· Private foundation
Roaring Brook Family 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 FY2018–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k12 grants · $45k
- $10k–50k30 grants · $660k
- $50k–250k20 grants · $1.5M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| GREENAGERS | $125,000 |
| SHELBURNE FARMS | $125,000 |
| BERKSHIRE AGRICULTURAL VENTURES | $100,000 |
| EARTH JUSTICE | $100,000 |
| CHARLES RIVER CONSERVANCY | $100,000 |
| COASTAL CONSERVATION LEAGUE | $100,000 |
| OCEAN CONSERVANCY | $100,000 |
| ROOTS RISING | $100,000 |
| TRUSTEES OF RESERVATIONS | $100,000 |
| ROOTS RISING | $75,000 |
| VERMONT FARMERS FOOD CENTER | $65,000 |
| INSTITUTE FOR LOCAL SELF-RELIANCE | $50,000 |
| TELLING ROOM | $50,000 |
| HURRICANE ISLAND OUTWARD BOUND SCHOOL | $50,000 |
| LATIN AMERICAN YOUTH CENTER INC | $50,000 |
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 (FY18–24, $29k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 91% 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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 12% of Roaring Brook Family Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another. Read by recipient address, 57% of the giving stays in MA; read by stated purpose it is 54% — less of the work is directed home than the recipients' locations suggest.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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 +34% since the first grant, against +15% for the ones you funded once.
90 repeat relationships — 45 still active in FY2025, 45 since wound down; 11 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, 94% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $128k 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
- PSPUTNEY SCHOOL INC8× · 2018–2025 · $1.3M · revenue +76%
- RRROOTS RISING INC7× · 2019–2025 · $510k · revenue +820%
EARTHJUSTICE8× · 2018–2025 · $475k · revenue +114%
Funded once
- TFTHE FILMMAKERS COLLABORATIVE INCgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $100k · revenue +33%
- COCHABAD OF THE BERKSHIRESone grant, 2024 · $75k
- TCTRIPLEX CINEMA INCone grant, 2024 · $50k · revenue +15%
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.
The organization's mission is to conserve and promote new england's native plants to ensure healthy, biologically diverse landscapes.
To cultivate and develop an expansive collection of trees, gardens, and plants for all to explore, enjoy and study; and to provide through education and stewardship, a greener, healthier, more beautiful environment.
Grist is an independent, non profit media organization dedicated to reporting on climate change.
The wildlands trust works throughout southeastern massachusetts to conserve and permanently protect native habitats, farmland, and lands of high ecologic and scenic value that serve to keep our communities healthy and our residents…
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
The adirondack council ensures the ecological integrity (clean water and air, wildlife habitat, etc.), wild character (solitude, scenic beauty, etc.), and vibrant communities of new york's six-million-acre adirondack park. the adirondack…
Sudbury valley trustees, inc. ("the organization") works to protect natural areas and farmland for wildlife and people in the 36 communities that surround the sudbury, assabet, and concord rivers. the organization cares for some of the…
To preserve the unique character and natural resources of harvard.
The nantucket conservation foundation owns, protects, and stewards over 9,000 acres of land and coastal shoreline, conserves nantucket's rare and significant natural resources, and engages in impactful ecological research to inform…
Eastern national promotes the public's understanding and support of america's national parks and other public trust partners by providing quality educational experiences, products and services.
The union of concerned scientists puts rigorous, independent science into action, developing solutions and advocating for a healthy, safe, and just future.
Our mission is to ensure that the people of greater boston benefit from a vibrant, resilient, and inclusive waterfront, harbor, and islands; these spaces are equitable, accessible, and adapted to climate change; and to ensure our public,…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Save the Bay Inc and the most unlike its peers is Saint Helena Island Gullah Community Housing Project. 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 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
110 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. 110 of the 138 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 PUTNEY SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds President and Fellows of Harvard College ↗
- Who funds ROOTS RISING INC ↗
- Who funds EARTHJUSTICE ↗
- Who funds OCEAN CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds GULF OF MAINE RESEARCH INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds GREENAGERS INC ↗
- Who funds Ecology Education Inc ↗
- Who funds FRESHFARM MARKETS ↗
- Who funds LATIN AMERICAN YOUTH CENTER ↗
- Who funds The Telling Room ↗
- Who funds SHELBURNE FARMS ↗
- Who funds BERKSHIRE AGRICULTURAL VENTURES INC ↗
- Who funds HURRICANE ISLAND OUTWARD BOUND SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds ENVIRONMENTAL INVESTIGATION AGENCY ↗
- Who funds WATERKEEPER ALLIANCE INC ↗
- Who funds EQUAL JUSTICE INITIATIVE ↗
- Who funds VERMONT FARMERS MARKET EDUCATION CENTER ↗
- Who funds FIRST NATIONS DEVELOPMENT INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds CORPORATION OF HAVERFORD COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds THE TRUSTEES OF RESERVATIONS ↗
- Who funds INSTITUTE FOR LOCAL SELF RELIANCE ↗
- Who funds WAVE FARM INC ↗
- Who funds BERKSHIRE ENVIRONMENTAL ACTION TEAM INC ↗
- Who funds ESPERANZA ACADEMY INC ↗
- Who funds SCHOOL OF LEADERSHIP-AFGHANISTAN INC ↗
- Who funds HUMAN RIGHTS FIRST ↗
- Who funds CHARLES RIVER CONSERVANCY INC ↗
- Who funds NATIVE AMERICAN RIGHTS FUND INC ↗
- Who funds THE POTOMAC CONSERVANCY INC ↗
- Who funds HOPEFUL HORIZONS ↗
- Who funds PEN FAULKNER FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE ORION SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds THE FILMMAKERS COLLABORATIVE INC ↗
- Who funds NEW ENGLAND FORESTRY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds HOUSATONIC VALLEY ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE EARTH CIRCLE 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: Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation Inc · The Feigenbaum Foundation Inc · Berkshire Bank Foundation Inc · Agnes M Lindsay Trust · Maine Community Foundation Inc · Jane and Jack Fitzpatrick Trust · Boston Foundation Inc · The Vermont Community Foundation · Geoffrey C Hughes Foundation Inc · Oristaglio Family Foundation · Lee Bank Foundation Inc · Dan and Merrie Boone 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 Roaring Brook Family 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.
- New England Forestry Foundation Inc — 88% of income from government
- Housatonic River Initiative Inc — 79% of income from government
- Vermont Youth Conservation Corps Inc — 47% of income from government
- Housatonic Valley Association Inc — 38% of income from government
- Salvation Farms Inc — 26% of income from government
- EcoHealth Alliance Inc — 24% of income from government
- Osamequin Farm Inc — 18% of income from government
- Nonprofit Center of the Berkshires Inc — 18% of income from government
- The Green Mountain Club Inc Debonis — 17% of income from government
- President and Fellows of Harvard College — 7% of income from government
- Greenagers Inc — 7% of income from government
- Roots Rising Inc — 6% of income from government
- The Center for Independent Documentary Inc — 6% of income from government
- The Boston Camerata Inc — 4% of income from government
- Silk Road Project Inc — 4% of income from government
- Third Sector New England Inc — 3% of income from government
- Shelburne Farms — 3% of income from government
- Berkshire Taconic Community Foundation Inc — 2% of income from government
- The Trustees of Reservations — 2% of income from government
- The Orion Society Inc — 2% of income from government
- Appalachian Mountain Club — 1% of income from government
- Berkshire Agricultural Ventures Inc — 1% of income from government
- The Filmmakers Collaborative Inc — 1% of income from government
- Berkshire Garden Center Inc Dba Berkshire Botanical Garden Inc — 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 Roaring Brook Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Roaring Brook Family 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.