· Private foundation
William V & Betty M Ellis Family Foundation
Its FY2024 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: 50% of WILLIAM V & BETTY M ELLIS FAMILY FOUNDATION’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 · FY2024
- Under $10k6 grants · $23k
- $10k–50k9 grants · $138k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CAPE ANN MUSEUM | $27,500 |
| GLOUCESTER LYCEUM & SAWYER FREE LIBRARY | $25,000 |
| ADDISON GILBERT HOSPITAL | $22,500 |
| THE TRUSTEES OF RESERVATIONS | $12,500 |
| GREENBELT | $10,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $10,000 |
| ROCKPORT MUSIC | $10,000 |
| PATHWAYS FOR CHILDREN | $10,000 |
| OPEN DOOR FOOD PANTRY | $10,000 |
| CAPE ANN ART HAVEN | $7,500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $5,000 |
| GENEROUS GARDENERS | $2,500 |
| MARITIME GLOUCESTER | $2,500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $2,500 |
| HAMMOND CASTLE MUSEUM | $2,500 |
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 (FY17–24, $78k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 7%. 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.
15 repeat relationships — 15 still active in FY2024, 0 since wound down.
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2024, 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
CAPE ANN MUSEUM INC8× · 2017–2024 · $123k · revenue +421%
THE TRUSTEES OF RESERVATIONS8× · 2017–2024 · $100k · revenue +50%
Gloucester Lyceum and Sawyer Free Library Inc8× · 2017–2024 · $91k · revenue +183%
Funded once
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.
Foster the creation and appreciation of the fine arts by holding art exhibitions; conducting educational programs; acquiring and displaying a permanent collection of representational cape ann works of art; maintaining and preserving our…
Preserve and promote awareness of gloucesters fisheries, heritage, and the fabric of gloucester, massachusetts community;protecting and enhancing the port of gloucester and the ports infrastructure;and, in order to aid fishermen, serving…
To promote tourism and the visitor-based economy by increasing awareness of the seaport of gloucester massachusetts through the use of visitor guides and a website.
Promotion of tourism on cape ann including the towns of rockport, gloucester, manchester, essex, and ipswich ma.
Public lending library
Maintain a public library in the village of centerville, ma.
Providing quality materials and services, which fulfill the educational, information, cultural and recreational needs of the entire community in an atmosphere that is welcoming and respectful.
To inspire appreciation, understanding and stewardship of our natural environment through discovery and learning.
To enhance the quality of life of our community by inspiring lifelong learning, providing free and open access to information, and fostering community connections.
Provide financial support for new and innovative programs for the public schools of Gloucester, Massachusetts
To establish and maintain a public library in scarborough, maine.
The library is a vibrant center of community life in stockbridge, massachusetts and serves the needs of the residents of stockbridge and the surrounding area by supporting lifelong learning, strengthening the community, and preserving the…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Cape Ann Museum Inc and the most unlike its peers is Generous Gardeners Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
7 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. 7 of the 15 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.
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: Boston Foundation Inc · Charles Family Charitable Foundation · Institution for Savings in Newburyport & Its Vicinity Charitable Foundation Inc · The Peter and Elizabeth C Tower Foundation · Essex County Community Foundation Inc · Bruce J Anderson Foundation · Tower Family Fund Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Amazonsmile 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 William V & Betty M Ellis Family Foundation 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.
- Pathways for Childreninc — 86% of income from government
- Cape Ann Museum Inc — 38% of income from government
- Rockport Music Inc — 4% of income from government
- The Trustees of Reservations — 2% of income from government
- Cape Ann Art Haven Inc — 1% 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 William V & Betty M Ellis Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to William V & Betty M Ellis Family 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.