· Private foundation
Improving Lives Foundation
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What it funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2020 to 2025.
Where the money goes
Grants by size, and the largest recipients.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CHRISTIAN PRIHOR COLLEGE FUND | $6,000 |
| CHRISTIAN VETERINARY MISSION | $6,000 |
| SCHOOL SISTERS OF NOTRE DAME | $5,000 |
| BIBLE STUDY FELLOWSHIP | $5,000 |
| FIRST BAPTIST CHURCH OF NEW ROADS | $5,000 |
| HOPE CHURCH OF BATON ROUGE | $5,000 |
| STARFISH PROJECT | $2,500 |
| BATON ROUGE FOOD BANK | $2,500 |
Does the money reach high-need areas?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.
Its human-services grants (FY25–25, $3k) land where the poverty rate runs at 5%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 0% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.
How this is measured
Which US states its grants reach
How this is measured
Where the work is directed
The same grants placed two ways: where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose sends the money.
About 16% of Improving Lives Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked for a different county than the recipient’s own address. By recipient address, 55% of the giving stays in LA; by stated purpose, 51%.
How this is measured
Who it funds again
Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.
5 repeat relationships: 3 still active in FY2025, 2 since wound down; 5 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2025, 43% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $21k went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
How this is measured
Backed again, and grew
- HCHOPE CHURCH OF BATON ROUGE4× · 2022–2025 · $30k
- CVCHRISTIAN VETERINARY MISSION3× · 2023–2025 · $16k · revenue +7%
- HCHONDURAS CATHOIC CHURCH MARIAH SALO2× · 2022–2023 · $14k
Funded once
- FBFIRST BAPTIST CHURCH NEW ROADSone grant, 2022 · $32k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2023 · $10k
- MCMARIA C MENDEZ CO CANDY SELAone grant, 2020 · $5k
How this is measured
Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
4 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.
Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.
How this is measured
Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 4 of the 30 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.
Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.
Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee
Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing
Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding
A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.
How much its grantees rely on government
Each dot is one organization Improving Lives Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Improving Lives Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.
How this is measured
Play a game based on Improving Lives’ filings →