Edward H Daveis Benevolent Fund
Ellsworth, ME · EIN 01-0473137. Reported 37 grants totalling $314,487 to 27 organizations across tax years 2021-2024, on Form 990 Schedule I.
Does this grantmaker accept applications?
Its tax return does not say, and we will not guess. Private foundations file Form 990-PF, which asks outright whether they fund only organizations they select themselves -- 78% say yes, and that one answer is what lets the rest of this site tell you which foundations are worth approaching. Grantmaking charities like this one file a regular Form 990 instead, and the IRS never puts the question to them. Anyone claiming to know the answer from the filing is inventing it.
Three things in the filing do bear on it:
- What kind of organization it is. The IRS has no activity classification on file for this one, so we cannot tell you whether it is a community foundation or a single-institution support fund. The recipient list below is the better guide.
- How spread out its giving is. 27 distinct organizations, with 8% of the dollars going to the largest single recipient. That is genuinely spread out -- the mark of a funder making many independent decisions rather than underwriting one institution.
- How much its list changes. 25% of one year's grantees are funded again the next, across 3 year-to-year transitions. That is below the 57% median for grantmaking charities, and well below the 67% private foundations manage. A list that turns over this much is one a newcomer can realistically join.
How big are its grants?
The median reported grant is $7,500. Half of what it reported fell between $7,500 and $10,000; the smallest was $6,000 and the largest $11,000. If you are asking for materially more than the top of that range, you are asking the wrong organization.
Every organization it funded
This is the complete list from its filings, largest first. Recipients are grouped by the EIN the filer reported, not by name, so an organization that was typed differently in two years appears once rather than twice.
| Organization | Location | Total received | Grants | Years funded | Last |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mayo Street Arts | Portland, ME | $25,000 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Telling Room | Portland, ME | $25,000 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| The Center for Grieving Children | Portland, ME | $24,000 | 3 | 3 | 2024 |
| Olympia Snowe Womens Leadership Ins | Portland, ME | $23,000 | 3 | 3 | 2023 |
| Boys & Girls Clubs of Southern Maine | Portland, ME | $20,000 | 2 | 2 | 2024 |
| United Way Inc | Portland, ME | $18,500 | 2 | 2 | 2023 |
| 317 Main St Community Music Center Inc | Yarmouth, ME | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Catholic Charities Maine | Portland, ME | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Good Will Home Association | Hinckley, ME | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| League of Women Voters of Maine Education Fund Inc | Portland, ME | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Peaks Island Childrens Workshop | Peaks Island, ME | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Portland Community Squash | Portland, ME | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Portland Housing Services Corporation | Portland, ME | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Rippleffect Inc | Portland, ME | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Youth and Family Outreach | S Portland, ME | $10,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Maine Audubon Society | Falmouth, ME | $9,987 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Locker Project | Portland, ME | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Maine Boys to Men | Portland, ME | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Maine Youth Court | Portland, ME | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Palaver Strings Incorporated | Portland, ME | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2022 |
| Portland Public Library | Portland, ME | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Portland Stage Company Inc | Portland, ME | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| The Opportunity Alliance | S Portland, ME | $7,500 | 1 | 1 | 2021 |
| Learning Works | Portland, ME | $7,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Our Place Portland Inc | Scarborough, ME | $7,000 | 1 | 1 | 2023 |
| Foundation for Portland Public Schools | Portland, ME | $6,500 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
| Yellow Tulip Project | Portland, ME | $6,000 | 1 | 1 | 2024 |
6 of 27 (22%) received money in more than one year over the 4 years we hold. Remember the $5,000 floor: an organization funded every year at $3,000 shows up here as never funded at all.
What the money was for
Taken verbatim from the purpose column of its filings, largest first. This is the closest thing to a statement of what it funds, in its own words.
- Youth and Family Outreach
Children and youth services - Portland Housing Services Corporation
Low-Income & Subsidized Rental Housing - The Center for Grieving Children
Intercultural Peer Support Program,Counseling - League of Women Voters of Maine Education Fund Inc
Voter Education & Registration - Maine Boys to Men
Youth Development Programs - The Opportunity Alliance
Children & Youth Services
What kind of organizations it funds
By each recipient's own IRS classification, for the 26 of 27 recipients we could match to a registered organization. These are assigned categories, not our guesses -- Schedule I reports the recipient's EIN, so this is a lookup rather than a name match.
Giving by year
| Tax year | Grants reported | Total | Median grant |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | 10 | $78,000 | $7,500 |
| 2022 | 9 | $73,500 | $7,500 |
| 2023 | 8 | $73,500 | $10,000 |
| 2024 | 10 | $89,487 | $10,000 |
Tax years, not calendar years, and the most recent year is usually incomplete -- Form 990 arrives about a year after the year it covers, so a low final year means late paperwork rather than a grantmaker winding down.
Where its money goes
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Funders that support the same organizations
These grantmakers and private foundations gave to organizations this one also funded. Shared grantees are the strongest signal available that two funders have overlapping priorities -- and a funder already backing your peers is a far warmer prospect than one that merely lists your cause.
How to approach this grantmaker
- Look for a published programme first. Unlike most private foundations, organizations of this kind often do run open, deadlined grant cycles with written guidelines. Its own website is the authority on that; this page is the authority on who it has actually paid.
- Check you are its size. The median reported grant is $7,500 -- and because grants under $5,000 need not be reported, it very likely writes smaller cheques than this page can see.
- Check you are in its geography. Its giving concentrates in Maine.
- Read the recipient list for organizations like yours. If nothing on it resembles your work, that is a real answer and a cheap one to get.
Where these numbers come from
Everything above is taken from Edward H Daveis Benevolent Fund's own Form 990 Schedule I filings, which the IRS publishes in bulk. We used 4 returns (tax years 2021-2024). Nothing here is scraped, inferred or estimated.
On its most recent return it told the IRS it made grants to 10 section 501(c)(3) organizations and 0 other organizations. That is the filer's own count for one year; the totals above cover every year we hold.
Address of record on the latest return: 245 Main Street, Ellsworth, ME, 04605.
EIN 01-0473137 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this
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