How much does Les Paul Foundation give?

Les Paul Foundation reported 63 grants totaling $418,042 in its FY2024 IRS filing. It funded between 23 and 72 organizations a year over FY2017 to FY2023.

What does Les Paul Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2024, its largest causes are Arts & Culture (52%), Education (28%), Health (15%).

Who are Les Paul Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2024: Discovery World Ltd ($600k), Hearing Health Foundation ($450k), Music Will Inc ($429k).

Does Les Paul Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2023, 43% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Les Paul Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it accepts unsolicited grant applications.

Which funders back the same organizations as Les Paul Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include D'Addario Foundation Inc, Gibson Gives Foundation Dba Gibson Gives, The Cma Foundation.

Where is Les Paul Foundation based?

Les Paul Foundation is based in NY.

Les Paul Foundation

Les Paul Foundation at a glance Also receives grants: funding profile →

· Private foundation

Les Paul Foundation

Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.

$418k

Granted FY2024still arriving

Grants FY2024still arriving

States reached

$75k

Largest

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 2024.

Arts & Culture$2.2MEducation$1.2MHealth$612kYouth Development$83kPublic Benefit$80kFood & Nutrition$60kHuman Services$22kEmployment$3kOther$0

02FY2024 · 63 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2024

Under $10k56 grants · $158k
$10k–50k5 grants · $135k
$50k–250k2 grants · $125k

$2,500

Median grant

States reached

$42M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
DISCOVERY WORLD	$75,000
HEARING HEALTH FOUNDATION	$50,000
NOTES FOR NOTES INC	$35,000
SOULSVILLE FOUNDATION	$30,000
MUSICIANS ON CALL	$25,000
WORCESTER POLYTECHNIC INSTITUTE	$24,900
ROWAN UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION	$20,000
MAHWAH MUSEUM SOCIETY INC	$8,000
ROCK & SOUL FOREVER FOUNDATION	$7,500
COUNTRY MUSIC FOUNDATION	$7,500
FIRST STAGE MILWAUKEE INC	$7,500
DYNAMO STUDIOS	$5,000
NEW ORLEANS JAZZ & HERITAGE FOUNDATION	$5,000
LIVECONNECTIONSORG	$5,000
YOUNG AUDIENCES OF OREGON INC	$5,000

02The need

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:

Its human-services grants (FY18–24, $114k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 61% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

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.

Which US states its grants reach

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.

85%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$3.5M · 56 repeat orgs$606k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +31% since the first grant, against +26% for those funded once.

56 repeat relationships: 28 still active in FY2024, 28 since wound down; 35 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

102

Total granted

$3.5M

$531k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+31%

+26%

Still filing today

86%

71%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 82% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $75k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

Arts & CultureEducationHuman ServicesYouth DevelopmentHealthCommunity ImprovementOther

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

DISCOVERY WORLD LTD
7× · 2018–2024 · $600k · revenue +144%
HH
HEARING HEALTH FOUNDATION
7× · 2017–2024 · $450k · revenue +37%
MW
MUSIC WILL INC
6× · 2017–2022 · $429k · revenue +4%

Funded once

BW
BONNAROO WORKS FUND FOR NOTES FOR NOTES
one grant, 2017 · $75k
BW
BONNAROO WORKS FUND
one grant, 2018 · $75k
ST
SAVE THE MUSIC FOUNDATIONgraduated
one grant, 2017 · $35k · revenue +94%

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

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

Intonation Music Workshop

Intonation kids explore their limitless potential by learning to play instruments and forming their own rock bands. Our year-round classes make music accessible to children in low-income neighborhoods by providing them with instruments,…

Arts & Culture

Muse Academy at the Brooklyn Music School

MUSE seeks to develop the full potential of every child as lifelong learners, expressive artists, and active citizens in his or her community. Music, movement, and performance are central to the MUSE Academy educational experience and…

—

Merit School of Music

Merit School of Music is dedicated to helping young people transform their lives by removing barriers to high-quality music education, with the majority of students benefitting from need-based financial aid, scholarship support, or…

Arts & Culture

The Crowden Music Center

Where Students come to receive a world class education with music at its core.

—

Make Music Nola

Make music nola is an intensive music-for-social-change program. themission of make music nola is to promote academic achievement,cultivate artistic expression, and promote the healthy growth anddevelopment of children in new orleans…

Arts & Culture

Girls Write Nashville

Girls write nashville empowers expression through songwriting, production, mentorship and creative community for teen artists. we are an artist and educator-led 501(c)(3) creative youth development program in nashville, tn allied with…

Arts & Culture

Play On Philly

Play on philly provides underserved children in philadelphia, a transformative music education experience that develops and inspires the behaviors and personal skills needed for a successful life.

Arts & Culture

Manhattan School of Music

Manhattan school of music is deeply committed to excellence in education, performance, and creative activity; to the humanity of the school's environment; and to the cultural enrichment of the larger community. a premiere international…

Arts & Culture

Charleston Academy of Music

The Charleston Academy of Music is committed to providing access to exceptional music education, performance and community outreach to all, regardless of age, skill, gender, ethnicity or income.

Arts & Culture

The Wharton Institute for the Performing Arts Inc

To offer accessible, high-quality performing arts education that sparks personal growth and builds inclusive communities. its vision is to transform performing arts education in an inclusive community accessible to all.

—

Armstrong Community Music School

Armstrong community music school offers exciting opportunities to learn the joys of music for students of all ages and skill levels, from early childhood to adult.

—

The Harmony Program Inc

The harmony program believes that music should be an integral part of every child's education and that great expectations lead to even greater achievement. harmony was founded to provide students in under-served communities with free…

Arts & Culture

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is First Stage Milwaukee; the most unlike its peers is Futurenomic Resources Incorporated. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

04the grantee network

150 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.

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 2026, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 150 of the 195 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.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

148/150

Grantees still filing

101/150

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Arts & Culture$1,512,875Education$965,925Other$988,004Health$468,250Human Services$113,900Public Benefit$80,000Community Improvement$47,300

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

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.

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.

D'Addario Foundation IncNY48.2× affinity23 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: D'Addario Foundation Inc · Gibson Gives Foundation Dba Gibson Gives · The Cma Foundation · The Lewis Prize Foundation Inc · Acm Lifting Lives · The Presser Foundation · Nora Roberts Foundation · Mid Atlantic Arts Inc · Martin Guitar Charitable Foundation · Find Your Light Foundation · Greater Milwaukee Foundation Inc · Cornelia T Bailey Charitable Trust

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.

How much its grantees rely on government

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

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

4get no government money at all

50report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

2rely 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.

05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to Les Paul Foundation?

Find your warmest path to Les Paul 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.

Play a game based on Les Paul’s filings →

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