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· Public charity
VERMONT ASSOCIATION OF CONSERVATION
See part iii - statement of program service accomplishments
$364k
Granted FY2023
15
Grants
1
Communities
$95k
Largest
01What you fund
01
What you funded, over time
By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).
A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 92% of VERMONT ASSOCIATION OF CONSERVATION’s grantee dollars go to organizations outside the IRS cause taxonomy (common for large international and research funders), so a chart would be mostly “unclassified” and misrepresent the portfolio.
02beneath the categories
Past the labels — and the year it shifted
Beneath the NTEE codes, this is what the grant descriptions actually say.
…and in their own words, year by year
2019
districtnrcdfire protection
2020
district ruralnrcdfire protection
2021
nat protfire protectio
2022
fire protectionat prot
2023
nat protfire protectio
Words distinctive to each year’s grant purposes (TF-IDF) · event-driven terms in cyan.
03FY2023 · 15 grants
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2023
- Under $10k6 grants · $49k
- $10k–50k8 grants · $189k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $95k
$11,203
Median grant
1
States reached
$911k
Total assets
Largest grants
- FRANKLIN COUNTY NRCD$94,748
- ORLEANS COUNTY NRCD$44,974
- WINOOSKI NRCD$44,776
- WHITE RIVER NRCD$34,980
- WELLS VFD$15,000
- LAMOILLE NRCD$14,915
- WINDHAM COUNTY NRCD$13,395
- CALEDONIA COUNTY NRCD$11,203
- TOWN OF LUDLOW$10,000
- HARTLAND VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT$9,732
- OTTER CREEK NRCD$9,180
- POULTNEY-METTOWEE NRCD$8,466
- WEST HAVEN FIRE DEPARTMENT$7,829
- SHOREHAM VFD$7,808
- ESSEX COUNTY NRCD$5,977
02The need
04
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.
show:
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY19–23) land where the poverty rate runs at 10% — the area typically sits at 9%. 60% of your dollars reach neighborhoods with above-average need. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in 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, United Way ALICE — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.
03Your edge
repeat funding
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.
72%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.
$790k · 13 repeat orgs$305k to everyone else
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +92% since the first grant, against +29% for the ones you funded once.
13 repeat relationships — 10 still active in FY2023, 3 since wound down; 5 grantees were first funded in FY2023 (too recent to call).
How the two cohorts compare
Re-uppedFunded once
Organizations
13
27
Total granted
$790k
$251k
Median revenue growth · since first grant
+92%
+29%
Still filing today
23%
19%
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2023, 84% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $54k went to new ones.
RenewedFirst-time
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
- ECESSEX COUNTY NRCD4× · 2019–2023 · $32k · revenue +92%
- WPWEST PAWLET VFD2× · 2020–2021 · $29k · revenue +18%
- HVHARTLAND VOLUNTEER FIRE DEPARTMENT2× · 2021–2023 · $20k · revenue +94%
Funded once
- BVBRIDGEWATER VFDone grant, 2022 · $17k · revenue -44%
- MTMENDON TOWN OFone grant, 2020 · $15k
- PVPLYMOUTH VFDone grant, 2022 · $15k
Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
04Your field
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.
1
West Fairlee Volunteer Fire Department Inc
Public Safety & Disaster
2
Verona Volunteer Fire Department
Volunteer Fire Department
—
3
Ferrisburgh Volunteer Fire Dept Inc
Public Service - Fire Department
Public Safety & Disaster
4
Tri-Village Fire Association Inc
Volunteer Fire Department covering the towns of Topsham and Orange Vermont
—
5
Stratton Mountain Volunteer Fire Co Inc
Fire Protection
—
6
Barnard Fire Department Inc
Volunteer Fire Department
Public Safety & Disaster
7
Middlebush Volunteer Fire Dept Inc
To protect life and property from fire and the resulting damage.
Public Safety & Disaster
8
Bridgeport Volunteer Fire Department Inc
Public Safety & Disaster
9
East Avon Fire Department Inc
Volunteer Fire Department
Public Safety & Disaster
10
Burnsville Volunteer Fire Department
Burnsville vfd provides fire protection, safty, and rescue service
Public Safety & Disaster
11
Ottawa Volunteer Fire Department
The purpose of the ottawa volunteer firefighters association will be to fundraise and collect funds through donations, grants and bequest and to administer these funds within the ottawa volunteer firefighters association for the benefit of…
Recreation & Sports
12
New Market Volunteer Fire Co Inc
Protect the community and its citizens from the dangers of fire and other emergencies.
Public Safety & Disaster
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Newbrook Volunteer Fire Association Inc and the most unlike its peers is Sheldon Fire Department Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
05the grantee network
8 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2017–2025.
Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue.
0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
4
Early backer (in before they grew)
8/8
Grantees still filing
7/8
Grew since you first funded
Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee
Other$1,002,969Public Safety & Disaster$92,353
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.
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.
Center for Technology and Civic LifeIL26.4× affinity13 shared granteesties to 2 of 2Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →
Open a dossier: Center for Technology and Civic Life · The Vermont Community Foundation · Vermont Afterschool 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 organisation VERMONT ASSOCIATION OF CONSERVATION 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.
2025
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
3get no government money at all
0rely on government for over half their income
⤢ axis zoomed · 0–50%
typical government reliance, FY20–25
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. 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.
05Through Plinth
Through Plinth
Your grantmaking, live and operational
This dossier was generated cold from public filings. In Plinth it’s a working system — every applicant assessed and every grant monitored. Here’s a taste, run on one of your grantees: WEST PAWLET VFD.
Agentic due diligence · confidence × risk
Financial management
insufficient risk
Limited financial data in public filings.
Track record & reputation
low risk
7 years of Form 990 filings, still active.
Legal standing
low risk
US 501(c)(3); EIN 030270797 on file with current IRS Form 990 filings.
Governance
Live in Plinth
Board composition & governance documents — verified live in Plinth from the applicant.
Compliance & sanctions
Live in Plinth
OFAC / UN sanctions screening — run live in Plinth at assessment.
Program capacity
Live in Plinth
Staffing, M&E and activity alignment — assessed live in Plinth from submitted proposals.
Live · Plinth’s real DD engine
Run the actual assessment on WEST PAWLET VFD, cold from public data.
Generated live from public IRS filings + open web sources by Plinth’s agentic engine. Shown as an illustration of the product, not a formal assessment.
Post-award monitoring · continuous checks
- Awaiting reportFinancial stability— Runway not derivable from filings.
- On trackSustained operations— Filing through 2025; revenue grew over the period.
- On trackReliance on your funding— Your grants peaked at 22% of their budget — diversified.
- Awaiting reportEvidence of delivery— Plinth collects the grantee's own monitoring reports post-award.
What you see here is static and public. In Plinth it’s operational — the full six-pillar framework on every applicant (with their own documents + live registry and sanctions checks), monitoring dashboards on every award, custom board reports, and eligibility routing for intake.
Agentic due diligenceMonitoring dashboardsCustom board reportsEligibility routing
Preview generated from this grantee’s public IRS filings and independent reporting. Pillars marked “live in Plinth” require the applicant’s submitted documents. Shown as illustration, not a formal assessment.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPro
How do I get to Vermont Association of Conservation?
Find your warmest path to Vermont Association of Conservation through people who sit on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the introduction across shared trustees and officers.
Every link is a documented governance overlap in public IRS 990 filings — not a personal network — and each hop carries its own confidence tier. Low-confidence or distant paths are held back rather than guessed.
More from the funding graph
The regranting layer
51% of grant dollars pass through an intermediary
The DAF merry-go-round
$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds
Strange bedfellows
the named clusters of US funding
The camps
funders cluster by geography, not ideology
By state
where grant money is based, and what stays home
State money flows
the interactive map of money crossing state lines