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Pennsylvania · Private foundation

The William H Spence and Denise a Spence Foundation

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.

$256k
Granted FY2024(still arriving)
4
Grants FY2024
6
Organizations funded FY2023
67%
First-time grantees FY2023
Read the full brief
Median grant, FY2024
$2,500
Largest grant, FY2024
$253,000
Organizations funded a year
2 to 6
FY2021 to FY2023
States reached, FY2024
2
Total assets, FY2024
$5.3M
Applications
Preselected organizations only
Per its most recent filing; check its own site

How open it is to new grantees

In FY2023, 67% of the organizations The William H Spence and Denise a Spence Foundation funded were first-time grantees, receiving 11% of its grant dollars.

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2023, 89% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $39k went to new ones.

50%100%’22’23
RenewedFirst-time
How this is measured
First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). The earliest year is left-censored: relationships that predate the data read as new. Theme is the grantee’s IRS cause.
The numbers by year
Fiscal yearOrganizations fundedTo those organizationsFirst-time grantees
FY2024still arriving4$256k75%
FY20236$366k67%
FY20222$401k50%
FY20215$295kn/a
89% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2021 to 2024.

Philanthropy$1.2MEducation$50kArts & Culture$34kReligion$14kScience & Tech$3kRecreation & Sports$3kHuman Services$1kOther$0

Top grantees

Largest recipients by total granted, FY2021 to FY2024, and the share of each one’s budget the grants supplied at peak.

Plus 6 recipients with no EIN on record ($1.0M), not named here.

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.

United Way of the Greater Lehigh ValleyPA15.6× affinity5 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: United Way of the Greater Lehigh Valley · Ppl Foundation · Frederick H Bedford Jr & Margaret S Bedford Charitable Foundation · The Donald B and Dorothy L Stabler Foundation · Lehigh Valley Community Foundation · Air Products Foundation · Aetna Foundation Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Charities Aid Foundation America · American Endowment Foundation · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc

How this is measured
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

Compare The William H Spence and Denise a Spence Foundation with peer funders

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to The William H Spence and Denise a Spence Foundation?

Find your warmest path to The William H Spence and Denise a Spence 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.

About The William H Spence and Denise a Spence Foundation

How much does The William H Spence and Denise a Spence Foundation give?
The William H Spence and Denise a Spence Foundation reported 4 grants totaling $256,250 in its FY2024 IRS filing. It funded between 2 and 6 organizations a year over FY2021 to FY2023.
What does The William H Spence and Denise a Spence Foundation fund?
By grant dollars over FY2021 to FY2024, its largest causes are Philanthropy (92%), Education (4%), Arts & Culture (3%).
Who are The William H Spence and Denise a Spence Foundation's largest grantees?
By total granted over FY2021 to FY2024: United Way of the Greater Lehigh Valley ($253k), Bloom for Women Inc ($10k), Delaware Museum of Nature and Science Inc ($3k).
Does The William H Spence and Denise a Spence Foundation fund new organizations?
In FY2023, 67% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.
Does The William H Spence and Denise a Spence Foundation accept unsolicited applications?
Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Which funders back the same organizations as The William H Spence and Denise a Spence Foundation?
Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include United Way of the Greater Lehigh Valley, Ppl Foundation, Frederick H Bedford Jr & Margaret S Bedford Charitable Foundation.
Where is The William H Spence and Denise a Spence Foundation based?
The William H Spence and Denise a Spence Foundation is based in PA.

On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 14 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

How this is measured
Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears.

Generated from the IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2024, released 2024. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Source object · view filing

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