· Private foundation
Four Lanes Trust
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| DC Central Kitchen | $2,500 |
| Herring Gut Coastal Science Center | $2,500 |
| Bread for the City | $2,000 |
| Community Forklift | $1,000 |
| Lifeflight Foundation of Maine | $1,000 |
| Negotiation Works | $1,000 |
| Good Shepherd Food Bank of Maine | $1,000 |
| Trekkers | $1,000 |
| Washington Concert Opera | $1,000 |
| PAWS Philadelphia Animal Welfare Society | $1,000 |
| A Wider Circle | $1,000 |
| Jubilee Jobs | $1,000 |
| World Central Kitchen | $500 |
| City Wildlife | $500 |
| Perry School Community Services Ctr | $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 (FY24–25, $2k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 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 +33% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
21 repeat relationships — 13 still active in FY2025, 8 since wound down; 3 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (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 FY2025, 86% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $3k 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
- TDTHE DC CENTRAL KITCHEN INC6× · 2020–2025 · $13k · revenue +52%
- JJJUBILEE JOBS INC6× · 2020–2025 · $11k · revenue +52%
- BFBREAD FOR THE CITY INC6× · 2020–2025 · $10k · revenue +59%
Funded once
- CKCity Kids to Wilderness Project Incone grant, 2024 · $1k · revenue 0%
- DTDOUBLE TRELLIS FOOD INITIATIVEone grant, 2021 · $1k
- EHEmmaus Houseone grant, 2020 · $500
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.
DC Greens advances health equity by building a just and resilient food system.
We deliver healthy delicious meals to our home-bound neighbors. With a vision of creating a more interconnected resilient and compassionate community our program supports entire family systems. In 2024 236 volunteers delivered 55,642 meals…
Our mission is to dramatically improve the early career outcomes of dc youth and young adults of color by creating innovative programs and by mobilizing employers, educators, and city leaders to create a local, diverse talent pipeline. our…
The association of washington cities builds connections between our state's diverse cities and towns, while providing our members with the support needed to thrive through delivery of data-driven education, nationally recognized pooling…
We Dont Waste increases food access and protects the planet by rescuing and repurposing food, while educating and advocating to increase food security and decrease food waste.
Common Good City Farm is an urban farm in Washington, DC, where community members source fresh food, see sustainable urban agriculture in action, and learn healthy skills. Our mission is to sustain and support a more equitable community…
Council for court excellence's (cce's) mission is to bring people together to conduct research, educate, and advocate to make d.c.'s unique legal systems more just, equitable, and accountable to the community.
Thrive dc works to prevent and end homelessness by providing vulnerable individuals with a comprehensive range of services to help stabilize their lives.
Wla combines best practices in teaching and learning, with the latest in educational technology to create an unparalleled high school experience. students will graduate from wla prepared for college, career, and lives of public leadership.
Moveable feast's mission is to improve the health of marylanders experiencing food insecurity and chronic illness by preparing and delivering medically tailored meals and providing nutrition education, thereby achieving racial, social, and…
Greater Greater Washington Commons (GGWash Commons) aims to build civic capacity through media, education, and engagement, to advance racial, economic, and environmental justice in land use, transportation, and housing throughout Greater…
Food & water watch conducts extensive research and public education to ensure the food and water we consume is safe, accessible and sustainably produced. so we can all enjoy and trust in what we eat and drink, we help people take charge of…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is World Central Kitchen Inc and the most unlike its peers is The Matthew Harris Ornstein Memorial Foundation Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 29 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 21% startups (under 5 years old) — 12% of your grantees by number, and just 12% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 4% lost their exemption, against 14% of the field you don’t fund.
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.
27 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. 27 of the 33 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 THE DC CENTRAL KITCHEN INC ↗
- Who funds JUBILEE JOBS INC ↗
- Who funds BREAD FOR THE CITY INC ↗
- Who funds HERRING GUT COASTAL SCIENCE CENTER ↗
- Who funds WASHINGTON CONCERT OPERA ↗
- Who funds Good Shepherd Food Bank ↗
- Who funds TREKKERS INC ↗
- Who funds WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN INC ↗
- Who funds HURRICANE ISLAND OUTWARD BOUND SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds LifeFlight Foundation ↗
- Who funds HERRING GUT LEARNING CENTER ↗
- Who funds THE TRUST FOR PUBLIC LAND ↗
- Who funds Christ House ↗
- Who funds A WIDER CIRCLE INC ↗
- Who funds NEGOTIATION WORKS ↗
- Who funds VEGGIES TO TABLE ↗
- Who funds FEDERATION OF NEIGHBORHOOD CENTERS ↗
- Who funds City Wildlife Inc ↗
- Who funds THE MATTHEW HARRIS ORNSTEIN MEMORIAL FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds City Kids to Wilderness Project Inc ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FORKLIFT ↗
- Who funds PHILADELPHIA ANIMAL WELFARE SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds SCHOOL LEADER LAB ↗
- Who funds M STREET CENTER ↗
- Who funds THE STUDIO ACTING CONSERVATORY INC ↗
- Who funds GEORGETOWN MINISTRY CENTER ↗
- Who funds The Food Project 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: Greater Washington Community Foundation · The Morris and Gwendolyn Cafritz Foundation · Dimick Foundation John M Lynham Jr Trustee · United Way of the National Capital Area · Clark-Winchcole Foundation · Onion Foundation · Maine Community Foundation Inc · Corina Higginson Trust Co Laura Ford Trustee · Philip L Graham Fund co Graham Holdings Company · Agnes M Lindsay Trust · Nora Roberts Foundation · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program
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 Four Lanes Trust 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 or a single department — and drag the year to watch it move.
- A Wider Circle Inc — 6% 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 Four Lanes Trust?
Find your warmest path to Four Lanes Trust 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.