· Private foundation
The Tow 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.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k27 grants · $122k
- $10k–50k50 grants · $1.2M
- $50k–250k108 grants · $9.4M
- $250k+28 grants · $15M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MEMORIAL SLOAN-KETTERING CANCER CENTER | $1,600,000 |
| NEW YORK GENOME CENTER INC | $1,400,000 |
| NYS FOR THE RELIEF OF RUPTURED & CRIPPLED MAINTAINING THE HOSPITAL FOR SPEC | $1,240,000 |
| MEMORIAL SLOAN-KETTERING CANCER CENTER | $1,200,000 |
| LINCOLN CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS INC | $1,000,000 |
| VANGUARD CHARITABLE ENDOWMENT PROGRAM | $600,000 |
| NORWALK HOSPITAL ASSOCIATION | $600,000 |
| CONNECTICUT CHILDREN'S FOUNDATION INC | $500,000 |
| BROOKLYN COLLEGE FOUNDATION INC | $500,000 |
| NEW YORK SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL | $500,000 |
| BARD COLLEGE | $500,000 |
| COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK TRUSTEES OF | $500,000 |
| COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK TRUSTEES OF | $500,000 |
| CRAIG NEWMARK GRADUATE SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM CUNY FOUNDATION INC | $500,000 |
| NORWALK HOSPITAL ASSOCIATION | $400,000 |
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.
Your human-services grants (FY17–24, $6.9M) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 88% of those 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.
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 +16% for the ones you funded once.
285 repeat relationships — 121 still active in FY2024, 164 since wound down; 35 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, 91% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2.2M 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
BARNARD COLLEGE8× · 2017–2024 · $22M · revenue +60%
MEMORIAL SLOAN-KETTERING CANCER CENTER7× · 2018–2024 · $19M · revenue +70%- NYNEW YORK SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL8× · 2017–2024 · $3.8M · revenue +33%
Funded once
- NYNEW YORK SOCIETY FOR THE RELIEF OF RUPTURED & CRIPPLED MAINTAINING THE HOSPone grant, 2023 · $1.2M
- MSMEMORIAL SLOAN-KETTERING CANCER CENTERone grant, 2017 · $1.0M
- TFTHE FUTURO MEDIA GROUPone grant, 2023 · $400k · revenue -4%
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.
CITY REPORT, INC. serves the people of New York through independent journalism that answers their information needs and holds the powerful to account.
To bring quality public television programs and resources to communities throughout new jersey and its tri-state neighbors. its content, both on-air and online, aims to reflect the diverse
The manhattan institute is a community of scholars, journalists, activists, and civic leaders dedicated to advancing opportunity, individual liberty, and the rule of law in america and its great cities.
Provide clinical instruction to and supervision of medical school students, interns and residents and, incident thereto, rendering professional services.
Provide clinical instruction to and supervision of medical school students, interns and residents and, incident thereto, rendering professional services.
The open markets institute works to help people relearn how to use competition policy to build stronger democracies, more just and equitable societies, more innovative and sustainable economies, and a more secure and peaceful world.
Provide clinical instruction to and supervision of medical school students, interns and residents and, incident thereto, rendering professional services.
To educate students to be ethical and socially responsible leaders in a global community.
Central indiana corporate partnership (cicp) is an alliance of indiana's business and research university leaders coming together to foster long-term prosperity for the region. cicp's mission is to transform the economy of indiana in order…
Provide clinical instruction to and supervision of medical school students, interns and residents and, incident thereto, rendering professional services.
The npr foundation ("foundation") is organized and operated exclusively for the benefit of its sole supported organization, national public radio, inc. ("npr inc."). the foundation supports npr inc. through various activities such as…
Iaf's purpose is to conduct research and publicize findings concerning citizen's attitudes about economic options confronting america. iaf is devoted to fostering a robust and democratic debate about ideas that will shape our country's…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is National Center for Family Philanthropy Inc and the most unlike its peers is Re-Entry Rocks Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 31 years old; the field is 18. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 19% startups (under 5 years old) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.9% lost their exemption, against 10% 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.
438 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. 438 of the 528 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
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
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 BARNARD COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds MEMORIAL SLOAN-KETTERING CANCER CENTER ↗
- Who funds THE TRUSTEES OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK ↗
- Who funds NEW YORK GENOME CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds NEW YORK SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL ↗
- Who funds BARD COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds NEW YORK SOCIETY FOR THE RELIEF OF THE RUPTURED AND CRIPPLED MAINTAINING THE ↗
- Who funds CRAIG NEWMARK GRADUATE SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM CUNY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE BROOKLYN COLLEGE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds University of New Haven ↗
- Who funds VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE INC ↗
- Who funds The Norwalk Hospital Association ↗
- Who funds University of Miami ↗
- Who funds LINCOLN CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS INC ↗
- Who funds CATALYST CT INC ↗
- Who funds Research Foundation of the City University of New York ↗
- Who funds THE CAMPAIGN FOR THE FAIR SENTENCING OF YOUTH ↗
- Who funds NEW YORK PUBLIC RADIO ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR CHILDRENS ADVOCACY INC ↗
- Who funds WGBH Educational Foundation ↗
- Who funds VANGUARD CHARITABLE ENDOWMENT PROGRAM ↗
- Who funds TIDES CENTER ↗
- Who funds THE MARSHALL PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds Youth Justice Network Inc ↗
- Who funds THE FORTUNE SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds ROBIN HOOD FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds HUDSON LINK FOR HIGHER EDUCATION IN PRISON INC ↗
- Who funds THE OSBORNE ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds JUVENILE LAW CENTER ↗
- Who funds WILLIAM J BRENNAN CENTER FOR JUSTICE INC ↗
- Who funds THE GROUNDTRUTH PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds JUSTLEADERSHIPUSA INC ↗
- Who funds YOUTH REPRESENT INC ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN'S DEFENSE FUND ↗
- Who funds CONNECTICUT CHILDREN'S 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: Fairfield County's Community Foundation Inc · The Howard Gilman Foundation Inc · William Caspar Graustein Memorial Fund · The New York Community Trust · The Lucille Lortel Foundation Inc · The Ford Foundation · Surdna Foundation Inc · Public Welfare Foundation Inc · New York Women's Foundation Inc · The Andrew W Mellon Foundation · Booth Ferris Foundation Xxxxx4008 · The Shubert Foundation Inc
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 Tow 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.
- Community Partners in Action Inc — 90% of income from government
- Connecticut Youth Services Association Inc — 88% of income from government
- Roca Inc — 78% of income from government
- Youth Continuum Inc — 76% of income from government
- Clifford Beers Community Care Center Inc — 75% of income from government
- Connecticut Coalition to End Homelessness Inc — 54% of income from government
- Kids in Crisis Inc — 49% of income from government
- Utec Inc — 46% of income from government
- Catalyst Ct Inc — 37% of income from government
- Career Resources Inc — 35% of income from government
- Lifebridge Community Services Inc — 32% of income from government
- Connecticut Council for Philanthropy — 24% of income from government
- African Caribbean American Parents of Children With Disabilities Inc — 22% of income from government
- Our Piece of the Pie Inc — 21% of income from government
- Connecticut Legal Services Inc — 18% of income from government
- Big Brothers Big Sisters of Connecticut Inc — 15% of income from government
- Freedom Reads Inc — 12% of income from government
- Trustees of Boston University — 12% of income from government
- Domus Kids Inc — 7% of income from government
- University of Miami — 5% of income from government
- Center for Childrens Advocacy Inc — 5% of income from government
- The Vermont Center for Ecostudies Inc — 4% of income from government
- Connecticut Public Broadcasting Inc — 3% of income from government
- University of New Haven — 2% of income from government
- Project Music Heals Us Inc — 2% of income from government
- Wesleyan University — 1% of income from government
- Wgbh Educational Foundation — 1% of income from government
- Berklee College of Music Inc — 1% of income from government
- The Connecticut Players Foundation Inc D/B/a Long Wharf Theatre — 1% of income from government
- The Norwalk Hospital Association — 1% of income from government
- Cortico Corporation — 0% of income from government
- Partnership for Strong Communities — 0% of income from government
- Rutgers University Foundation — 0% 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 Tow Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to The Tow 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.