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California · Private foundation

Lawrence E & Elaine Smith Irell 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.

$230k
Granted FY2025(still arriving)
8
Grants FY2025
9
Organizations funded FY2024
11%
First-time grantees FY2024
Read the full brief
Median grant, FY2025
$15,000
Largest grant, FY2025
$120,000
Organizations funded a year
3 to 17
FY2018 to FY2024
States reached, FY2025
3
Total assets, FY2025
$2.0M
Applications
Preselected organizations only
Per its most recent filing; check its own site

How open it is to new grantees

In FY2024, 11% of the organizations Lawrence E & Elaine Smith Irell Foundation funded were first-time grantees, receiving 2% of its grant dollars.

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 98% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $5k went to new ones.

50%100%’18’19’20’21’22’23’24
RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

’18’19’20’21’22’23’24
InternationalHealthCivil RightsAnimalsEducationHuman ServicesOther
How this is measured
First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). The earliest year is left-censored: relationships that predate the data read as new. Theme is the grantee’s IRS cause.
The numbers by year
Fiscal yearOrganizations fundedTo those organizationsFirst-time grantees
FY2025still arriving8$230k13%
FY20249$224k11%
FY20238$223k25%
FY20228$210k75%
FY202110$202k40%
FY20203$183k33%
FY20199$175k11%
FY201817$160k94%
100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2024.

Science & Tech$1.0MInternational$168kSocial Science$102kCivil Rights$91kHealth$58kCrime & Legal$44kAnimals$16kEmployment$12kOther$0

Where its grants go

Grant dollars by states, across the years we hold.

Which US states its grants reach

NY
MA
CA
CO
VA
MD
DC
TX
FL

Top grantees

Largest recipients by total granted, FY2017 to FY2025, and the share of each one’s budget the grants supplied at peak.

Show all 27 grantees

What it could do for these grantees

Plus 6 recipients with no EIN on record ($72k), not named here.

Where it is load-bearing

Each grantee by its size and the share of its budget Lawrence E & Elaine Smith Irell Foundation supplied at peak.

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetThe Union of Concerned Scientists Inc: $1,085,000 over 9y, 0.4% of budgetAmerican Civil Liberties Union Foundation Inc: $120,000 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetMedecins Sans Frontieres USA Inc: $114,000 over 7y, 0.0% of budgetEvolution Institute Inc: $66,000 over 2y, 2.3% of budgetThe Salk Institute for Biological Studies: $60,000 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetInternational Rescue Committee INC: $45,000 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetLos Angeles Innocence Project Inc: $40,000 over 4y, 2.9% of budgetAngiogenesis Foundation Inc: $30,000 over 1y, 4.7% of budgetDeath Penalty Focus: $28,000 over 3y, 2.3% of budgetCreate Cures Foundation: $19,000 over 2y, 1.0% of budgetOxfam-America Inc: $19,000 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetPlanned Parenthood Los Angeles: $15,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetElectronic Frontier Foundation Inc: $9,000 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetAmerican Bird Conservancy: $8,000 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetWikimedia Foundation Inc: $5,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetHumane World for Animals Inc: $4,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetBat Conservation International: $3,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetAmerican Indian College Fund: $3,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetLa Goal: $3,000 over 2y, 0.2% of budgetUnited States Fund for Unicef: $2,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetPlanned Parenthood Federation of America Inc: $1,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetCharity Global Inc: $1,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetNative American Rights Fund Inc: $1,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetAnimal Welfare Institute: $1,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetCalifornia State Parks Foundation: $1,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetThe Innocence Project Inc: $1,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetCenter for Science in the Public Interest: $1,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budget

Tap a dot to name the grantee.

How this is measured
Share of budget is the funder’s grant in a year over the grantee’s total revenue that year, at its highest across the years we hold; revenue is from all sources. Only grantees confirmed against their own filings, whose grants do not exceed their revenue, are plotted: the largest 27.

Nonprofits that may fit its grantmaking

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift FundMA6.1× affinity6 shared granteesties to 1 of 1Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile Foundation

How this is measured
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

Compare Lawrence E & Elaine Smith Irell Foundation with peer funders

About Lawrence E & Elaine Smith Irell Foundation

How much does Lawrence E & Elaine Smith Irell Foundation give?
Lawrence E & Elaine Smith Irell Foundation reported 8 grants totaling $230,000 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 3 and 17 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.
What does Lawrence E & Elaine Smith Irell Foundation fund?
By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Science & Tech (67%), International (11%), Social Science (7%).
Who are Lawrence E & Elaine Smith Irell Foundation's largest grantees?
By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: The Union of Concerned Scientists Inc ($1.1M), American Civil Liberties Union Foundation Inc ($120k), Medecins Sans Frontieres USA Inc ($114k).
Does Lawrence E & Elaine Smith Irell Foundation fund new organizations?
In FY2024, 11% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.
Does Lawrence E & Elaine Smith Irell Foundation accept unsolicited applications?
Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Which funders back the same organizations as Lawrence E & Elaine Smith Irell Foundation?
Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund, Amazonsmile Foundation.
Where is Lawrence E & Elaine Smith Irell Foundation based?
Lawrence E & Elaine Smith Irell Foundation is based in CA.

On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 33 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

How this is measured
Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears.

Generated from the IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2025, released 2025. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Source object · view filing

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