· Private foundation
Lessing 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.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| AMERICAN FRIENDS OF TEL AVIV UNIVERSITY | $6,000 |
| LEO BAECK INSTITUTE | $2,100 |
| AMERICAN FRIENDS OF THE ISRAEL MUSEUM | $1,100 |
| ARTIS | $500 |
| PARK AVENUE SYNAGOGUE | $180 |
| THE BLUE CARD INC | $100 |
| DOROT | $100 |
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.
Your human-services grants (FY23–25, $605) land where the poverty rate runs at 17%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 100% of those 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.
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 +34% since the first grant, against +20% for the ones you funded once.
10 repeat relationships — 7 still active in FY2025, 3 since wound down.
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, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
- AFAmerican Friends of Tel Aviv Univ6× · 2017–2025 · $37k · revenue +50%
- LBLEO BAECK INSTITUTE INC6× · 2017–2025 · $36k · revenue +198%
- I2Israel 21c5× · 2017–2024 · $1k · revenue +15%
Funded once
- NUNLI USA INCone grant, 2019 · $500 · revenue +17%
- UEUpper East Side Hatzolah Incone grant, 2024 · $100 · revenue +20%
- SSSHARE SELF-HELP FOR WOMEN WITH BREAST OR OVARIAN CANCER INCgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $100 · revenue +108%
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.
To promote, benefit, and support Jewish religious, charitable & educational activities in Israel and the USA.
The weizmann institute of science, located in rehovot, israel, is one of the worlds top-ranking, multidisciplinary research institutions. at any one time, several thousand scientists, staff and students are involved in hundreds of research…
Our vision is to reignite the zionist spirit and meet the needs of jewish civilization in the twenty-first century by connecting people around the world through the vibrancy and creativity of contemporary israeli culture.
To promote and foster the creation of a zionist intellectual infrastructure for the state of israel, the development of a jewish national culture, and the establishment and promotion of intellectual and economic liberty.
To provide financial support to the university, its professors to further research, and in some cases its students in the form of scholarships. additionally, some funding is dedicated to furthering the public profile of the university in…
The american friends of beit hatfutsot represents the interests ofbeit hatfutsot, the museum of the jewish people in tel aviv, israel inall aspects of its educational and cultural activities. as such theorganization supports exhibitions,…
To provide funding for medical and humanitarian projects throughout israel. the organization might make grants to other organizations providing such services, including, but not limited to, evp israel and israel emergency aid fund, israeli…
To promote and support jewish religious charitable and educational activities in israel & usa.
The organization provides financial assistance to victims of acts of terrorism in the state of israel.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is American Friends of the Israel Museum and the most unlike its peers is Dorot Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
12 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. 12 of the 16 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 AMERICAN FRIENDS OF THE ISRAEL MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds American Friends of Tel Aviv Univ ↗
- Who funds LEO BAECK INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds PEF ISRAEL ENDOWMENT FUNDS INC ↗
- Who funds Israel 21c ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN FRIENDS OF KISHORIT INC ↗
- Who funds NLI USA INC ↗
- Who funds DOROT INC ↗
- Who funds THE BLUE CARD INC ↗
- Who funds Upper East Side Hatzolah Inc ↗
- Who funds SHARE SELF-HELP FOR WOMEN WITH BREAST OR OVARIAN CANCER INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN ASSOCIATION OF MUSEUMS ↗
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: Jewish Communal Fund · Nash Family Foundation · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · 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 Lessing 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.
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.