· Private foundation
Lawrence and Karen Levinson Charitable Foundation Inc
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
Read this first · the figures below need context
83% of Lawrence and Karen Levinson Charitable Foundation Inc’s FY2025 grant dollars went to President And Fellows Of Harvard College, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2025 names 2 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2023, the last year Lawrence and Karen Levinson Charitable Foundation Inc named its own grantees at scale: 6 organizations, $110k. It is dated, not current.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What you funded, over time
Every grant clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2023
- Under $10k8 grants · $10k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $100k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| BETTERHUMANS INC | $100,000 |
| ST JUDE CHILDRENS RESEARCH HOSPITAL | $1,800 |
| TUNNELS TO TOWERS | $1,500 |
| MICHAEL J FOX FOUNDATION | $1,500 |
| OPERATION SMILE | $1,500 |
| SPECIAL OLYMPICS | $1,000 |
| GIVE THE KIDS THE WORLD VILLAGE | $1,000 |
| 11TH HOUR RESCUE | $750 |
| ROSEMARIES RESCUE RANCH INC | $750 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 89% of your 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +78% since the first grant, against +38% for the ones you funded once.
9 repeat relationships — 5 still active in FY2023, 4 since wound down; 7 grantees were first funded in FY2023 (too recent to call). Read against FY2023, the last year this funder named its own grantees directly; its giving has since run through a sponsor, which reports no donor behind each grant.
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, 95% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $500 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
- GAGARDEN ACADEMY INC6× · 2017–2022 · $30k · revenue +21%
THE MICHAEL J FOX FOUNDATION FOR PARKINSON'S RESEARCH4× · 2019–2023 · $9k · revenue +213%
ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INC4× · 2020–2023 · $7k · revenue +78%
Funded once
- HAHUMAN AGE REVERSAL PROJECT INCone grant, 2022 · $25k · revenue -19% · 33% of their budget
- TPThe Pennington Schoolgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $5k · revenue +36%
- SJST JUDEone grant, 2018 · $5k
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.
Sanford burnham prebys medical discovery institute's mission is to advance the biomedical sciences by cultivating the next generation of scientific leaders, providing meaningful opportunities for researchers of all backgrounds to learn,…
The mission of the institute is to translate basic genetic and molecular mechanisms of schizophrenia and related developmental brain disorders into clinical advances that change the lives of affected individuals. it is catalyzing a new…
The scripps research institute ("tsri") performs high impact basic biomedical research, improves the human condition by fostering translation of its discoveries into useful products and engages in the highest quality graduate scientific…
Operate a state-of-the-art, world-class genomic research center that creates and uses advanced genomics to understand the genetic basis of disease. for more information, see schedule o.
The samuel waxman cancer research foundation (the "foundation") funds innovative research to bring faster cures to patients. in addition to supporting ongoing collaborative research in specific cancers, our scientists are investigating the…
To provide the diabetes research institute with the funding to cure diabetes now.
To increase the healthy, productive years of life through basic biomedical research on aging and age-related diseases.
The hugo w. moser research institute at kennedy krieger, inc. (the "research institute") is an internationally recognized research facility finding answers to problems and injuries that affect a child's developing brain. researchers have…
The graduate school of the stowers institute for medical research ("gssimr") exempt purpose is to provide graduate education that will prepare scholars for scientific research in the biological sciences.
The mission of mit is to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century.
The Academy's mission is to enhance member career fulfillment and promote brain health for all.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Make-a-Wish Foundation of America and the most unlike its peers is Breakthrough T1D. 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 25 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 BETTERHUMANS INC ↗
- Who funds President and Fellows of Harvard College ↗
- Who funds GARDEN ACADEMY INC ↗
- Who funds HUMAN AGE REVERSAL PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds Lifespan Research Institution ↗
- Who funds LIFESPAN EXTENSION ADVOCACY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE MICHAEL J FOX FOUNDATION FOR PARKINSON'S RESEARCH ↗
- Who funds ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INC ↗
- Who funds The Pennington School ↗
- Who funds OPERATION SMILE INC ↗
- Who funds MAKE-A-WISH FOUNDATION OF AMERICA ↗
- Who funds STEPHEN SILLER TUNNEL TO TOWERS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SPECIAL OLYMPICS INC ↗
- Who funds BREAKTHROUGH T1D ↗
- Who funds BANYAN SCHOOL 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: Charities Aid Foundation America · Network for Good · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · 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 Lawrence and Karen Levinson Charitable Foundation 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, a single department, or state — and drag the year to watch it move.
- President and Fellows of Harvard College — 7% 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 Lawrence and Karen Levinson Charitable Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to Lawrence and Karen Levinson Charitable Foundation 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.