· Private foundation
Watkins Burnham Fund
Its FY2025 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 FY2019–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k1 grant · $5k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $25k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| NEWPORT HISTORICAL SOCIETY | $25,000 |
| CHRIST CHURCH GEORGETOWN | $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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY19–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 24% of your 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.
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 +105% since the first grant, against +53% for the ones you funded once.
6 repeat relationships — 2 still active in FY2025, 4 since wound down.
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, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
NEWPORT HISTORICAL SOCIETY7× · 2019–2025 · $116k · revenue +105%- NCNEWPORT CONTEMPORARY BALLET2× · 2022–2023 · $15k · revenue +31%
- NHNewport Hospital Foundation2× · 2019–2021 · $8k · revenue +86%
Funded once
THE NORMAN BIRD SANCTUARY TRUSTgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $10k · revenue +53%- ACAMHERST COLLEGE TRUSTEESgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $5k · revenue +28%
- MIMETCALF INSTITUTE FOR MARINE & ENVIRONMENTAL REPORTINGone grant, 2019 · $3k
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 nantucket conservation foundation owns, protects, and stewards over 9,000 acres of land and coastal shoreline, conserves nantucket's rare and significant natural resources, and engages in impactful ecological research to inform…
Preserve ri's vision is a future where historic preservation creates positive change, making our diverse cultures, the environment, and the economy better for the people who live, visit and work in rhode island. preserve ri's mission is to…
The mission of the Newport Public Library: To bring people, ideas, and information for the good of every individual and the community it services. The library aims to be a leading resource for information and the center for lifelong…
Bike newport's mission is to ensure that bicycling is a viable, safe, and comfortable primary choice for transportation and recreation.
The nantucket historical association preserves and interprets the history of nantucket through its programs, collections, and properties, in order to promote the island's significance and foster an appreciation of it among all audiences.
The preservation society of newport county's mission is to protect, preserve, and present an exceptional collection of house museums and landscapes in one of the most historically intact cities in america. we hold in public trust the…
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…
The organization's mission is to conserve and promote new england's native plants to ensure healthy, biologically diverse landscapes.
To protect, preserve and interpret the martime heritage of the lower Merrimack Valley region and how it relates to American History
The new england aquarium is a catalyst for global change through public engagement and education, commitment to marine animal conservation, innovative scientific research, and effective advocacy for a vital and vibrant ocean.
To promote the creation and preservation of green space in the city of newport news by acquisition, advocacy, and assistance to others.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Newport Historical Society and the most unlike its peers is The Newport Tree Conservancy. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
8 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. 8 of the 13 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 NEWPORT HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds NEWPORT CONTEMPORARY BALLET ↗
- Who funds THE NORMAN BIRD SANCTUARY TRUST ↗
- Who funds Newport Hospital Foundation ↗
- Who funds AMHERST COLLEGE TRUSTEES ↗
- Who funds The Newport Tree Conservancy ↗
- Who funds Boys and Girls Clubs of Newport County Inc ↗
- Who funds SAVE THE BAY 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: Frederick Henry Prince Testamentary Trust · Van Beuren Charitable Foundation Inc · Ejmp Fund for Philanthropy · Alletta Morris McBean Charitable Trust · The Champlin Foundation · The Rhode Island Community Foundation · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc · The Bernard & Sarah Gewirz Fdn · Gruben Charitable Foundation · Roxiticus Foundation · Bazarsky Family Foundation · The de Ramel 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 Watkins Burnham Fund 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.
- Amherst College Trustees — 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 Watkins Burnham Fund?
Find your warmest path to Watkins Burnham Fund 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.