· Private foundation
Walter & Merle Baum Foundation Inc
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).
A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 63% of WALTER & MERLE BAUM 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 · FY2025
- $10k–50k13 grants · $240k
- $50k–250k3 grants · $225k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| UNIVERSITY OF BRIDGEPORT | $100,000 |
| CONGREGATION BETH EL | $75,000 |
| FAIRFIELD UNIVERSITY | $50,000 |
| ADAM J LEWIS ACADEMY INC | $35,000 |
| STERLING HOUSE COMMUNITY CENTER | $30,000 |
| HOPKINS SCHOOL | $25,000 |
| BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF MILFORD | $25,000 |
| KOLBE CATHEDRAL HIGH SCHOOL | $25,000 |
| IN A HEARTBEAT INC | $15,000 |
| THE THOMAS MERTON CENTER | $15,000 |
| RAPE CRISIS CENTER OF MILFORD | $15,000 |
| SAINT CATHERINE'S ACADEMY | $15,000 |
| CROHN'S AND COLITIS FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| UNIQUE & UNIFIED NEW ERA YOUTH MOVEMENT INC | $10,000 |
| MOZAIC JEWISH HOME | $10,000 |
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 (FY20–25, $105k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, 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 +47% since the first grant, against -13% for the ones you funded once.
17 repeat relationships — 12 still active in FY2025, 5 since wound down; 4 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (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 FY2025, 88% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $55k 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
- AJADAM J LEWIS ACADEMY INC6× · 2020–2025 · $165k · revenue +227%
Fairfield University5× · 2021–2025 · $150k · revenue +63%- SHSTERLING HOUSE COMMUNITY CENTER INC5× · 2020–2025 · $105k · revenue +113%
Funded once
- CYCONNECTICUT YANKEE COUNCIL INC BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICAone grant, 2021 · $75k · revenue -24%
- TNThe Norwalk Symphony Society Incone grant, 2019 · $75k · revenue 0%
- LTLove to Langaone grant, 2019 · $50k · revenue -18% · 37% of their budget
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.
The jewish high school of connecticut is dedicated to educate jewish youth for whom jewish values and traditions shape and guide their lives and for whom learning and responsible actions are foundational for achievement.
To operate an acute care hospital in bridgeport, connecticut for the care and treatment of persons suffering from disease or other physical or mental conditions without regard to race, color, creed, sex, age or ability to pay.
The bridge academy, inc. was granted a charter to operate the bridge academy, a public school located in the city of bridgeport, ct. the school was founded in 1997 to provide college preparatory curriculum designed to overcome the…
Brunswick school, inc. is a day school for boys in pre-kindergarten through twelfth grade. the purpose of the school is to educate the "whole boy". it does so by helping boys and young men - without regard to culture, ethnicity or religion…
An independent, nonprofit school serving the lower fairfield county area of connecticut for children ages three to eight, and providing an environment that fosters in children the joy of learning through the use of innovative materials and…
Cold spring school challenges children to become self-reliant, curious and resourceful problem solvers with the academic and social skills to engage constructively and ethically in our diverse, changing world.
The University of New Haven is a student-centered comprehensive university with an emphasis on excellence in liberal arts and professional education. Our mission is to prepare our students to lead purposeful and fulfilling lives in a…
Jewish family service of greater new haven (jfsgnh) supports and strengthens individual, family, and community life by providing a wide range of social services. we welcome people of all ages, races, ethnicities, sexual orientations,…
The mission of hebrew home and hospital aligns with the mission of its parent organization, hebrew health care, to provide quality services to senior adults. (see schedule o)as part of an integrated system to assist seniors in the…
To provide a compassionate community where loving care enables aged and indigent individuals from meriden and connecticut to live with dignity in a secure, homelike environment.
Camp laurelwood is connecticut's only jewish non-profit overnight camp, and also a shoreline jewish day camp with the objectives of fostering personal growth, leadership, self-reliance, self-confidence, cooperation, and a sense of…
Rippowam Cisqua School creates independent thinkers, confident communicators, and engaged leaders who respect and contribute meaningfully to a diverse and increasingly complex global society.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Adam J Lewis Academy Inc and the most unlike its peers is Sequassen Alumni Association 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 41 years old; the field is 19. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 19% startups (under 5 years old) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% 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.
25 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. 25 of the 39 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 HOPKINS SCHOOL INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds ADAM J LEWIS ACADEMY INC ↗
- Who funds Fairfield University ↗
- Who funds STERLING HOUSE COMMUNITY CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF MILFORD INC ↗
- Who funds MHA MERTON HOUSE LLC ↗
- Who funds CONNECTICUT YANKEE COUNCIL INC BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA ↗
- Who funds The Norwalk Symphony Society Inc ↗
- Who funds CATHOLIC CHARITIES OF FAIRFIELD COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds CROHN'S & COLITIS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Love to Langa ↗
- Who funds KLEIN MEMORIAL AUDITORIUM FOUNDATIONINC ↗
- Who funds GREATER BRIDGEPORT SYMPHONY SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds JEWISH HOME FOR THE ELDERLY OF FAIRFIELD COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds DOMINATE THE DAY FOUNDATION CORP ↗
- Who funds FEDERATION FOR JEWISH PHILANTHROPY OF UPPER FAIRFIELD COUNTY ↗
- Who funds ST MARTIN DE PORRES ACADEMY INC ↗
- Who funds IN A HEARTBEAT INC ↗
- Who funds RAPE CRISIS CENTER OF MILFORD INC ↗
- Who funds ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE ↗
- Who funds Sequassen Alumni Association Inc ↗
- Who funds PROJECT MUSIC INC ↗
- Who funds BHcare Inc ↗
- Who funds BRIDGEPORT HOSPITAL FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds TOYS FOR HOSPITAL TOTS 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: Fairfield County's Community Foundation Inc · Ge Aerospace Foundation · The Community Foundation for Greater New Haven · The Near and Far Association Inc · Ibm International Foundation · Connecticut Humanities Council Inc · Young Mens Christian Association of Westport/Weston Ct Inc · The Inner-City Foundation for Charity & Education Inc · The John and Ethel Kashulon Foundation · The Scripps Family Fund for Education and the Arts · Alexander Family Foundation Inc · Newalliance 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 Walter & Merle Baum 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.
- Boys & Girls Club of Milford Inc — 88% of income from government
- BHcare Inc — 68% of income from government
- Project Music Inc — 14% of income from government
- The Norwalk Symphony Society Inc — 13% of income from government
- Sterling House Community Center Inc — 8% of income from government
- Rape Crisis Center of Milford Inc — 6% of income from government
- Greater Bridgeport Symphony Society Inc — 3% of income from government
- Klein Memorial Auditorium Foundationinc — 1% of income from government
- Fairfield University — 1% of income from government
- Jewish Home for the Elderly of Fairfield County Inc — 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
How do I get to Walter & Merle Baum Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to Walter & Merle Baum 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.