How much does Whispering Bells Foundation give?

Whispering Bells Foundation reported 8 grants totaling $167,000 in its FY2024 IRS filing. It funded between 2 and 145 organizations a year over FY2017 to FY2023.

What does Whispering Bells Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2024, its largest causes are Civil Rights (14%), Education (13%), International (11%).

Who are Whispering Bells Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2024: Prep for Prep ($375k), City Harvest Inc ($262k), United Jewish Appeal-Federation of Jewish Philanthropies of New York Inc ($153k).

Does Whispering Bells Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2023, 0% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Whispering Bells Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

Which funders back the same organizations as Whispering Bells Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Greater Washington Community Foundation, The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation, Nora Roberts Foundation.

Where is Whispering Bells Foundation based?

Whispering Bells Foundation is based in DC.

Whispering Bells Foundation

Whispering Bells Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

Whispering Bells 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.

$167k

Granted FY2024still arriving

Grants FY2024still arriving

States reached

$100k

Largest

01What it funds

0192% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2024.

Civil Rights$599kEducation$526kInternational$451kFood & Nutrition$423kHealth$244kPhilanthropy$221kHuman Services$185kArts & Culture$140kOther$0

02FY2024 · 8 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2024

Under $10k5 grants · $19k
$10k–50k2 grants · $48k
$50k–250k1 grant · $100k

$7,500

Median grant

States reached

$5.0M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
CITY HARVEST	$100,000
SHARE OUR STRENGTH	$38,000
NEW YORK LIBRARY	$10,000
METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART	$7,500
UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM	$6,000
MUSEUM OF JEWISH HERITAGE	$2,000
WHITNEY MUSEUM	$2,000
NEW MILFORD FOOD PANTRY	$1,500

02The need

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Its human-services grants (FY17–23, $180k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 75% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

How this is measured

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.

Which US states its grants reach

How this is measured

US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

90%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$3.7M · 140 repeat orgs$394k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +48% since the first grant, against +38% for those funded once.

140 repeat relationships: 5 still active in FY2024, 135 since wound down; 3 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

140

Total granted

$3.7M

$381k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+48%

+38%

Still filing today

67%

65%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 92% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $14k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

AnimalsInternationalArts & CultureHuman ServicesEducationCivil RightsOther

How this is measured

First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

CITY HARVEST INC
6× · 2017–2024 · $262k · revenue +75%
UJ
UNITED JEWISH APPEAL-FEDERATION OF JEWISH PHILANTHROPIES OF NEW YORK INC
5× · 2017–2021 · $153k · revenue +39%
MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC
5× · 2017–2021 · $88k · revenue +98%

Funded once

N
NAACP
one grant, 2020 · $60k
MEDICAL DEBT RESOLUTION INC
one grant, 2020 · $40k · revenue -5%
BP
BOREALIS PHILANTHROPY
one grant, 2020 · $32k · revenue -16%

How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

Actionaid Usa

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…

Social Science

Waterorg

Water.org's goal is to bring safe water and sanitation to the world through access to small, affordable loans.

International

Open Markets Institute

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.

Education

Environmental Investigation Agency

To establish and promote programs to protect the global climate, forests, wildlife and the natural environment, through research, advocacy, and investigation.

International

Asociacion Interamericana Para La Defensa Del Ambiente

To strenghten people's ability to guarantee their individual and collective right to a healthy environment, via the development, implementation, and effective enforcement of national and international law.

Crime & Legal

City Report Inc

CITY REPORT, INC. serves the people of New York through independent journalism that answers their information needs and holds the powerful to account.

Arts & Culture

The Union of Concerned Scientists Inc

The union of concerned scientists puts rigorous, independent science into action, developing solutions and advocating for a healthy, safe, and just future.

International

World Resources Institute

Wri is committed to creating change that improves people's lives and ensures the natural world can thrive. (see schedule o)wri's bold vision requires a formula for success we call "count it. change it. scale it.":- count it: our work is…

International

Women Donors Network

Women donors network advances a just, equitable, and sustainable world through the power of philanthropy, women's leadership, and collective and individual action.

Philanthropy

Global Poverty Project Inc

Our mission is to build a movement of global citizens whose actions will help achieve our vision of a world without extreme poverty.

Social Science

United States Naval Institute

Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.

—

Animal Outlook Inc

Animal outlook is a national animal protection organization working to end the abuse of farmed animals using a variety of strategies, including investigations, legal advocacy, corporate and food system reform, and vegan outreach.

Animals

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Action Against Hunger - Usa; the most unlike its peers is Solar Sister Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

04the grantee network

150 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 150 of the 226 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

149/150

Grantees still filing

119/150

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$2,351,750International$476,850Education$462,000Food & Nutrition$319,250Human Services$210,600Philanthropy$170,000Arts & Culture$137,950

Showing the 200 largest grantees by grant value.

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Greater Washington Community FoundationDC35.3× affinity19 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Greater Washington Community Foundation · The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation · Nora Roberts Foundation · William S Abell Foundation Inc · Philip L Graham Fund co Graham Holdings Company · Sidgmore Family Foundation · Venable Foundation Inc · The Hyde and Watson Foundation · Open Society Institute · Jewish Communal Fund · The Deck Foundation · Lainoff Family Foundation Inc

How this is measured

Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Whispering Bells Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Whispering Bells Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

7get no government money at all

46report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

typical government reliance, FY20–25

How this is measured

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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to Whispering Bells Foundation?

Find your warmest path to Whispering Bells 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.

Play a game based on Whispering Bells’ filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions

grants reported with no recipient in the public record

The regranting layer

51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer

The DAF merry-go-round

$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds

The endowment market

who holds foundation money, and what just moved

The camps

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

By state

where grant money is based, and what stays home