How much did DOROTHY LEMELSON FOUNDATION grant in FY2024?

A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 68% of DOROTHY LEMELSON FOUNDATION’s grantee dollars go to organizations outside the IRS cause taxonomy (common for large international and research funders), so a chart would be mostly “unclassified” and misrepresent the portfolio.

02beneath the categories

Past the labels — and the year it shifted

Beneath the NTEE codes, this is what the grant descriptions actually say.

…and in their own words, year by year

2018

afterwashoestem

2019

afterboys girlsgirls truckeesierraartscholarshiptrain

2020

jewishchamber musicmiddlesexwashoe educationportlandchildren's cabinetsierra

2021

—

2022

ukrainianstudentcourseeducationchildrenmuseumstem

2023

educationalemotionalstudenthealtheducationchildrenart

Words distinctive to each year’s grant purposes (TF-IDF) · event-driven terms in cyan.

03FY2024 · 33 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

By grant size · FY2024

Under $10k2 grants · $6k
$10k–50k18 grants · $406k
$50k–250k11 grants · $1.0M
$250k+2 grants · $1.1M

$30,000

Median grant

States reached

$46M

Total assets

Largest grants

THE NATIONAL MUSUEM OF AMERICAN HISTORY SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION$600,000
GEORGIA RESLIENCE AND OPPORTUNITY FUND$500,000
WASHOE COUNTY SCHOOL DISTRICT$186,616
PLANNED PARENTHOOD CASCADE WILLAMETTE$125,000
HOLLA SCHOOL$112,000
BRIDGE MEADOWS$105,000
UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA RENO$100,000
WILLAMETTE UNIVERSITY$100,000
TEACHING FOR CHANGE$75,000
TERRY LEE WELLS NEVADA DISCOVERY MUSEUM$62,000
PEAR$60,000
THE CHILDREN'S CABINET$50,000
CHILDREN'S INSTITUTE$50,000
KNBP CHANNEL 5$41,000
SHARE OUR STRENGTH$40,000

02The need

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.

show:

Your human-services grants (FY19–24, $432k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11% — the area typically sits at 11%. 44% of those dollars reach neighborhoods with above-average need. Your grants spread fairly evenly across need levels.

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

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; 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, United Way ALICE — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.

03Your edge

repeat funding

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.

70%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.

$8.0M · 42 repeat orgs$3.4M to everyone else

And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +62% since the first grant, against -7% for the ones you funded once.

42 repeat relationships — 24 still active in FY2024, 18 since wound down; 9 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$8.0M

$1.9M

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+62%

-7%

Still filing today

50%

31%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 41% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $1.5M went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

Arts & CultureHuman ServicesEducationYouth DevelopmentInternationalHousing & ShelterOther

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

NA
NEW AVENUES FOR YOUTH
3× · 2018–2020 · $600k · revenue +10%
UO
UNIVERSITY OF NEVADA RENO FOUNDATION
3× · 2022–2024 · $425k · revenue +101%
P
PEAR
7× · 2017–2024 · $303k · revenue +13%

Funded once

VS
VARIOUS - SEE PDF ATTACHMENT
one grant, 2021 · $1.0M
P
PORTLAND
one grant, 2017 · $250k
NM
NEW MEADOWS
one grant, 2022 · $200k

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

04Your field

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.

Portland Museum of Art

Museum/Educational

Arts & Culture

Portland Public Library

Portland Public Library is a welcoming cultural center that brings people together and connects them with trusted resources, ideas, experiences, and information. We build a stronger community by inspiring learning, creativity, and…

Education

Oregon Ballet Theatre

Oregon Ballet Theatre is committed to sharing our passion for the expressive power of ballet, inspiring an enduring appreciation of dance, and connecting in meaningful ways to our community through excellence in performance, training, and…

Arts & Culture

Portland Baroque Orchestra

Producing intimate and historically informed interpretations of music composed before 1840.

Arts & Culture

Oregon Children's Theatre Company

Advance growth, development and creativity through exceptional theater experiences.

Arts & Culture

Orchestra Nova Northwest

Orchestra nova northwest (formerly portland columbia symphony) cultivates and champions a diverse community of musicians and audiences through affordable and accessible performances. we value excellence, community, personal connection, and…

Arts & Culture

The Portland Playhouse

Production of quality, intimate performances in which artists/audience interaction is paramount.

Arts & Culture

Oregon Shakespeare

The oregon shakespeare festival creates world-class theater, revealing our collective humanity through illuminating interpretations of new and classic plays, and inspiring a love of our art form for current and future generations.

Arts & Culture

Museum of Northwest Art

The museum of northwest art collects, preserves, interprets and exhibits art created in the pacific northwest, supports artists, and strives to integrate art into the lives of all people.

Arts & Culture

University of Portland

The University of Portland, an independently governed Catholic university guided by the Congregation of Holy Cross, addresses significant questions of human concern through interdisciplinary studies of the arts, sciences, and humanities…

Education

Oregon Arts Watch

Oregon Arts Watch produces independent, professional arts and culture journalism and criticism that is transparent, fair and accurate.

Arts & Culture

Arts West

ArtsWest produces artistic events that provoke conversation, incite the imagination, and use live theater as a powerful agent of change.

Arts & Culture

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Children's Cabinet Inc and the most unlike its peers is Muscular Dystrophy Association. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.

the sector your giving your giving is ahead of the sector the sector’s ahead of you· dot size = how much the theme matters to each side

Ordered by the change in your giving — leaning in on top, pulling back at the bottom. The bar between the two dots is how out of step you are with the sector. Hover any row for detail.

Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.

Your grantees are a median of 33 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.

The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 8% of your grantees by number, and just 4% of your money.

Closures · last 5 years

The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 11% of the field you don’t fund.

orgs you fund

0.0%0/42

the rest of the field

11%

206,164/1,819,523

Age = years since IRS exemption (a founding proxy). “Closed” = auto-revocation for 3 years of non-filing — a floor on closure, not proof, and bigger established orgs lapse least. Association, not causation.

05the grantee network

42 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2017–2025.

Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

40/42

Grantees still filing

31/42

Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

Other$7,943,921Youth Development$1,648,700Education$638,650Human Services$507,000Housing & Shelter$303,000International$212,000Arts & Culture$119,300

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.

The Collins FoundationOR29.9× affinity12 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: The Collins Foundation · The Oregon Community Foundation · Meyer Memorial Trust · Marie Lamfrom Charitable Foundation · Regional Arts & Culture Council · James F & Marion L Miller Foundation · Juan Young Trust · D27 Foundation · Oregon Jewish Community Foundation · The Jackson Foundation · Maybelle Clark Macdonald Fund · M J Murdock Charitable Trust

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 organisation DOROTHY LEMELSON 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.

2025

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

1get no government money at all

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–60%

typical government reliance, FY20–25

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. 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.

05Through Plinth

Through Plinth

Your grantmaking, live and operational

This dossier was generated cold from public filings. In Plinth it’s a working system — every applicant assessed and every grant monitored. Here’s a taste, run on one of your grantees: WASHOE K-12 EDUCATION FOUNDATION.

Agentic due diligence · confidence × risk

Financial management

insufficient risk

Limited financial data in public filings.

Track record & reputation

low risk

8 years of Form 990 filings, still active.

Legal standing

low risk

US 501(c)(3); EIN 452488886 on file with current IRS Form 990 filings.

Governance

Live in Plinth

Board composition & governance documents — verified live in Plinth from the applicant.

Compliance & sanctions

Live in Plinth

OFAC / UN sanctions screening — run live in Plinth at assessment.

Program capacity

Live in Plinth

Staffing, M&E and activity alignment — assessed live in Plinth from submitted proposals.

Live · Plinth’s real DD engine

Run the actual assessment on WASHOE K-12 EDUCATION FOUNDATION, cold from public data.

Generated live from public IRS filings + open web sources by Plinth’s agentic engine. Shown as an illustration of the product, not a formal assessment.

Post-award monitoring · continuous checks

Awaiting reportFinancial stability— Runway not derivable from filings.
WatchSustained operations— Filing through 2024; revenue contracted over the period.
WatchReliance on your funding— Your grants peaked at 59% of their budget — load-bearing; a dependency Plinth would track.
Awaiting reportEvidence of delivery— Plinth collects the grantee's own monitoring reports post-award.

What you see here is static and public. In Plinth it’s operational — the full six-pillar framework on every applicant (with their own documents + live registry and sanctions checks), monitoring dashboards on every award, custom board reports, and eligibility routing for intake.

Agentic due diligenceMonitoring dashboardsCustom board reportsEligibility routing

Preview generated from this grantee’s public IRS filings and independent reporting. Pillars marked “live in Plinth” require the applicant’s submitted documents. Shown as illustration, not a formal assessment.

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPro

How do I get to Dorothy Lemelson Foundation?

Find your warmest path to Dorothy Lemelson Foundation through people who sit on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the introduction across shared trustees and officers.

Every link is a documented governance overlap in public IRS 990 filings — not a personal network — and each hop carries its own confidence tier. Low-confidence or distant paths are held back rather than guessed.

DOROTHY LEMELSON FOUNDATION

What you funded, over time

Past the labels — and the year it shifted

Where the money goes

Do your dollars go where the need is?

Who you back again

Backed again, and grew

Funded once

42 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2017–2025.

Government reliance of your grantees

Your grantmaking, live and operational

How do I get to Dorothy Lemelson Foundation?

More from the funding graph

DOROTHY LEMELSON FOUNDATION

What you funded, over time

Past the labels — and the year it shifted

Where the money goes

Do your dollars go where the need is?

Who you back again

Backed again, and grew

Funded once

42 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2017–2025.

Government reliance of your grantees

Your grantmaking, live and operational

How do I get to Dorothy Lemelson Foundation?

More from the funding graph