· Private foundation
Carl Lesnor Family 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.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k4 grants · $20k
- $10k–50k8 grants · $226k
- $50k–250k3 grants · $179k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ARCHIPELAGO BOOKS | $70,000 |
| GRID BOOKS | $57,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $52,000 |
| WORCESTER ART MUSEUM | $48,000 |
| PEACE ACTION FUND OF NEW YORK STATE | $43,000 |
| THE NEW MASSES FOUNDATION | $40,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $32,000 |
| BOSTON ARTS ENSEMBLE | $30,000 |
| GLOBAL MEDICAL KNOWLEDGE ALLIANCE INC | $12,000 |
| RESTORATIVE COMMUNITY JUSTICE OF SOUTHERN VERMONT | $11,000 |
| DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS | $10,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $6,000 |
| MOUNT TAMALPAIS COLLEGE | $5,000 |
| FREEDOM READS | $5,000 |
| MARLBORO SCHOOL OF MUSIC INC | $4,000 |
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 (FY23–24, $10k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +48% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
13 repeat relationships — 11 still active in FY2024, 2 since wound down; 4 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, 76% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $100k 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
- ABARCHIPELAGO BOOKS INC8× · 2017–2024 · $447k · revenue +50%
- PAPEACE ACTION FUND OF NEW YORK STATE INC8× · 2017–2024 · $324k · revenue +48% · 27% of their budget
WORCESTER ART MUSEUM8× · 2017–2024 · $295k · revenue +80%
Funded once
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2024 · $52k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2024 · $32k
MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INCone grant, 2024 · $10k · revenue 0%
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.
To promote artists books as art and research material and to assist artists and organizations in documenting, exhibiting, and distributing their artwork and archives.
The mission of the Bowdoin International Music Festival is to provide gifted young musicians from around the world with an opportunity to study with world-class artists, and to provide audiences with classical music performed to the…
To broaden experience, knowledge and enjoyment of every style of new music by embracing the full range of today's compositional activity and giving voice to music that might otherwise not be heard.
Words Without Borders mission is to translate, publish, and actively promote the finest contemporary world literature.
To build a structurally sound and musically vital ensemble which seeks to explore and present music of the 20th century. all schools, movements and styles from the turn of the century to the present day will be offered. it is the practical…
The mission of the organization is to foster the development of creative individuals as writers and artists and to promote public appreciation of excellence in the literary and graphic arts by publishing a magazine containing fiction,…
The boston public library fund provides financial support to the boston public library (bpl), ensuring that it remains viable, engaging, accessible, and free to all. the library fund fulfills this mission by working in partnership with…
BOMB Magazine's mission is to deliver the artist's voice. We develop, publish, and preserve artist-generated material, spotlighting artists in conversation and offering unique insight into the creative process.
Ether Sea Projects D/B/A Litmus Press publishes innovative poetry, prose, and formally experimental writing from around the world. We champion avant-garde legacies through our stewardship of foundational feminist predecessors of small…
Enhance Columbia University's education mission by acquiring and publishing outstanding original works by scholars and others that contribute to an understanding of global human concerns. Columbia University Press became part of the…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Freedom Reads Inc and the most unlike its peers is Prison University Project Inc Dba Mount Tamalpais College. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
11 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. 11 of the 17 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.
- Who funds ARCHIPELAGO BOOKS INC ↗
- Who funds PEACE ACTION FUND OF NEW YORK STATE INC ↗
- Who funds WORCESTER ART MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds BOSTON ARTISTS ENSEMBLE INC ↗
- Who funds THE DRIFT MAGAZINE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Global Medical Knowledge Alliance Inc ↗
- Who funds PRISON UNIVERSITY PROJECT INC DBA MOUNT TAMALPAIS COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds Marlboro School of Music Inc ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds BROOKLYN BOOK BODEGA INC ↗
- Who funds FREEDOM READS 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: National Philanthropic Trust · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · 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 Carl Lesnor 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.
- Freedom Reads Inc — 12% of income from government
- Worcester Art Museum — 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.