· Private foundation
Lancaster Lens Inc
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 FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- $10k–50k3 grants · $35k
- $50k–250k3 grants · $600k
- $250k+2 grants · $500k
Anchored by a single position — about 93% of reported assets are held in Lancaster Colony Corp.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| RECREATION UNLIMITED FOUNDATION | $250,000 |
| NATIONWIDE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL FOUNDATION | $250,000 |
| THE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION | $200,000 |
| AMERICAN RED CROSS | $200,000 |
| HEINZERLING FOUNDATION | $200,000 |
| YMCA OF CENTRAL OHIO | $15,000 |
| COLUMBUS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | $10,000 |
| OHIO FOUNDATION OF INDEPENDENT COLLEGES | $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, $555k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 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 +36% since the first grant, against -14% for the ones you funded once.
13 repeat relationships — 6 still active in FY2025, 7 since wound down; 2 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, 81% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $215k 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
- OSOHIO STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION8× · 2017–2025 · $4.7M · revenue +36%
- RURECREATION UNLIMITED FOUNDATION8× · 2017–2025 · $885k · revenue +36%
- HCHEINZERLING COMMUNITY6× · 2019–2025 · $540k · revenue +52%
Funded once
- MLMIRACLE LEAGUE OF NEW ALBANY INCone grant, 2018 · $30k · revenue -72%
- CZCOLUMBUS ZOOLOGICAL PARK ASSOCIATIONone grant, 2021 · $10k · revenue -14%
- MMOMENTUMone grant, 2019 · $3k
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.
The columbus medical association foundation, through the governance and oversight of its board of physicians and other experts, effects change within specific priority areas to improve the health and wellbeing of the residents and…
The Columbus State University Foundation supports educational excellence and the expansion of educational opportunities at Columbus State University. The Foundation attracts, receives, invests, manages, and expends gifts and other…
We are physicians and other experts improving the health of caregivers, patients and communities.
Advancing a thriving central ohio commmunity by serving as a catalyst for all businesses to grow and flourish. our mission pillars are connections, government relations, strategic business solutions and talent/workforce.
Our mission is to deliver state-of-the-art cancer care to patients in their communities through clinical trials. this allows individuals to remain in their won neighborhoods, while receiving the latest and best in cancer screenings,…
To strengthen the capacity of United Ways across Ohio and to advance the common good for Ohioans.
The mission of the cincinnati observatory is to maintain the integrity and heritage of an historic 19th century observatory and to educate, engage, and inspire our community about astronomy and science.
Economic development: investigation and study of various areas of need for the development of plans and programs to be undertaken and the creation of strategies and programming to begin executing the same.
Align the life sciences ecosystem in the state of ohio, building collaborative partnerships, and advocating for policies and funding that will help to accelerate life science priorities and drive sustainable economic growth.
The Ohio University Foundation was established in 1945 to support the mission of Ohio University, the first institution of higher education in the Northwest Territory. Ohio University holds as its central purpose the intellectual and…
To provide health and wellness services without geographic restriction.
To lead and equip ohio philanthropy to be effective partners for change in our communities.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Columbus Foundation and the most unlike its peers is American Heart Association Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
15 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. 15 of the 23 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 OHIO STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds RECREATION UNLIMITED FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds HEINZERLING COMMUNITY ↗
- Who funds COLUMBUS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ↗
- Who funds ONE COLUMBUS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE OHIO FOUNDATION OF INDEPENDENT COLLEGES ↗
- Who funds COLUMBUS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ONE COLUMBUS ↗
- Who funds MIRACLE LEAGUE OF NEW ALBANY INC ↗
- Who funds American Heart Association Inc ↗
- Who funds YOUNG MENS CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF CENTRAL OHIO ↗
- Who funds COLUMBUS ZOOLOGICAL PARK ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds Chabad of Columbus Inc ↗
- Who funds ARTHRITIS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Cancer Association of Champaign County ↗
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: Columbus Foundation · L Brands Foundation · Ingram-White Castle Foundation · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · The John J and Pauline Gerlach Foundation · Harry C Moores Foundation · Safelite Foundation · American Electric Power Foundation · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund
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 Lancaster Lens Inc 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 Lancaster Lens Inc?
Find your warmest path to Lancaster Lens Inc 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.