How much did FOUR LEE FOUNDATION grant in FY2024?

A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 54% of FOUR LEE 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

achievement

2019

—

2020

animal

2021

park conservancyanimaldystrophy

2022

park conservancyanimalrescue

2023

park conservancyhermanmethodist

2024

park conservancyresearchmethodist

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

03FY2024 · 32 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

By grant size · FY2024

Under $10k1 grant · $5k
$10k–50k18 grants · $290k
$50k–250k10 grants · $1.0M
$250k+3 grants · $2.4M

$25,000

Median grant

States reached

$46M

Total assets

Largest grants

BROTHER WOLF ANIMAL RESCUE$1,150,000
MEMORIAL HERMAN FOUNDATION$902,080
NATIONAL MS SOCETY$375,000
COUNCIL OF RECOVERY$200,000
LEGIONARIES OF CHRIST$150,000
MARCH OF DIMES$100,000
UNBROKEN SPIRIT$100,000
UNITED WAY$100,000
HOUSTON ZOO$100,000
HOUSTON ARBORETUM & NATURE CENTER$90,000
TEXAS BUSINESS HALL OF FAME$75,000
NORTH CAROLINA ABORETUM SOCIETY$60,000
MEMORIAL PARK CONSERVANCY$50,000
HERMANN PARK CONSERVANCY$30,000
SOUTHERN METHODIST UNIVERSITY$30,000

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 (FY20–24, $94k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10% — the area typically sits at 11%. 48% 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.

95%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.

$11M · 45 repeat orgs$540k to everyone else

45 repeat relationships — 27 still active in FY2024, 18 since wound down; 5 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$11M

$480k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+21%

+32%

Still filing today

53%

42%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 98% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $60k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

HealthEnvironmentAnimalsHuman ServicesInternationalPhilanthropyOther

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

BW
BROTHER WOLF ANIMAL RESCUE INC
4× · 2020–2024 · $1.3M · revenue +270%
Houston Zoo
6× · 2019–2024 · $453k · revenue +16%
UW
UNITED WAY
4× · 2021–2024 · $375k · revenue +9%

Funded once

FF
FOUNDATION FOR THE COUNCIL ON ALCOHOL & DRUG ABUSE
one grant, 2020 · $255k
NS
NAVY SEAL FOUNDATION
one grant, 2023 · $25k
BW
BROTHER WOLF ANIMAL RESCUCE
one grant, 2021 · $25k

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.

Trees for Houston

Trees For Houston grows, plants and maintains trees throughout the greater Houston area.

—

Houston Botanic Garden

Enriching life through discovery, education, and conservation of the natural environment.

Environment

Houston Museum of Natural Science

The Houston Museum of Natural Science (HMNS) serves as a valuable resources for the Houston community, offering extensive collections, exciting interactive exhibits, immersive environments, engaging films, compelling traveling exhibitions,…

Arts & Culture

Rebuilding Together Houston

Repairing Homes. Revitalizing Communities. Rebuilding Lives.

Housing & Shelter

The McCombs School of Business

To provide support to The University of Texas McCombs School of Business.

Education

Memorial Hermann Foundation

Provide fundraising support and promotional efforts to memorial hermann health system and its tax exempt affiliates and the programs and functions that they conduct.

Health

Houston MediaSource

Houston MediaSource provides public access cable television programming for the City of Houston.

Arts & Culture

Houston Area Women's Center

To help those affected by domestic and sexual violence to move their lives forward.

Human Services

Breakthrough Houston

Breakthrough Houston works with highly motivated, traditionally underrepresented students to achieve post-secondary success and empowers aspiring leaders to become the next generation of educators and advocates.

Education

Houston Pets Alive

Houston Pets Alive!s (HPA!) mission is to save the lives of at-risk companion cats and dogs and find them loving homes.

Animals

Houston Parks Board

To expand, improve, and protect parks and greenspace in the Houston region.

Philanthropy

The Houston Audubon Society

Houston Audubon Society strives to advance the conservation of birds and their habitats.

Environment

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Covenant House Texas 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 42 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) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 3% 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%0/37

the rest of the field

11%

206,164/1,819,528

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

35 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)

35/35

Grantees still filing

25/35

Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

Other$6,346,303Health$2,053,180Animals$1,811,334Environment$525,000Philanthropy$385,000International$135,000Public Benefit$110,000

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.

Greater Houston Community FoundationTX19.3× affinity8 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Greater Houston Community Foundation · Shell USA Company Foundation · Vivian L Smith Foundation · The Brown Foundation Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · The Ayco Charitable Foundation · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Communities Foundation of Texas Inc · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund · Charities Aid Foundation America · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Jpmorgan Chase 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 organisation FOUR LEE 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 or a single department — and drag the year to watch it move.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

2get no government money at all

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–25%

typical government reliance, FY20–24

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: UNBROKEN SPIRIT.

Agentic due diligence · confidence × risk

Financial management

low risk

~27 months of operating runway; revenue grew over 3 filed years.

Track record & reputation

medium risk

3 years of Form 990 filings, still active.

Legal standing

low risk

US 501(c)(3); EIN 921773267 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 UNBROKEN SPIRIT, 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

On trackFinancial stability— Roughly 27 months of cash on hand.
On trackSustained operations— Filing through 2025; revenue grew over the period.
On trackReliance on your funding— Your grants peaked at 21% of their budget — diversified.
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 Four Lee Foundation?

Find your warmest path to Four Lee 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.

FOUR LEE 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

35 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2017–2025.

Government reliance of your grantees

Your grantmaking, live and operational

How do I get to Four Lee Foundation?

More from the funding graph

FOUR LEE 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

35 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2017–2025.

Government reliance of your grantees

Your grantmaking, live and operational

How do I get to Four Lee Foundation?

More from the funding graph