· Public charity
James V Brown Library
A free public library located in williamsport, pa, the library maintains and improves the quality of life for all citizens of our community by providing resources that enhance and contribute to individual knowledge, enlightenment, and enjoyment.we especially recognize our responsibility to serve as a place for children to discover the…
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2018.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 17 grants below total $633,796 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $823,000 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $189,204 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2018
- Under $10k5 grants · $40k
- $10k–50k7 grants · $140k
- $50k–250k5 grants · $454k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| LAKESHORE LEARNING MATERIALS | $167,611 |
| DEMCO | $111,212 |
| TUSCARORA IU 11 | $64,140 |
| PPO&S | $57,739 |
| SCHOLASTIC | $53,342 |
| SYMARK | $33,445 |
| CARNEGIE LIBRARY OF PITTSBURGH | $28,281 |
| PEACHTREE PUBLISHERS | $27,400 |
| SHARPER CREATIVE LLC | $17,823 |
| KODO | $11,507 |
| NATIONAL CENTER FOR FAMILIES LEARNING | $10,945 |
| CAPSTONE PRESS INC | $10,648 |
| SCHOOL SPECIALITY INC | $9,524 |
| REDLEAF PRESS | $8,785 |
| COLLABORATIVE SUMMER LIBRARY PROGRAM | $8,770 |
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 (FY17–18, $34k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 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.
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.
3 repeat relationships — 3 still active in FY2018, 0 since wound down; 14 grantees were first funded in FY2018 (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 FY2018, 31% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $440k 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
- LLLAKESHORE LEARNING MATERIALS2× · 2017–2018 · $209k
- TSThink Small2× · 2017–2018 · $25k · revenue -40%
- SCSHARPER CREATIVE LLC2× · 2017–2018 · $25k
Funded once
- CDCDW DIRECT LLCone grant, 2017 · $87k
- SVSAINT VINCENT COLLEGEone grant, 2017 · $48k · revenue +19%
- SSYMARKone grant, 2017 · $34k
Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
6 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. 6 of the 28 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.
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: American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile 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 James V Brown Library 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.
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 James V Brown Library?
Find your warmest path to James V Brown Library 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.