· Private foundation
The Velmans 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.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| FRIENDS OF THE SHEFFIELD SENIOR CEN | $250 |
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 (FY17–23, $63k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 52% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants spread fairly evenly across need levels.
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 +119% since the first grant, against +44% for the ones you funded once.
42 repeat relationships — 1 still active in FY2024, 41 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 FY2024, 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
MAHAIWE PERFORMING ARTS CENTER INC6× · 2017–2023 · $13k · revenue +186%- CECLOSE ENCOUNTERS WITH MUSIC7× · 2017–2023 · $8k · revenue +67%
- CICONSTRUCT INC6× · 2017–2023 · $6k · revenue +186%
Funded once
- TNTHE NETHERLAND-AMERICA FOUNDATION INCgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $30k · revenue +59%
- DPDisability Power Blocone grant, 2023 · $30k
- SDSPM DISABILITY BRILLANCE FUNDone grant, 2022 · $15k
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.
Bringing people together for experiences that spark creativity and innovative thinking by making inspiring educational connections among art, history, and natural science.
The mission of the berks arts council is to inspire, engage and unite our community through arts education, collaboration, and presentation.
To provide policy guidance, selection and oversight and to organize programs for the purpose of work force development in berkshire county, massachusetts.
The mission of berkshire health systems is to advance health & wellness for everyone in our community in a welcoming,inclusive & personalized environment.
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 strengthen and grow the berkshire economy using an innovative collaborative approach among the region's business, tourism, economic, and creative development efforts.
The berkshire international film festival (biff) is for filmmakers and film lovers alike to be entertained, educated and inspired. biff seeks to celebrate independent film and to recognize and pay tribute to accomplished artists on both…
Preservation of undeveloped land in the town of barnstable and nearby areas
The mission of berkshire faculty services is to advance health and wellness for everyone in our community in a welcoming, inclusive and personalized environment.
Organization creates musical experiences to inspire change, build community and celebrate difference.
To encourage, receive and administer gifts and bequests of property and funds for educational and charitable purposes for the advancement of berkshire community college.
The berkshire film and media collaborative (bfmc) creates educational, workforce and production opportunities in the film and media industry as an economic initiative for the western massachusetts region.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation Inc and the most unlike its peers is Wmht Educational Telecommunications Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 31 years old; the field is 17. 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 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 11% 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.
39 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. 39 of the 79 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 POLLINATE GROUP ↗
- Who funds Renaissance Charitable Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds THE NETHERLAND-AMERICA FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE POLLINATION PROJECT FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Disability Power Bloc ↗
- Who funds BERKSHIRE TACONIC COMMUNITY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds MAHAIWE PERFORMING ARTS CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds CLOSE ENCOUNTERS WITH MUSIC ↗
- Who funds CONSTRUCT INC ↗
- Who funds THE SHEFFIELD LAND TRUST INC ↗
- Who funds BERKSHIRE GROWN INC ↗
- Who funds RAILROAD STREET YOUTH PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds JACOB'S PILLOW DANCE FESTIVAL INC ↗
- Who funds JEWISH FEDERATION OF THE BERKSHIRES ↗
- Who funds FLYING CLOUD INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds BARRINGTON STAGE COMPANY INC ↗
- Who funds SHEFFIELD HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY ACCESS TO THE ARTS INC ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF BUSHNELL-SAGE MEMORIAL LIBRARY INC ↗
- Who funds TRIPLEX CINEMA INC ↗
- Who funds EMPOWER GENERATIONS ↗
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: Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation Inc · Shoval Foundation · The Feigenbaum Foundation Inc · Berkshire Bank Foundation Inc · Dr Robert C & Tina Sohn Foundation · The Buchwald Family Foundation · Jane and Jack Fitzpatrick Trust · Lee Bank Foundation Inc · Berkshire United Way Inc · Josephine and Louise Crane Foundation · Price Chopper's Golub Foundation · The Jane & Martin Schwartz Family 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 Velmans 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.
- Railroad Street Youth Project Inc — 45% of income from government
- Berkshire Grown Inc — 28% of income from government
- Community Health Programs Incorporated — 13% of income from government
- Volunteers in Medicine-Berkshires Inc — 10% of income from government
- Flying Cloud Institute Inc — 6% of income from government
- Construct Inc — 4% of income from government
- Learning Ally Inc — 4% of income from government
- Fairview Hospital — 3% of income from government
- Community Access to the Arts Inc — 2% of income from government
- Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation Inc — 2% of income from government
- The Trustees of Reservations — 2% of income from government
- Mahaiwe Performing Arts Center Inc — 2% of income from government
- Sheffield Historical Society — 2% of income from government
- Berkshire Agricultural Ventures Inc — 1% of income from government
- Berkshire Pulse Inc — 1% of income from government
- Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival 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.