· Private foundation
We Share A Common Thread Foundation Inc
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 FY2019–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Total Contributions Paid | $374,188 |
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, $265k) land where the poverty rate runs at 8%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 1% of those 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.
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 +36% since the first grant, against +26% for the ones you funded once.
231 repeat relationships — 0 still active in FY2024, 231 since wound down; 1 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, 0% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $374k 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
THE LOWELL GENERAL HOSPITAL5× · 2019–2023 · $148k · revenue +25%
Catie's Closet Inc5× · 2019–2023 · $81k · revenue +38%- BGBOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF GREATER LOWELL INC5× · 2019–2023 · $66k · revenue +103%
Funded once
- UOUNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS LOWELLone grant, 2019 · $25k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2021 · $7k
- MAMASSACHUSETTS A BED FOR EVERY CHILDone grant, 2022 · $6k
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.
Daycare services
Assist people with disabilities
Mfhc is committed to ending systemic housing discrimination and creating inclusive communities through education, outreach, advocacy, housing counseling and enforcement.
To provide services and residential support to individuals with disabilities
Maha breaks down barriers facing first-time and first-generation home buyers and owners through education, counseling, advocacy, and grassroots organizing.
To sustain a strategic alliance of community organizations that improves the overall health and wellness of those living in the greater lowell region. by raising awareness and providing resources for our communities, schools, civic and…
Low income housing for the handicapped.
Neighborworks housing solutions provides neighborhood revitalization through promoting, developing and maintaining affordable housing in southeastern massachusetts
The mission of The Open Pantry is to relieve hunger in our community. We aim to connect people to a variety of filling, nutritious, and culturally-appropriate food as well as to other community resources; to advocate on behalf of those in…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Greater Lawrence Community Action Council Inc and the most unlike its peers is Service Credit Union Impact Foundation. 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 30 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 21% startups (under 5 years old) — 6% of your grantees by number, and just 4% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.5% 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.
181 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. 181 of the 337 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
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
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 THE LOWELL GENERAL HOSPITAL ↗
- Who funds Catie's Closet Inc ↗
- Who funds Greater Lowell Community Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF GREATER LOWELL INC ↗
- Who funds GREATER LOWELL FAMILY YMCA ↗
- Who funds Boys & Girls Club of Greater Nashua Inc ↗
- Who funds MILL CITY GROWS INC ↗
- Who funds LOWELL COMMUNITY HEALTH CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds MERRIMACK VALLEY FOOD BANK INC ↗
- Who funds NEW ENGLAND PATRIOTS ALUMNI CLUB INC ↗
- Who funds GREATER LAWRENCE FAMILY HEALTH CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds DCU for Kids ↗
- Who funds LOWELL HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds UTEC Inc ↗
- Who funds Hidden Battles Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds GIRLS INCORPORATED OF GREATER LOWELL ↗
- Who funds MIDDLESEX COMMUNITY COLLEGE FOUNDATION C/O JACKSON CHEGE ↗
- Who funds SERVICE CREDIT UNION IMPACT FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds LOWELL HUMANE SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds CU KIDS AT HEART INC ↗
- Who funds ACRE FAMILY CHILD CARE INC ↗
- Who funds HANSCOM FCU CHARITABLE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Owl Diner Charities Inc ↗
- Who funds THE MEGAN HOUSE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds LAZARUS HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds Merrimack Repertory Theatre Inc ↗
- Who funds POWER OF FLOWERS PROJECT ↗
- Who funds COOPERATIVE CREDIT UNION ASSOCIATION 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: Greater Lowell Community Foundation Inc · Eastern Bank Foundation · The Saab Family Foundation · Cummings Foundation Grants Inc (Fka Oneworld Boston Inc) · Salem Five Charitable Foundation Inc · Theodore Edson Parker Foundation · Essex County Community Foundation Inc · Demoulas Foundation · Rogers Family Foundation · Lowell Five Charitable Foundation Inc · Agnes M Lindsay Trust · Richard K & Nancy L Donahue Charitable 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 We Share A Common Thread 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.
- Troubled Waters Inc — 98% of income from government
- Incompass Human Services Inc — 94% of income from government
- Bridgewell Inc — 85% of income from government
- L'Arche Boston North Inc — 82% of income from government
- Center for Hope & Healing Inc — 73% of income from government
- Agespan Inc — 57% of income from government
- Cultural Organization of Lowell Inc — 52% of income from government
- Lowell Association for the Blind Inc — 49% of income from government
- Utec Inc — 46% of income from government
- Acre Family Child Care Inc — 45% of income from government
- Greater Lawrence Family Health Center Inc — 40% of income from government
- Lowell Community Health Center Inc — 34% of income from government
- Boys & Girls Club of Greater Lowell Inc — 27% of income from government
- Community Teamwork Inc — 23% of income from government
- Semana Hispana En Lawrence Inc — 18% of income from government
- Greater Lowell Community Foundation Inc — 18% of income from government
- Ellie Fund Inc — 15% of income from government
- The Megan House Foundation Inc — 15% of income from government
- Greater Lawrence Community Action Council Inc — 15% of income from government
- The Lowell Festival Foundation — 12% of income from government
- Family Services of the Merrimack Valley Inc — 11% of income from government
- Acord Inc — 10% of income from government
- Angkor Dance Troupe Inc — 10% of income from government
- Children's Hospital Corporation — 10% of income from government
- Food Link Inc — 9% of income from government
- Reach Out and Read Inc — 9% of income from government
- Lawrence Communityworks Inc — 9% of income from government
- Communities for Restorative Justice Inc — 8% of income from government
- Mill City Grows Inc — 7% of income from government
- Dwelling House of Hope Inc — 7% of income from government
- Dana-Farber Cancer Institute Inc — 7% of income from government
- The Shriners' Hospital for Children — 6% of income from government
- Ymca of the North Shore Inc — 6% of income from government
- The Lowell General Hospital — 5% of income from government
- Project Learn Inc — 5% of income from government
- Ywca Northeastern Massachusetts Inc — 5% of income from government
- Catie's Closet Inc — 4% of income from government
- The Drew Farmhouse Inc — 4% of income from government
- Merrimack Valley Food Bank Inc — 3% of income from government
- Neighbors in Need Inc — 3% of income from government
- Tufts Medicine Care at Home Inc — 3% of income from government
- Girls Incorporated of Greater Lowell — 3% of income from government
- New England Quilt Museum Inc — 3% of income from government
- Essex Art Center 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
- Lowell Makes Inc — 1% of income from government
- Lazarus House Inc — 1% of income from government
- Greater Lowell Chamber of Commerce 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 We Share A Common Thread Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to We Share A Common Thread 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.