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Leeson Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

Leeson 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.

$3k
Granted FY2025still arriving
8
Grants FY2025still arriving
3
States reached
$1k
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its granteesRead
04Its fieldRead
01What it funds
01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.

Arts & Culture$14kEducation$13kHealth$5k
02FY2025 · 8 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

$600
Median grant
3
States reached
$92k
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
SYMPH SAN JOSE ARTSPARK$1,000
UOFM$600
CALTECH$600
MIT$600
WAYNE ST U$300
CHM$100
Individual grant recipient$100
Individual grant recipient$100
02The need
03

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 47% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants spread fairly evenly across need levels.

area typical 11%Massachusetts Institute of Technolo: $1k → 8%Radio Club of America: $1k → 11%Morrissey Compton: $100 → 7%Symphony ArtSpark: $2k → 8%Caltech: $1k → 14%University of Michigan: $1k → 14%Henry Ford Health: $500 → 21%Massachusetts Institute of Technolo: $600 → 8%Radio Club of America: $750 → 11%Symphony ArtSpark: $2k → 8%CALTECH: $600 → 14%University of Michigan: $600 → 14%Wayne State University: $500 → 21%MIT: $600 → 8%Radio Club of America: $350 → 11%Symphony Silicon Valley: $2k → 8%Caltech: $600 → 14%UOFM: $600 → 14%WAYNE ST U: $300 → 21%MIT: $600 → 8%Symphony Silicon Valley: $2k → 8%Caltech: $600 → 14%University of Michigan: $600 → 14%Wayne State University: $300 → 21%Massachusetts Institute of Technolo: $500 → 8%Symphony Silicon Valley: $2k → 8%Caltech: $500 → 14%University of Michigan: $500 → 14%Wayne State University: $250 → 21%Massachusetts Institute of Technolo: $500 → 8%Symphony ArtSpark: $1k → 8%Caltech: $500 → 14%University of Michigan: $500 → 14%Wayne State University: $250 → 21%Massachusetts Institute of Technolo: $500 → 8%SYMPH SAN JOSE ARTSPARK: $1k → 8%Caltech: $500 → 14%University of Michigan: $500 → 14%Wayne State University: $250 → 21%Massachusetts Institute of Technolo: $500 → 8%Symphony San Jose ArtSpark: $1k → 8%Caltech: $500 → 14%University of Michigan: $500 → 14%Wayne State University: $250 → 21%CHM: $100 → 8%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount
How this is measured
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.
How this is measured
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.
03Its grantees
repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

86%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$24k · 9 repeat orgs$4k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +19% since the first grant, against 0% for those funded once.

9 repeat relationships: 2 still active in FY2025, 7 since wound down; 6 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

9
3

Total granted

$24k
$2k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+19%
0%

Still filing today

33%
33%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 35% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2k went to new ones.

50%100%’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25
RenewedFirst-time

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

’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25
EducationArts & CultureHealthOther
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.

Backed again, and grew

  • SA
    Symphony ArtSpark
    3× · 2021–2023 · $5k
  • TC
    THE CALTECH Y
    8× · 2017–2025 · $5k · revenue -2%
  • SS
    SYMPHONY SAN JOSE
    3× · 2017–2019 · $5k · revenue +19%

Funded once

  • SS
    Symphony San Jose ArtSpark
    one grant, 2024 · $1k
  • HF
    HENRY FORD HEALTH SYSTEM
    one grant, 2024 · $500 · revenue 0%
  • IG
    Individual grant recipient
    one grant, 2019 · $100
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.

04Its field
04the grantee network

5 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. 5 of the 19 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.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
1
Early backer (in before they grew)
5/5
Grantees still filing
3/5
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Symphony ArtSpark: $5,000 · OtherSymphony ArtSparkUniversity of Michigan: $4,200 · OtherUniversity of MichiganRadio Club of America: $2,350 · OtherRadio Club of AmericaWayne State University: $1,800 · OtherWayne State UniversityMIT: $1,200 · OtherMITSYMPH SAN JOSE ARTSPARK: $1,000 · OtherSYMPH SAN JOSE ARTSPARKSymphony San Jose ArtSpark: $1,000 · OtherSymphony San Jose ArtSpark+8 more: $1,700 · Other+8 moreTHE CALTECH Y: $4,800 · EducationTHE CALTECH YMassachusetts Institute of Technology: $3,600 · EducationMassachusetts Institute of Tec…SYMPHONY SAN JOSE: $4,500 · Arts & CultureSYMPHONY SAN JOS…HENRY FORD HEALTH SYSTEM: $500 · Health
Other$18,250Education$8,400Arts & Culture$4,500Health$500

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetTHE CALTECH Y: $4,800 over 8y, 0.1% of budgetSYMPHONY SAN JOSE: $4,500 over 3y, 0.1% of budgetUniversity of Michigan: $4,200 over 7y, 0.4% of budgetMassachusetts Institute of Technology: $3,600 over 6y, 0.0% of budgetHENRY FORD HEALTH SYSTEM: $500 over 1y, 0.0% of budget
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.

  • Who funds THE CALTECH Y ↗
  • Who funds SYMPHONY SAN JOSE ↗
  • Who funds University of Michigan ↗
  • Who funds Massachusetts Institute of Technology ↗
  • Who funds HENRY FORD HEALTH SYSTEM ↗

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Leeson Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Leeson Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%0%1%3%5%funder's share of their income ↑0%25%50%75%100%share of the org’s income from government →median 35%
  • Massachusetts Institute of Technology: 35% of income from government
no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
0get no government money at all
1report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
0rely on government for over half their income
typical government reliance, FY20–25
How this is measured
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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

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 19 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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More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions
grants reported with no recipient in the public record
The regranting layer
51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer
The DAF merry-go-round
$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds
The endowment market
who holds foundation money, and what just moved
The camps
funders cluster by geography, not ideology
By state
where grant money is based, and what stays home