· Private foundation
Frances Lear Foundation
Its FY2025 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 FY2019–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k21 grants · $79k
- $10k–50k14 grants · $255k
- $50k–250k3 grants · $339k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| BALLET HISPANICO OF NEW YORK INC | $214,000 |
| RAINFOREST ALLIANCE | $75,000 |
| NYU LANGONE HEALTH | $50,000 |
| YOUTH REPRESENT | $48,500 |
| PANORAMA GLOBAL | $25,000 |
| THE 92ND STREET Y | $25,000 |
| FRIENDS AND FAMILY OF LOUISIANA'S INCARCERATED CHILDREN | $24,000 |
| PAL-O-MINE EQUESTRIAN INC | $20,000 |
| A LITTLE PIECE OF LIGHT | $15,000 |
| GOOD CALL | $15,000 |
| CAMPAIGN FOR THE FAIR SENTENCING OF YOUTH | $15,000 |
| THE OMOWALE PROJECT | $15,000 |
| DAUGHTERS BEYOND INCARCERATION | $12,000 |
| ALLIANCE OF FAMILIES FOR JUSTICE | $10,000 |
| FAMILY JUSTICE LAW CENTER | $10,000 |
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 (FY19–25, $307k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 54% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants spread fairly evenly across need levels.
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.
Which US states your grants reach
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 +27% since the first grant, against +8% for the ones you funded once.
39 repeat relationships — 21 still active in FY2025, 18 since wound down; 10 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, 77% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $150k 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
- BHBALLET HISPANICO OF NEW YORK INC7× · 2019–2025 · $1.4M · revenue +46%
- RARAINFOREST ALLIANCE INC7× · 2019–2025 · $528k · revenue +115%
YOUTH REPRESENT INC7× · 2019–2025 · $323k · revenue +2%
Funded once
- PFPEOPLE FOR THE AMERICAN WAY FOUNDATIONone grant, 2019 · $40k
- IYIDENTIFY YOUR DREAM CORPORATIONone grant, 2024 · $25k · revenue -60%
- NPNEW PA PROJECTone grant, 2024 · $25k
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.
CITY REPORT, INC. serves the people of New York through independent journalism that answers their information needs and holds the powerful to account.
Established in 1971, the mission of the new york foundation for the arts (nyfa) is to empower artists in all disciplines, as well as cultural workers, to achieve success on their own terms by providing critical support, resources, and…
To produce bold theatre experiences that reach across artistic, physical and social boundries. We aim to increase empathy and open-mindedness by illuminating nuanced perspectives and unspoken truths behind the salient issues of our time.…
Iaf's purpose is to conduct research and publicize findings concerning citizen's attitudes about economic options confronting america. iaf is devoted to fostering a robust and democratic debate about ideas that will shape our country's…
Women donors network advances a just, equitable, and sustainable world through the power of philanthropy, women's leadership, and collective and individual action.
Tonyc works through partnerships with social service organizations and city agencies to create theatre troupes with community members who face pressing social, economic, health, and human rights injustices.
Pro publica is an independent, non-profit, pulitzer prize-winning newsroom that produces investigative journalism in the public interest. our work focuses exclusively on truly important stories. [see continuation on schedule o] we produce…
Colorofchange.org works to strengthen the voice of black americans and increase the level of accountability and responsiveness of elected officials to underrepresented black constituencies using the internet as a lobbying and…
The open markets institute works to help people relearn how to use competition policy to build stronger democracies, more just and equitable societies, more innovative and sustainable economies, and a more secure and peaceful world.
The perelman performing arts center creates connections by cultivating bonds between extraordinary artists and communities with exemplary performances in active dialogue across the arts in our flexible intimate spaces, inviting…
Nylpi's mission is to advance equality and civil rights, with a focus on health justice, disability rights and environmental justice, through the power of community lawyering and partnerships with the private bar.
Common future is a network of pioneering leaders across the u.s. and canada who work deeply within their communities to create alternative approaches to business, philanthropy, and investing. we envision an economy that has transitioned…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is National Center for Family Philanthropy Inc and the most unlike its peers is Rainforest Alliance Inc. 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.
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 24 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 8% of your grantees by number, and just 2% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 1% lost their exemption, against 12% 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.
67 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. 67 of the 89 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 BALLET HISPANICO OF NEW YORK INC ↗
- Who funds RAINFOREST ALLIANCE INC ↗
- Who funds TIDES FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds YOUTH REPRESENT INC ↗
- Who funds DAUGHTERS BEYOND INCARCERATION ↗
- Who funds PAL-O-MINE EQUESTRIAN INC ↗
- Who funds NEW YORK WOMEN'S FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds A LITTLE PIECE OF LIGHT INC ↗
- Who funds Good Call NYC ↗
- Who funds Goodnation Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds THE CAMPAIGN FOR THE FAIR SENTENCING OF YOUTH ↗
- Who funds Alliance of Families for Justice Inc ↗
- Who funds FORWARD IMPACT ↗
- Who funds COMMON JUSTICE INC ↗
- Who funds NEO Philanthropy Inc ↗
- Who funds FAMILIES AND FRIENDS OF LOUISIANAS INCARCERATED CHILDREN ↗
- Who funds THE COLLEGE AND COMMUNITY FELLOWSHIP INC ↗
- Who funds HEALTHCORPS INC ↗
- Who funds The Omowale Project Inc ↗
- Who funds OPENCOLLECTIVE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE YOUNG MEN'S AND YOUNG WOMEN'S HEBREW ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds IDENTIFY YOUR DREAM CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds PANORAMA GLOBAL ↗
- Who funds NEW YORK CITY CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds PLAN A HEALTH INC ↗
- Who funds BROOKLYN COMMUNITY BAIL FUND INC ↗
- Who funds THE PHILANTHROPY WORKSHOP INC DBA FORWARD GLOBAL ↗
- Who funds NEW YORK SHAKESPEARE FESTIVAL ↗
- Who funds The New York Public Library Astor Lenox and Tilden Foundations ↗
- Who funds WOMEN'S REFUGEE COMMISSION INC ↗
- Who funds THE NEW PRESS INC ↗
- Who funds GEORGIA ALLIANCE EDUCATION FUND 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: Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors Inc · The Tow Foundation Inc · The Ford Foundation · Amalgamated Charitable Foundation Inc · New York Women's Foundation Inc · Public Welfare Foundation Inc · Tides Foundation · Rockefeller Brothers Fund Inc · The New York Community Trust · Jewish Communal Fund · New Venture Fund · The Overbrook 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 Frances Lear 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.
- Freedom Reads Inc — 12% of income from government
- Documentary Educational Resources Inc — 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Frances Lear Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Frances Lear Foundation 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.