· Private foundation
The Winthrop H Smith Jr Charitable 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
By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).
A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 60% of THE WINTHROP H SMITH JR CHARITABLE FOUNDATION INC’s grantee dollars fall outside its nine largest cause areas, whether because the recipient carries no IRS cause code or because its cause sits in the long tail. A chart would be mostly one residual band and misrepresent the portfolio.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k25 grants · $63k
- $10k–50k11 grants · $118k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $110k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| BURLINGTON CITY ARTS | $110,000 |
| MAD RIVER VALLEY INTERFAITH COUNCIL | $15,000 |
| NEW LEARNING JOURNEY | $12,500 |
| THE NATURE CONSERVANCY VERMONT | $10,000 |
| MAD RIVER VALLEY COMMUNITY FUND | $10,000 |
| HIGH FIVES FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| MUSIC FOR THE EARTH INC | $10,000 |
| UNQUOWA SCHOOL ASSN | $10,000 |
| ME2 | $10,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $10,000 |
| CANCER RESEARCH INSTITUTE | $10,000 |
| SHELBURNE FARMS | $10,000 |
| MAD RIVER VALLEY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE INC | $5,200 |
| WOMEN IN FILM & VIDEO-NEW ENGLAND CHAPTER INC | $5,200 |
| VERMONT COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
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 (FY23–24, $17k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 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.
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 +19% since the first grant, against +17% for the ones you funded once.
31 repeat relationships — 23 still active in FY2024, 8 since wound down; 12 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, 40% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $171k 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
- POPROTECT OUR WINTERS4× · 2021–2024 · $40k · revenue +44%
- TUTHE UNQUOWA SCHOOL ASSOCIATION INC5× · 2020–2024 · $32k · revenue +19%
VERMONT JOURNALISM TRUST LTD3× · 2020–2022 · $30k · revenue +19%
Funded once
THE TRUST FOR PUBLIC LANDgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $25k · revenue +109%
Adaptive Sports Center of Crested Butte Incgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $25k · revenue +69%- MFMOUNTAIN FOUNDATIONone grant, 2020 · $20k · revenue +17%
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.
Protect land along rivers, lakes and wetlands of vt; protect public access, wildlife habitat, scenic natural beauty, and ecological integrity.
Vermont electric cooperative is a member owned not-for-profit whose mission is to provide safe, affordable, and reliable energy services to its members.
Veic is a sustainable energy company on a mission to generate the energy solutions the world needs (continues in schedule o). (continued), working to combat the climate crisis, boost community resilience, and lower energy costs. for nearly…
To sustain a sound economy and preserve vermont's unique quality of life by studying and making recommendations on statewide public policy issues.
See schedule othe mission of the vermont council on world affairs is to promote awareness and understanding of the world and its people, places and cultures through education and engagement. the future of vermont depends upon the world…
To provide financial support for the operations and programs of vermont college of fine arts, inc.
Rooted in vermont since 1977, the vermont land trust unites land and lives for the enduring benefit of people and the place we share. we help people protect, care for, and connect to land. this includes the farms, forests, natural areas,…
Founded in 1972, the vermont public interest research group (vpirg) is the largest nonprofit consumer and environmental advocacy organization in vermont. for five decades, vpirg has brought the voices of everyday vermonters to public…
The mission of vins is to motivate individuals and communities to care for the environment through education, research, and avian wildlife rehabilitation.
To leverage the power of business for positive social and environmental impact.
The mission of mountain river school is to honor children's intrinsic passion for learning and inspire curiosity through holistic, nature-based education.
Using the humanities, we connect with people across vermont to create just, vibrant, and resilient communities, and to inspire a lifelong love of learning.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Vermont Community Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Music for the Earth 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 33 years old; the field is 21. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 16% 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 8% 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.
42 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. 42 of the 80 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 BURLINGTON CITY ARTS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds MAD RIVER VALLEY COMMUNITY FUND INC ↗
- Who funds LET'S GROW KIDS INC ↗
- Who funds PROTECT OUR WINTERS ↗
- Who funds THE UNQUOWA SCHOOL ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds VERMONT FOODBANK ↗
- Who funds VERMONT JOURNALISM TRUST LTD ↗
- Who funds THE KELLY S BRUSH FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE TRUST FOR PUBLIC LAND ↗
- Who funds Adaptive Sports Center of Crested Butte Inc ↗
- Who funds MOUNTAIN FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CANCER RESEARCH INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds NEW LEARNING JOURNEY INC ↗
- Who funds MUSIC FOR THE EARTH INC ↗
- Who funds MAD RIVER VALLEY INTERFAITH COUNCIL ↗
- Who funds TRUSTEES OF DEERFIELD ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds MAD RIVER VALLEY CHAMBER OF COMMERCE ↗
- Who funds FORMAN SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds VERMONT COUNCIL ON RURAL DEVELOPMENT INC ↗
- Who funds SHELBURNE FARMS ↗
- Who funds VERMONT SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ASSOCIATION 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: The Vermont Community Foundation · National Life Group Charitable Foundation Inc · The Carmel Hill Fund · The Morris & Bessie Altman Foundation · RUTH & PETER METZ FAMILY FOUNDATION co THOMAS PHELAN · Oakland Foundation Inc · Lintilhac Foundation Inc · Ben & Jerry's Foundation Inc · Xenon Foundation · Larsen Fund · Forrest C & Frances H Lattner Foundation · The Windham 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 Winthrop H Smith Jr Charitable 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.
- Vermont Council On Rural Development Inc — 17% of income from government
- Vermont Foodbank — 13% of income from government
- Friends of the Mad River — 12% of income from government
- Vermont Symphony Orchestra Association Inc — 11% of income from government
- Vermont Adaptive Ski and Sports — 11% of income from government
- Catamount Trail Association — 10% of income from government
- Burlington City Arts Foundation Inc — 6% of income from government
- Litchfield Historical Society — 3% of income from government
- Shelburne Farms — 3% of income from government
- Mad River Path Association — 2% of income from government
- The Legacy Theatre Inc — 1% of income from government
- Vermont Public Co — 0% of income from government
- Vermont Journalism Trust Ltd — 0% of income from government
- The Vermont Community 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
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Find your warmest path to The Winthrop H Smith Jr Charitable 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.