· Private foundation
The Sylvan C Herman Foundation Inc
Its FY2024 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
99% of The Sylvan C Herman Foundation Inc’s FY2024 grant dollars went to Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2024 names 1 organization directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it.
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 FY2018–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k3 grants · $7k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $15k
- $250k+1 grant · $2.0M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MORGAN STANLEY GLOBAL IMPACT FUNDING TRUST | $1,999,624 |
| THE MENTAL HEALTH ASSOCIATION | $15,000 |
| FREDERICK RESCUE MISSION INC | $2,500 |
| SAVE A LIMB FOUNDATION | $2,500 |
| HOPE CONNECTIONS | $2,100 |
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 (FY19–21, $169k) land where the poverty rate runs at 6%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 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.
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 +276% since the first grant, against +43% for the ones you funded once.
11 repeat relationships — 3 still active in FY2024, 8 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 89% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $3k 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
- TATREATMENT ADVOCACY CENTER5× · 2018–2023 · $644k · revenue +50%
- WSWAY STATION INC3× · 2019–2021 · $169k · revenue +55%
- AMActive Minds Inc5× · 2018–2023 · $135k · revenue +340%
Funded once
- JEJ E Herman Public Fundone grant, 2022 · $2.0M
- JEJOHN E HERMAN PUBLIC FUNDone grant, 2023 · $1.3M
- BIBRAINFUTURES INCORPORATEDgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $100k · revenue +43%
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.
Under the medical service plan of the university of maryland, school of medicine, administrative support services are provided to the physician practices of the university of maryland, including but not limited to information technology,…
Under the medical service plan of the university of maryland school of medicine, medical services are rendered by the members of the faculty on behalf of the school of medicine in connection with their duties to provide clinical…
Family services, inc., a subsidiary of sheppard pratt, a not-for-profit behavioral health system, is dedicated to improving the quality of life of individuals and families by compassionately serving their mental health, addiction, special…
Behavioral health partners of frederick inc., a subsidiary of mosaic community services, inc., a not-for-profit organization that provides outpatient behavioral health care services, is dedicated to improving the quality of life of…
The mission of mind share partners is to build awareness, support, and acceptance for people with mental health conditions.
Under the medical service plan of the university of maryland school of medicine, medical services are rendered by the members of the faculty on behalf of the school of medicine in connection with their duties to provide clinical…
Under the medical service plan of the university of maryland school of medicine, medical services are rendered by the members of the faculty on behalf of the school of medicine in connection with their duties to provide clinical…
Under the medical service plan of the university of maryland school of medicine, medical services are rendered by the members of the faculty on behalf of the school of medicine in connection with their duties to provide clinical…
Maryland general clinical practice group, inc. (mgcpg) provides physician services, billing, and support services for maryland general hospital (mgh).
We are committed to improving the lives of people with barriers to economic well-being.
Mosaic community services, inc., a subsidiary of sheppard pratt, a not-for-profit behavioral health system, is dedicated to improving the quality of life of individuals and families by compassionately serving their mental health,…
Under the medical service plan of the university of maryland school of medicine, medical services are rendered by the members of the faculty on behalf of the school of medicine in connection with their duties to provide clinical…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Way Station Inc and the most unlike its peers is The Jewish Federation of Greater Washington Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
10 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. 10 of the 27 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 MAYO CLINIC ↗
- Who funds MORGAN STANLEY GLOBAL IMPACT FUNDING TRUST INC ↗
- Who funds TREATMENT ADVOCACY CENTER ↗
- Who funds WAY STATION INC ↗
- Who funds Active Minds Inc ↗
- Who funds BRAINFUTURES INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds THE JEWISH FEDERATION OF GREATER WASHINGTON INC ↗
- Who funds FREDERICK RESCUE MISSION INC ↗
- Who funds HOPE CONNECTIONS FOR CANCER SUPPORT INC ↗
- Who funds CHARLOTTESVILLE AREA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
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: Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Network for Good · National Philanthropic Trust · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · American Online Giving Foundation 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 Sylvan C Herman 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.
- Way Station 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 Sylvan C Herman Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to The Sylvan C Herman Foundation Inc 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.