· Private foundation
Trustees of the Ayer Home
Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
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 |
|---|---|
| LOWELL DAY NURSERY ASSOC | $4,600 |
| LOWELL BOYS & GIRLS CLUB | $4,600 |
| GIRLS INC | $4,600 |
| LOWELL ASSOC FOR THE BLIND | $4,000 |
| MERRIMACK VALLEY FOOD BANK | $4,000 |
| ACS INC | $3,600 |
| ACRE FAMILY DAY CARE | $3,600 |
| THE WISH PROJECT | $3,600 |
| LOWELL COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTER | $3,600 |
| PROJECT LEARN | $3,600 |
| MERRIMACK REPERTORY THEATRE | $3,600 |
| ALTERNATIVE HOUSE | $3,400 |
| HOUSE OF HOPE | $3,400 |
| THE CENTER FOR HOPE AND HEALING | $3,000 |
| GREATER LOWELL FAMILY YMCA | $3,000 |
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, $46k) land where the poverty rate runs at 8%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 100% 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.
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 +68% since the first grant, against +15% for the ones you funded once.
28 repeat relationships — 23 still active in FY2024, 5 since wound down; 3 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, 96% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $3k 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
- LDLOWELL DAY NURSERY ASSOCIATION INC8× · 2017–2024 · $32k · revenue +98%
- LALOWELL ASSOCIATION FOR THE BLIND INC8× · 2017–2024 · $32k · revenue +53%
- LCLOWELL COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTER INC8× · 2017–2024 · $31k · revenue +78%
Funded once
- MRMERR REPERTORY THEATREone grant, 2017 · $6k
- TCTHE COMMUNITY FAMILY INCone grant, 2019 · $2k · revenue +15%
- RCRAPE CRISIS CENTERone grant, 2017 · $2k
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.
Maha breaks down barriers facing first-time and first-generation home buyers and owners through education, counseling, advocacy, and grassroots organizing.
We work to ensure that individuals with disabilities can live independently as equal members of society.
Daycare services
The massachusetts legal assistance corporation provides leadership and support to improve civil legal services to low-income people in massachusetts through collaboration with the legal services community, the legislature, the public, the…
Lowell makes is a collection of open workshops and laboratories where members and students can collaborate to learn, share, and hone crafts of all kinds. the focus is on providing a space for education, entrepreneurship, and engagement…
Massachusetts education and career opportunities, inc. (massedco, inc.) is a statewide network of service sites that provides education and career advising to over 12,000 low-income, first generation individuals each year. massedco…
Lowell telecommunication corporation's mission is to strengthen the city of lowell as a community media and education center that empowers, connects, and informs all residents, businesses, and organizations in the city. ltc provides…
Metro housing boston mobilizes wide-ranging resources to provide innovative and personalized services that lead families and individuals to housing stability, economic security, and an improved quality of life.
Mfhc is committed to ending systemic housing discrimination and creating inclusive communities through education, outreach, advocacy, housing counseling and enforcement.
Clm undertakes public education and advocacy activities that promote the well being of children and families through improving and ensuring the availability of quality child welfare services.
Brookview's mission is to help homeless and at risk families learn the skills necessary to break the cycle of homelessness and poverty.
To provide specialized advocacy and representation for children on issues affecting their health, education and welfare including providing resources and training
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Lowell Community Health Center Inc and the most unlike its peers is African Community Center of Lowell. 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 40 years old; the field is 15. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 21% startups (under 5 years old) — 8% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 4% 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.
26 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. 26 of the 36 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 LOWELL DAY NURSERY ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds LOWELL ASSOCIATION FOR THE BLIND INC ↗
- Who funds LOWELL COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds PROJECT LEARN INC ↗
- Who funds HOUSE OF HOPE INC ↗
- Who funds CHALLENGE UNLIMITED INC ↗
- Who funds Merrimack Repertory Theatre Inc ↗
- Who funds THE WISH PROJECT ↗
- Who funds ACRE FAMILY CHILD CARE INC ↗
- Who funds MERRIMACK VALLEY FOOD BANK INC ↗
- Who funds INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF NEW ENGLAND INC ↗
- Who funds COALITION FOR A BETTER ACRE INC ↗
- Who funds MILL CITY GROWS INC ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR HOPE & HEALING INC ↗
- Who funds On The Move Inc ↗
- Who funds GREATER LOWELL FAMILY YMCA ↗
- Who funds Cambodian Mutual Assistance Association of Greater Lowell Inc ↗
- Who funds REACH OUT AND READ INC ↗
- Who funds Community Teamwork Inc ↗
- Who funds PROJECT KOMPASS INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds WOMEN'S MONEY MATTERS INC ↗
- Who funds THE COMMUNITY FAMILY INC ↗
- Who funds OUR RESTORATIVE JUSTICE INC ↗
- Who funds AFRICAN COMMUNITY CENTER OF LOWELL ↗
- Who funds LOWELL YOUTH LEADERSHIP PROGRAM INC ↗
- Who funds KIDS IN TECH 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: Theodore Edson Parker Foundation · Eastern Bank Foundation · Greater Lowell Community Foundation Inc · Cummings Foundation Grants Inc (Fka Oneworld Boston Inc) · The Saab Family Foundation · We Share A Common Thread Foundation Inc · Richard K & Nancy L Donahue Charitable Foundation · Salem Five Charitable Foundation Inc · Aubert J Fay Charitable Fund · The Battles Foundation Inc · Greater Lowell Health Alliance Chna 10 Inc · Demoulas 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 Trustees of the Ayer Home 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.
- Center for Hope & Healing Inc — 73% of income from government
- Lowell Association for the Blind Inc — 49% of income from government
- Acre Family Child Care Inc — 45% of income from government
- The Community Family Inc — 41% of income from government
- Lowell Community Health Center Inc — 34% of income from government
- International Institute of New England Inc — 24% of income from government
- Community Teamwork Inc — 23% of income from government
- Lowell Day Nursery Association Inc — 20% of income from government
- Kids in Tech Inc — 15% of income from government
- Reach Out and Read Inc — 9% of income from government
- Mill City Grows Inc — 7% of income from government
- Project Learn Inc — 5% of income from government
- Merrimack Valley Food Bank Inc — 3% of income from government
- Merrimack Repertory Theatre Inc — 2% of income from government
- House of Hope Inc — 1% of income from government
- Women's Money Matters 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.
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