· Private foundation
The Spark 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 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 $10k3 grants · $18k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $53k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Individual grant recipient | $15,000 |
| BOSTON HIGHER ED RESOSURCE CENTER | $15,000 |
| SCHOOL ON WHEELS MA | $12,500 |
| CAPE COD CHILDREN'S PLACE | $10,000 |
| 826 BOSTON | $7,500 |
| THE CHILDREN'S CENTER -HARWICH ECUMENICAL COUNCIL FOR HOUSING | $5,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $5,000 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 64% of your dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +118% since the first grant, against +35% for the ones you funded once.
11 repeat relationships — 7 still active in FY2025, 4 since wound down.
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, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
- MMMINDS MATTER OF BOSTON INC6× · 2017–2022 · $73k · revenue +191%
826 BOSTON INC8× · 2017–2025 · $63k · revenue +475%- CCCAPE COD CHILDREN'S PLACE INC3× · 2023–2025 · $23k · revenue +4%
Funded once
- BABOSTON AFTER SCHOOL & BEYOND INCone grant, 2021 · $10k · revenue -23%
- SOSCHOOL ON WHEELS OF MASSACHUSETTS INCgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $10k · revenue +71%
- BCBOSTON CHINA NEIGHBORHOOD CENTERone grant, 2021 · $5k
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.
Massachusetts education and career opportunities, inc. (massedco, inc.) is a statewide network of service sites that provides education and career advising to over 12,000 low-income, first generation individuals each year. massedco…
To inspire excitement for learning, create paths to and through college, and promote careers in education.
New england law/boston dedicates itself to preparing students to be successful lawyers and leaders in the public and private sectors through integrated practical, theoretical and ethical education of the highest caliber and to contributing…
To promote the growth and development of children while teaching them how to learn efficiently and experience the joy of learning
By creating supportive relationships between students and volunteer mentors, boston partners in education ensures a more equitable city where every bps student is equipped with the skills, opportunity, and confidence to succeed in the…
To provide academic, post secondary and career services to underserved students in grades 6-16.
Bpe drives exceptional outcomes for all students by developing great teachers and great schools. for three decades, bpe (formerly the boston plan for excellence) has devised solutions to the toughest challenges faced by boston's students…
To provide low income, first generation students who attend selective colleges the skills and resources they need to succeed in college and graduate prepared for careers in competitive and high wage fields. To seek upward mobility for…
Impacting generational change by empowering youth who are facing the greatest obstacles through relationships with professional mentors - 12+ years, no matter what.
Bpe's mission is to drive exceptional outcomes for all students by developing great teachers and great schools. for three decades, bpe (formerly the boston plan for excellence) has devised solutions to the toughest challenges faced by…
To provide scholarship, mentoring and educational assistance to graduates of boston public high schools or boston charter high schools who are seeking to complete college, trade school or vocational programs which they began upon…
To enhance opportunities for success by inspiring each child's love of learning, partnering with families, advocating for equity, and fostering a connection to community.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Boston After School & Beyond Inc and the most unlike its peers is Cape Cod Literacy Council Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
11 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. 11 of the 18 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 MINDS MATTER OF BOSTON INC ↗
- Who funds 826 BOSTON INC ↗
- Who funds CAPE COD CHILDREN'S PLACE INC ↗
- Who funds CAPE COD LITERACY COUNCIL INC ↗
- Who funds LITERATIONS CORP ↗
- Who funds The Boston Higher Education Resource Center Inc ↗
- Who funds BOSTON AFTER SCHOOL & BEYOND INC ↗
- Who funds SCHOOL ON WHEELS OF MASSACHUSETTS INC ↗
- Who funds THRIVE SCHOLARS ↗
- Who funds THE EPIPHANY SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds FALMOUTH VOLUNTEERS IN PUBLIC SCHOOLS 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: Boston Foundation Inc · Liberty Mutual Foundation Inc · Eastern Bank Foundation · Wellington Management Foundation · Bushrod H Campbell & Adah F Hall Charity Fund · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · 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 Spark 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, a single department, or state — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Cape Cod Children's Place Inc — 49% of income from government
- Boston After School & Beyond Inc — 37% of income from government
- School On Wheels of Massachusetts Inc — 1% of income from government
- 826 Boston Inc — 1% 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to The Spark Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Spark 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.