Skip to content
Plinth

· Private foundation

Leon and Mary Strauss Charitable 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.

$400k
Granted FY2025still arriving
59
Grants FY2025still arriving
7
States reached
$40k
Largest
01What you fund
01

What you funded, over time

By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).

A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 59% of LEON AND MARY STRAUSS CHARITABLE FOUNDATION’s grantee dollars fall outside its nine largest cause areas, whether because the recipient carries no IRS cause code or because its cause sits in the long tail. A chart would be mostly one residual band and misrepresent the portfolio.

02FY2025 · 59 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

By grant size · FY2025

  • Under $10k45 grants · $125k
  • $10k–50k14 grants · $275k
$5,000
Median grant
7
States reached
$4.5M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
COCA$40,000
NEW JEWISH THEATRE$31,000
DANCE ST LOUIS$25,000
NINE PBS$25,000
STAGES ST LOUIS$25,000
Individual grant recipient$25,000
ST LOUIS ZOO$25,000
FRENCH AMERICAN CULTURAL FOUNDATION$15,750
FOX PERFORMING ARTS CHARITABLE FOUNDATION$13,500
CINEMA ST LOUIS$10,000
FOUNDATION FOR BARNES JEWISH HOSPITAL$10,000
KAPLAN FELDMAN HOLOCAUST MUSEUM$10,000
TENNESSEE WILLIAMS FESTIVAL$10,000
ST LOUIS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA$10,000
STRAY DOG THEATRE$5,000
02The need
03

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.

show:

Your human-services grants (FY19–25, $14k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 43% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants spread fairly evenly across need levels.

area typical 11%NURSES FOR NEWBORNS: $500 → 11%INTERNATIONAL INSTITUTE OF ST LOUIS: $1k → 21%JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER: $4k → 11%JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER: $2k → 11%NARAL PRO CHOICE MISSOURI FOUNDATION: $5k → 21%ST LOUIS ARC: $1k → 11%ST LOUIS ARC: $1k → 11%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

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

IL
NY
IA
CT
CA
MO
KS
TN
DC
OK
GA
TX

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.

03Your edge
repeat funding

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.

89%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.
$1.9M · 87 repeat orgs$233k to everyone else

87 repeat relationships — 39 still active in FY2025, 48 since wound down; 20 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

87
45

Total granted

$1.9M
$113k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+22%
+40%

Still filing today

62%
49%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 70% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $120k 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
Arts & CultureAnimalsEducationInternationalHuman ServicesHealthOther

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

  • CS
    CINEMA ST LOUIS
    7× · 2017–2025 · $90k · revenue +28%
  • SS
    STAGES ST LOUIS
    4× · 2020–2025 · $90k · revenue +91%
  • TC
    THE CAT SHELTER
    4× · 2019–2022 · $58k · revenue +5%

Funded once

  • SL
    Saint Louis Fashion Fund
    one grant, 2018 · $33k · revenue -75%
  • SL
    ST LOUIS INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL
    one grant, 2018 · $15k
  • AA
    Abortion Action Missouri Foundationgraduated
    one grant, 2023 · $5k · revenue +112%

Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Your field

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.

1
Art St Louis

Art St Louis is a nonprofit community art organization and gallery dedicated to enriching lives through the creative activity of our region's contemporary visual artists. Through exhibition, education, and exchange, we connect and inspire…

Arts & Culture
2
St Louis Shakespeare Festival

Fostering community and joy across the st. louis region through the shakespearean tradition of art for all.

Arts & Culture
3
Mission St Louis

Mission: st. louis empowers individuals for social and economic growth through relationships and opportunity.

Community Improvement
4
St Louis Community Foundation

To promote the possibilities of charitable giving, helping charitable citizens understand how they can effectively provide for the community they love and the causes they care deeply about.

Philanthropy
5
The Saint Louis Zoo Association

The saint louis zoo association was established to support and enhance the saint louis zoo by providing facilities, funds, and advice. the association provides direct financial support to the zoo for renovations, new facilities, programs,…

Animals
6
Regional Cultural and Performing Arts Development Commission

As the leading public catalyst for arts and culture in st. louis, the regional arts commission leverages the power of creativity to strengthen and enrich our community.

Arts & Culture
7
St Louis Metropolitan Spay Neuter and Wellness Center Inc

1.) provide low cost, subsidized or free spay/neuter surgeries for cats and dogs, including transportation services, 2.) provide wellness services for cats and dogs, and 3.) provide educational services regarding health and welfare of cats…

Animals
8
Municipal Theatre Association of St Louis

The muny is a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization whose mission is to enrich lives by producing exceptional musical theatre accessible to all, continuing its remarkable tradition in forest park.

Arts & Culture
9
St Louis Economic Development Partnership

Economic development.

10
Greater St Louis Inc

Greater st. louis, inc. brings together business and civic leaders to create jobs, drive inclusive economic growth, and increase the st. louis metro area's global competitiveness. we speak with a unified voice, lead with a bold agenda, and…

Community Improvement
11
St Lou Fringe

To offer everyone the opportunity to put before an audience their works in theater, dance and music.

Arts & Culture
12
St Louis Sports Commission Inc

Foster economic growth and improved quality of life in the st. louis area by producing events, enhancing its national and international image as a premier sports region, and increasing community awareness of the value of sports.

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is St Louis Art Museum Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Shriners Hospital for Children. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

Your grantees are a median of 39 years old; the field is 21. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.

THE FIELDby orgYOUR GRANTEESby number19%2%<5yr13%3%5–10yr17%14%10–20yr16%26%20–35yr17%27%35–55yr19%27%55yr+
THE FIELDby orgYOUR MONEYby value19%0%<5yr13%2%5–10yr17%13%10–20yr16%32%20–35yr17%23%35–55yr19%30%55yr+

The field is 19% startups (under 5 years old) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.

Closures · last 5 years

The orgs you fund almost never close 0.0% lost their exemption, against 14% of the field you don’t fund.

orgs you fund
0.0%0/92
the rest of the field
14%
1,453/10,065

Age = years since IRS exemption (a founding proxy). “Closed” = auto-revocation for 3 years of non-filing — a floor on closure, not proof, and bigger established orgs lapse least. Association, not causation.

04the grantee network

87 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 20172025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 87 of the 153 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.

1
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
20
Early backer (in before they grew)
86/87
Grantees still filing
55/87
Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

COCA — $435,000 · OtherCOCAIndividual grant recipient — $130,000 · OtherIndividual grant recipientSTAGES ST LOUIS — $90,000 · OtherSTAGES ST LOUISIndividual grant recipient — $80,000 · OtherIndividual grant recipientNEW JEWISH THEATRE — $63,500 · OtherTENNESSEE WILLIAMS FESTIVAL — $50,000 · Other+87 more — $468,500 · Other+87 moreDANCE SAINT LOUIS — $110,000 · Arts & CultureDANCE SAINT LOUISCINEMA ST LOUIS — $90,000 · Arts & CultureCINEMA ST LOUISSAINT LOUIS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA — $40,000 · Arts & CultureSAINT LOUIS SYMPHONY ORCHES…ST LOUIS ART MUSEUM FOUNDATION — $40,000 · Arts & CultureST LOUIS ART MUSEUM FOUNDAT…CABARET PROJECT OF SAINT LOUIS — $39,000 · Arts & CultureCABARET PROJECT OF SAINT LO…THE REPERTORY THEATRE OF ST LOUIS — $30,000 · Arts & CultureTHE REPERTORY THEATRE OF ST…ST LOUIS REGIONAL PUBLIC MEDIA INC — $25,000 · Arts & CultureCIRCUS HARMONY — $23,500 · Arts & CultureTENNESSEE WILLIAMS FESTIVAL ST LOUIS — $20,000 · Arts & Culture+21 more — $110,350 · Arts & Culture+21 moreTHE CAT SHELTER — $57,500 · AnimalsST LOUIS FERAL CAT OUTREACH INC — $15,000 · AnimalsANIMAL PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION OF MISSOURI — $12,500 · AnimalsHUMANE SOCIETY OF MISSOURI — $11,000 · AnimalsGATEWAY PET GUARDIANS — $10,000 · AnimalsThe Goode Life Rescue — $5,000 · AnimalsPOUND PETS INC — $5,000 · AnimalsOPERATION SPOT INC — $5,000 · Animals+4 more — $8,750 · AnimalsSaint Louis Fashion Fund — $33,000 · EducationST LOUIS UNIVERSITY — $21,000 · EducationWASHINGTON UNIVERSITY — $10,000 · EducationWebster University — $8,500 · Education+1 more — $1,000 · EducationFOX PERFORMING ARTS CHARITABLE FOUNDATION — $51,500 · PhilanthropyJewish Federation of St Louis — $4,300 · Philanthropy+1 more — $1,000 · PhilanthropyTHE FOUNDATION FOR BARNES-JEWISH HOSPITAL — $30,000 · HealthST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INC — $6,000 · HealthMEMORY CARE HOME SOLUTIONS — $2,500 · Health+2 more — $1,500 · HealthMEDS & FOOD FOR KIDS — $7,600 · InternationalCOOPERATIVE FOR ASSISTANCE AND RELIEF EVERYWHERE INC — $3,000 · InternationalFEED THE CHILDREN INC — $2,000 · InternationalMercy Ships International — $1,500 · InternationalSave The Children Federation Inc — $1,000 · International
Other$1,317,000Arts & Culture$527,850Animals$129,750Education$73,500Philanthropy$56,800Health$40,000International$15,100

Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$100k$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ your share of their budgetDANCE SAINT LOUIS — $110,000 over 8y, 3.9% of budgetCINEMA ST LOUIS — $90,000 over 7y, 2.1% of budgetSTAGES ST LOUIS — $90,000 over 4y, 1.1% of budgetTHE CAT SHELTER — $57,500 over 4y, 3.2% of budgetFOX PERFORMING ARTS CHARITABLE FOUNDATION — $51,500 over 4y, 0.1% of budgetSAINT LOUIS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA — $40,000 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetST LOUIS ART MUSEUM FOUNDATION — $40,000 over 8y, 0.0% of budgetCABARET PROJECT OF SAINT LOUIS — $39,000 over 6y, 14% of budgetSaint Louis Fashion Fund — $33,000 over 1y, 3.6% of budgetTHE FOUNDATION FOR BARNES-JEWISH HOSPITAL — $30,000 over 3y, 0.2% of budgetTHE REPERTORY THEATRE OF ST LOUIS — $30,000 over 4y, 0.3% of budgetST LOUIS REGIONAL PUBLIC MEDIA INC — $25,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetCIRCUS HARMONY — $23,500 over 6y, 1.3% of budgetST LOUIS UNIVERSITY — $21,000 over 5y, 0.0% of budgetTENNESSEE WILLIAMS FESTIVAL ST LOUIS — $20,000 over 2y, 6.0% of budgetOPEN DOOR ANIMAL SANCTUARY — $19,500 over 6y, 0.3% of budgetTHE GREATER ST LOUIS ARTS AND EDUCATION COUNCIL — $18,000 over 4y, 0.7% of budgetST LOUIS FERAL CAT OUTREACH INC — $15,000 over 3y, 6.5% of budgetMISSOURI HISTORICAL SOCIETY — $12,500 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetANIMAL PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION OF MISSOURI — $12,500 over 3y, 0.1% of budgetHUMANE SOCIETY OF MISSOURI — $11,000 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetSTRAY DOG THEATRE — $10,000 over 3y, 0.4% of budgetOpera Theatre of Saint Louis — $10,000 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetWASHINGTON UNIVERSITY — $10,000 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetGATEWAY PET GUARDIANS — $10,000 over 3y, 0.1% of budgetCHAMBER MUSIC SOCIETY OF ST LOUIS INC — $8,500 over 3y, 0.9% of budgetWebster University — $8,500 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetMEDS & FOOD FOR KIDS — $7,600 over 5y, 0.0% of budgetPHOTO ART & SCIENCE FOUNDATION — $7,500 over 4y, 1.9% of budgetForest Park Forever Inc — $7,500 over 6y, 0.0% of budgetTHE BACH SOCIETY OF SAINT LOUIS — $7,000 over 7y, 0.3% of budgetRADIO ARTS FOUNDATION — $6,500 over 5y, 0.1% of budgetST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INC — $6,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetOPERATION FOOD SEARCH INC — $6,000 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetSt Louis Black Repertory Company Inc — $6,000 over 3y, 0.2% of budgetJEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER — $5,500 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetOZARK ACTORS THEATRE — $5,100 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetAbortion Action Missouri Foundation — $5,000 over 1y, 0.3% of budgetPOUND PETS INC — $5,000 over 1y, 5.4% of budgetOPERATION SPOT INC — $5,000 over 1y, 3.2% of budgetST LOUIS AREA FOOD BANK INC — $5,000 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetRIVER CITY JOURNALISM FUND INC — $5,000 over 1y, 4.8% of budgetJewish Federation of St Louis — $4,300 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetFULL CIRCLE MO FERAL — $3,500 over 2y, 2.1% of budgetWILD CANID SURVIVAL AND RESEARCH CENTER INC DBA ENDANGERED WOLF CENTER — $3,250 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetCONTEMPORARY ART MUSEUM ST LOUIS — $3,000 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetMAX & LOUIE PRODUCTIONS — $3,000 over 3y, 5.0% of budgetVARIETY THE CHILDRENS CHARITY OF ST LOUIS — $3,000 over 2y, 0.1% of budget
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 DANCE SAINT LOUIS
  • Who funds CINEMA ST LOUIS
  • Who funds STAGES ST LOUIS
  • Who funds THE CAT SHELTER
  • Who funds FOX PERFORMING ARTS CHARITABLE FOUNDATION
  • Who funds SAINT LOUIS SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA
  • Who funds ST LOUIS ART MUSEUM FOUNDATION
  • Who funds CABARET PROJECT OF SAINT LOUIS
  • Who funds Saint Louis Fashion Fund
  • Who funds THE FOUNDATION FOR BARNES-JEWISH HOSPITAL
  • Who funds THE REPERTORY THEATRE OF ST LOUIS
  • Who funds ST LOUIS REGIONAL PUBLIC MEDIA INC
  • Who funds CIRCUS HARMONY
  • Who funds ST LOUIS UNIVERSITY
  • Who funds TENNESSEE WILLIAMS FESTIVAL ST LOUIS
  • Who funds OPEN DOOR ANIMAL SANCTUARY
  • Who funds THE GREATER ST LOUIS ARTS AND EDUCATION COUNCIL
  • Who funds FRENCH-AMERICAN CULTURAL FOUNDATION
  • Who funds ST LOUIS FERAL CAT OUTREACH INC
  • Who funds MISSOURI HISTORICAL SOCIETY
  • Who funds ANIMAL PROTECTIVE ASSOCIATION OF MISSOURI
  • Who funds HUMANE SOCIETY OF MISSOURI
  • Who funds STRAY DOG THEATRE
  • Who funds Opera Theatre of Saint Louis

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.

Regional Cultural and Performing Arts Development CommissionMO78.3× affinity36 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Regional Cultural and Performing Arts Development Commission · St Louis Community Foundation · St Louis Community Foundation Inc · The Kranzberg Family Charitable Foundation · Trio Foundation of St Louis · Edward Jones Foundation · United Way of Greater St Louis Inc · Employees Community Fund of the Boeing Company · Centene Foundation · Sam and Marilyn Fox Foundation · Moneta Group Charitable Foundation · World Wide Technology 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 Leon and Mary Strauss Charitable Foundation 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.

2024
202122232425
no gov · 00%3%10%23%40%your share of their income ↑0%25%50%75%100%share of the org’s income from governmentmedian 30%
  • Save the Children Federation Inc30% of income from government
  • Feed the Children Inc1% of income from government
no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
0get no government money at all
24report 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, FY2025

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.

05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to Leon and Mary Strauss Charitable Foundation?

Find your warmest path to Leon and Mary Strauss Charitable Foundation 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.

On method. Every financial figure here is read directly from IRS e-file XML — your own 990/990-PF and the multi-year returns of the 153 grantees we resolved across every year we hold, several hundred filings in all (a different count from the grant rows on the cover, which are one fiscal year)— each linked to its source. Grantee achievements and outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III); we read these as association with sustained funding — the foundation is one of several forces — suppress low-confidence name matches rather than guess, and say so where a figure rests on a single grant or filing. Not everything on this page is a filed figure, and the difference matters. Filed is what you reported on your 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. How we build these →

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

Source object · view filing

More from the funding graph