250 |
| MASSACHUSETTS ASSOCIATION FOR | $2,000 |
| APPLE ORCHARD SCHOOL | $2,000 |
Does the money reach high-need areas?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.
Its human-services grants (FY17–25, $41k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 60% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
How this is measured
Which US states its grants reach
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 +26% since the first grant, against +4% for those funded once.
81 repeat relationships: 48 still active in FY2025, 33 since wound down; 2 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
How this is measured
Backed again, and grew
Woodwell Climate Research Center Inc5× · 2021–2025 · $25k · revenue +24%
BUZZARDS BAY COALITION4× · 2021–2025 · $23k · revenue +46%- PSPARK SCHOOL CORPORATION6× · 2020–2025 · $14k · revenue +34%
Funded once
- MGMASSACHUSETTS GENERAL HOSPITAL MGH DEVELOPMENTone grant, 2018 · $10k
- PAPHIT AMERICA FOUNDATIONone grant, 2017 · $5k
- RIREFUGEE & IMMIGRANT CENTER FOR EDUCATION & LEGAL SERVICESone grant, 2018 · $5k · revenue -30%
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 bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
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 organization's primary exempt purpose is to provide access to and conduct activities in furtherance of higher education.
Wentworth institute of technology is a nationally recognized private coeducational and residential university of higher education with a mission to empower, inspire and innovate through experiential learning with a core purpose of career…
Our mission is to ensure that the people of greater boston benefit from a vibrant, resilient, and inclusive waterfront, harbor, and islands; these spaces are equitable, accessible, and adapted to climate change; and to ensure our public,…
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.
The organization's mission is to conserve and promote new england's native plants to ensure healthy, biologically diverse landscapes.
Northeast college of health sciences (the college) is committed to academic excellence, leadership, and professional best practices in the health sciences.
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 boston public library fund provides financial support to the boston public library (bpl), ensuring that it remains viable, engaging, accessible, and free to all. the library fund fulfills this mission by working in partnership with…
To provide research facilities to members and to the judicial, executive, and legislative branches of the massachusetts government.
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…
How this is measured
79 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. 79 of the 131 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 Woodwell Climate Research Center Inc ↗
- Who funds BUZZARDS BAY COALITION ↗
- Who funds ROBERT F KENNEDY CHILDREN'S ACTION CORPS INC ↗
- Who funds MILTON ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds PARK SCHOOL CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds Henry L Ferguson Museum ↗
- Who funds COMMONWEALTH ZOOLOGICAL CORPORATION D/B/A ZOO NEW ENGLAND ↗
- Who funds EPILEPSY FOUNDATION OF AMERICA ↗
- Who funds FISHERS ISLAND LIBRARY ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds MILTON PLAYGROUND PLANNERS INC ↗
- Who funds ISLAND HEALTH PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds WHEATON COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds THE LIGHTHOUSE WORKS INC ↗
- Who funds HORIZONS FOR HOMELESS CHILDREN ↗
- Who funds JOHN FITZGERALD KENNEDY LIBRARY FOUNDATION INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds HARVARD LEGAL AID BUREAU ↗
- Who funds THE ANDREW K DWYER FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds PEER HEALTH EXCHANGE INC ↗
- Who funds Old Dartmouth Historical Society ↗
- Who funds SAWTOOTH SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds BUCKINGHAM BROWNE & NICHOLS SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds Massachusetts Voter Education Network Inc ↗
- Who funds EAST BOSTON SOCIAL CENTERS INC ↗
- Who funds UCLA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds HOMES FOR OUR TROOPS INC ↗
- Who funds The Village School Incorportated ↗
- Who funds FISHERS ISLAND FIRE DEPARTMENT ↗
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: Boston Foundation Inc · Eastern Bank Foundation · The Fairfield Foundation · The Willinphila Foundation · The McCance Foundation · The William C and Cindy L Scott Foundation · The Frederic C Hamilton Family Foundation · The Emily Hall Tremaine Foundation Inc · Cambridge Savings Charitable Foundation Inc · Liberty Mutual Foundation Inc · Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston Inc · Jeanann Gray Dunlap Foundation
How this is measured
How much its grantees rely on government
Each dot is one organization The Sooner Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Sooner Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.
- Crystal Springs Inc: 57% of income from government
- East Boston Social Centers Inc: 50% of income from government
- On the Rise Inc: 39% of income from government
- Buzzards Bay Coalition: 37% of income from government
- Save the Sound: 37% of income from government
- Epilepsy Foundation of America: 22% of income from government
- Horizons for Homeless Children: 21% of income from government
- Woodwell Climate Research Center Inc: 11% of income from government
- President and Fellows of Harvard College: 7% of income from government
- Perkins School for the Blind: 7% of income from government
- Mount Auburn Hospital: 5% of income from government
- Planned Parenthood League of Massachusetts Inc: 3% of income from government
- Lloyd Center for the Environment Inc: 3% of income from government
- Vna Care Hospice Inc: 3% of income from government
- Commonwealth Zoological Corporation D/B/a Zoo New England: 2% of income from government
- Old Dartmouth Historical Society: 2% of income from government
- Boston Children's Chorus Inc: 2% of income from government
- Special Olympics Massachusetts Inc: 1% of income from government
- Hope and Comfort Inc: 1% of income from government
- Emerald Necklace Conservancy Inc: 0% of income from government
- The Epiphany School Inc: 0% of income from government
- Wheaton College: 0% of income from government
- Rosie's Place Inc: 0% of income from government
- Milton Academy: 0% of income from government
- Buckingham Browne & Nichols School: 0% of income from government
How this is measured
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to The Sooner Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Sooner 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 Sooner’s filings →