· Private foundation
Twig 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.
Read this first · the figures below need context
92% of Twig Foundation’s FY2024 grant dollars went to Maine Community Foundation Inc, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2024 names 5 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2023, the last year Twig Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 11 organizations, $223k. It is dated, not current.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2019–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2023
- Under $10k8 grants · $56k
- $10k–50k9 grants · $167k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| INTERNATIONAL RESCUE COMMITTEE | $35,000 |
| MSF USADOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS | $25,000 |
| UNICEF | $25,000 |
| INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE MISSION | $20,000 |
| ACTION AGAINST HUNGER | $18,000 |
| KNOX COUNTY HOMELESS COALITION | $14,000 |
| CARBON180 | $10,000 |
| FISTULA FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| GOOD SHEPHERD FOOD BANK MAINE | $10,000 |
| NATURAL RESOURCES COUNCIL OF MAINE | $8,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $8,000 |
| HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | $8,000 |
| ACLU | $8,000 |
| WALDO COUNTY COMMUNITY ACTION | $8,000 |
| TIDES FOUNDATION | $7,000 |
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 (FY19–23, $90k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 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.
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 +39% since the first grant, against -24% for the ones you funded once.
25 repeat relationships — 16 still active in FY2023, 9 since wound down; 2 grantees were first funded in FY2023 (too recent to call). Read against FY2023, the last year this funder named its own grantees directly; its giving has since run through a sponsor, which reports no donor behind each grant.
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, 75% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $60k 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
- IRInternational Rescue Committee INC6× · 2019–2024 · $233k · revenue +67%
- IJINTERNATIONAL JUSTICE MISSION6× · 2019–2024 · $118k · revenue +75%
The Fistula Foundation6× · 2019–2024 · $87k · revenue +74%
Funded once
- ACAMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNIONone grant, 2021 · $13k
- CCCOMMON CAUSE EDUCATION FUNDone grant, 2021 · $10k · revenue +11%
NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE & EDUC FUND INCone grant, 2021 · $10k · revenue -61%
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.
To drive transformational adaptation to protect communities across the country from higher seas, stronger storms, and more frequent flooding.
American gas association's (the association) mission is to develop and advocate for informed, innovative, and durable policy that fulfills our nation's energy needs, environmental aspirations and economic potential. we are committed to…
The union of concerned scientists puts rigorous, independent science into action, developing solutions and advocating for a healthy, safe, and just future.
Actionaid is an international network building a just, equitable, and sustainable world in solidarity with communities on the frontlines of poverty and injustice. actionaid usa is the u.s. branch of actionaid international, which works in…
The open markets institute works to help people relearn how to use competition policy to build stronger democracies, more just and equitable societies, more innovative and sustainable economies, and a more secure and peaceful world.
The npr foundation ("foundation") is organized and operated exclusively for the benefit of its sole supported organization, national public radio, inc. ("npr inc."). the foundation supports npr inc. through various activities such as…
Founded in 1889, the national association of regulatory utility commisioners (naruc) is a non-profit organization dedicated to representing the state public service commisions who regulate the utilities that provide essential services such…
Preservation of civil liberties through litigation and public education.
Improving the transparency and scientific integrity of climate solutions through open data and tools.
The american civil liberties union of northern california (aclu nc union) defends and advances the principles of freedom, equality and justice contained in the united states constitution. aclu nc union, a california mutual benefit…
Fair count builds long-term power within historically undercounted communities. with the census as our north star, we use every iteration of civic participation as a catalyst to build a more equitable democracy.
Water.org's goal is to bring safe water and sanitation to the world through access to small, affordable loans.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Action Against Hunger - Usa and the most unlike its peers is International Rescue Committee 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 37 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) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 9% 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.
29 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. 29 of the 41 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 Maine Community Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds International Rescue Committee INC ↗
- Who funds INTERNATIONAL JUSTICE MISSION ↗
- Who funds The Fistula Foundation ↗
- Who funds Homeworthy ↗
- Who funds UNITED STATES FUND FOR UNICEF ↗
- Who funds HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH INC ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds ACTION AGAINST HUNGER - USA ↗
- Who funds YOU CAN VOTE ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR CARBON REMOVAL ↗
- Who funds Natural Resources Council of Maine Inc ↗
- Who funds SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds Good Shepherd Food Bank ↗
- Who funds TIDES FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds NEW GEORGIA PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF PENNSYLVANIA INC ↗
- Who funds COMMON CAUSE EDUCATION FUND ↗
- Who funds NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE & EDUC FUND INC ↗
- Who funds PRO PUBLICA INC ↗
- Who funds EARTHJUSTICE ↗
- Who funds Center for Common Ground ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE EARTH ↗
- Who funds WIKIMEDIA FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds PROGEORGIA STATE TABLE INC ↗
- Who funds BLUEPRINT NORTH CAROLINA ↗
- Who funds TEXAS ORGANIZING PROJECT EDUCATION FUND ↗
- Who funds WALDO COMMUNITY ACTION PARTNERS ↗
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: Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile 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 Twig 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 or a single department — and drag the year to watch it move.
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 Twig Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Twig 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.