GRANT GRAPH · the independent grant data index

Who funds animal shelters in Massachusetts? Grant data from tax filings and federal listings

Name: animal shelter grant funding data (Grant Graph)
Creator: Grant Graph
License: public domain sources; compilation freely citable with attribution

From 2025-2026 IRS filings: 114 grants totaling $1.4 million went to animal shelters-related work in Massachusetts. The largest funders, the typical grant size, and what is open at the federal level right now, all from public records.

The largest private funders of animal shelters in Massachusetts, from their own tax filings

Funder	Grants	Total
Milton Animal League Inc	2	$730,919
The Chicago Community Trust	2	$120,000
NETWORK FOR GOOD	2	$102,541
AMERICAN ONLINE GIVING FOUNDATION INC	11	$99,230
PAYPAL CHARITABLE GIVING FUND	4	$61,040
FILENO DIGREGORIO FOUNDATION	2	$42,000
RED ACRE FARM INC	3	$26,000
SHIPLEY FOUNDATION INC #0755496	1	$25,000
CHARLES E HARWOOD TRUST	2	$20,000
FRANKLIN PHILANTHROPIC FOUNDATION	2	$16,772

Across all funders: 114 grants, $1.4 million total, median grant $1,853.

Largest recipients in Massachusetts

Recipient	Grants	Total
Town of Milton Animal Shelter	2	$730,919
ANIMAL SHELTER INC	11	$124,988
ANIMAL SHELTER OF MARTHAS VINEYARD INC	3	$120,140
SECOND CHANCE ANIMAL SHELTER	10	$68,950
FOREVER PAWS ANIMAL SHELTER	7	$57,981
QUINCY ANIMAL SHELTER INC	10	$44,038
NORTHEAST ANIMAL SHELTER	11	$33,917
MASSACHUSETTS SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS	1	$25,000
MEDFIELD ANIMAL SHELTER INC	3	$24,880
MSCPA AT NORTHEAST ANIMAL SHELTER	2	$20,000

Open federal opportunities addressing animal shelters (nonprofit-eligible)

Federal opportunities are listed nationally: a nonprofit in Massachusetts can apply to any of them, so this table is not filtered by state.

Matched against the full synopsis text of every posted opportunity, not the listing title alone; restricted to opportunities open to nonprofit applicants. Federal programs rarely use the phrase "animal shelter"; this table also matches the agency vocabulary: animal welfare, companion animal.

Number	Title	Agency	Award range	Closes
O-OVC-2026-172758	Invited to Apply – Emergency and Transitional Pet Shelter and Housing Assi	Office for Victims of Crime	up to $600,000	09/23/2026

grants.gov's own loose keyword search returns 292 listings mentioning "animal shelters" anywhere (retrieved 2026-11-01); the table above is our stricter relevance cut.

What these numbers do not say

Private-funder figures come from 990 and 990-PF filings as released by the IRS; filings lag reality by one to two years, and organizations below the e-file thresholds are not represented.
A funder appearing here funded this cause historically. It is not a statement that they are accepting applications.
Filings include corrections: voided checks, returned grants and corpus-distribution adjustments appear as negative amounts and are counted as filed. They are a fraction of a percent of the total.
Cause matching is keyword-based against grant purpose text and recipient names; it undercounts grants described in other words.

Grant Graph is an independent, free index built from public data: IRS Form 990 series e-file releases and the grants.gov API. It is not affiliated with grants.gov or any federal agency. Every figure above is reproducible from the cited public sources.