· Private foundation
The Sperry Fund
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What it funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2019 to 2025.
Where the money goes
Grants by size, and the largest recipients.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k55 grants · $298k
- $10k–50k24 grants · $368k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $75k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| PHILLIPS ACADEMY ANDOVER | $75,000 |
| WILDLIFE CONSERVATION SOCIETY | $25,000 |
| FRIENDS OF FAFG | $25,000 |
| MACQUARIE UNIVERSITY ITF REMY ODDENYO | $20,000 |
| ASSOCIATE ALUMNAE OF DOUGLASS COLLEGE | $20,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MADISON ITF ELEUTRIO DUARTE | $20,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST ITF SHIVAN KAITESI KAMUGISHA | $18,000 |
| THE REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY ITF ADRIANA GONZALES | $15,000 |
| SOUTHERN NEW HAMPSHIRE UNIVERSITY ITF CHRISTINA HAILPERIN | $15,000 |
| COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY ITF AHMED TABBAKH | $15,000 |
| OXFORD UNIVERSITY ITF REGINA KONG | $15,000 |
| RUTGERS UNIVERSITY ITF GOLD CARSON | $15,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF NEW MEXICO ITF KATHRYN COOK | $15,000 |
| MAINE COLLEGE OF ART AND DESIGN ITF CAITLIN PERRIGO | $15,000 |
| STANFORD UNIVERSITY ITF HAILEY ROCHIN | $15,000 |
Does the money reach high-need areas?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.
US giving: 89% of grant dollars ($4.6M). The need read here covers only this US portion; the 11% that went abroad ($544k) is mapped below.
Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY19–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 90% of its 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
Beyond the US: 11% of all-years giving ($544k)
4 countries, by the recipient’s country on the filing.
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 +33% since the first grant, against +27% for those funded once.
109 repeat relationships: 32 still active in FY2025, 77 since wound down; 46 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, 46% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $398k went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
How this is measured
Backed again, and grew
- NGNATIONAL GALLERY OF ART2× · 2019–2020 · $250k
- PAPHILLIPS ACADEMY ANDOVER3× · 2022–2025 · $225k
- WCWildlife Conservation Society7× · 2019–2025 · $155k · revenue +52%
Funded once
- NGNational Gallery of Artone grant, 2021 · $100k · revenue +6%
TRUSTEES OF PHILLIPS ACADEMYone grant, 2024 · $75k · revenue 0%- HMHAWK MOUNTAIN SANCTUARY ASSOCIATIONgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $20k · revenue +133%
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 museum's mission statement is: "to discover, interpret, and disseminate - through scientific research and education - knowledge about human cultures, the natural world, and the universe."
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
Western new england university, a comprehensive private institution with a tradition of excellence in teaching and scholarship and a commitment to service, awards undergraduate, master's, and doctoral degrees in various departments from…
Dartmouth College educates the most promising students and prepares them for a lifetime of learning and of responsible leadership, through a faculty dedicated to teaching and the creation of knowledge.
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…
Undergraduate, graduate, and professional education and research across a broad array of academic domains.
Unite goodness and knowledge and inspire youth from every quarter to lead purposeful lives. [text in quotations is taken from the academy's deed of gift, drafted in 1781] knowledge and goodness "above all, it is expected that the attention…
Located in south hadley, massachusetts, mount holyoke college is a highly selective, nondenominational, residential, research liberal arts college for women that is gender-diverse and welcomes applications from female, transgender, and…
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 mission of the institute has remained constant since its founding in 1953. as its restated articles of incorporation state the primary purpose and objective of the howard hughes medical institute shall be the promotion of human…
Hillsdale college is a private liberal arts college with approximately 1,500 students. founded in 1844, the college remains, in the words of its articles of association, "grateful to god for the inestimable blessings resulting from the…
Fairleigh dickinson university is a center of academic excellence dedicated to the preparation of world citizens through global education. the university strives to provide students with the multi-disciplinary, intercultural, and ethical…
How this is measured
12 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. 12 of the 412 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
Showing the 200 largest grantees by grant value.
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.
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: The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile Foundation
How this is measured
How much its grantees rely on government
Each dot is one organization The Sperry Fund funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Sperry Fund. Bigger dots raise more.
- Trustees of Boston University: 12% of income from government
How this is measured
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to The Sperry Fund?
Find your warmest path to The Sperry Fund 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 Sperry’s filings →