· Public charity
Library System of Lancaster County
Provide resources, services, and expertise in a collaborative manner to and with the member libraries in order to effectively serve our communities
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- $50k–250k13 grants · $1.5M
- $250k+1 grant · $478k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| LANCASTER PUBLIC LIBRARY | $478,003 |
| MANHEIM TOWNSHIP PUBLIC LIBRARY | $206,631 |
| EPHRATA PUBLIC LIBRARY | $202,714 |
| LITITZ PUBLIC LIBRARY | $149,538 |
| ELIZABETHTOWN PUBLIC LIBRARY | $140,040 |
| INTERCOURSE LIBRARY | $134,493 |
| MILANOF-SCHOCK LIBRARY | $98,245 |
| QUARRYVILLE LIBRARY | $91,358 |
| ADAMSTOWN AREA LIBRARY | $82,993 |
| ELANCO LIBRARY | $80,249 |
| COLUMBIA PUBLIC LIBRARY | $77,365 |
| MOORES MEMORIAL LIBRARY | $76,844 |
| STRASBURG-HEISLER LIBRARY | $73,575 |
| MANHEIM COMMUNITY LIBRARY | $57,521 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 7%. 100% of your 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.
14 repeat relationships — 14 still active in FY2024, 0 since wound down.
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2024, 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
- LPLANCASTER PUBLIC LIBRARY8× · 2017–2024 · $3.6M · revenue +15%
- EPEPHRATA PUBLIC LIBRARY8× · 2017–2024 · $1.5M · revenue +36%
- LPLITITZ PUBLIC LIBRARY INC8× · 2017–2024 · $1.0M · revenue +46%
Funded once
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.
The mission of the Mountain Lakes Free Public Library is to provide free access to books, periodicals, magazines, audio, video, digital and internet media
The mission of the Parkesburg Free Library is to provide the Parkesburg Borough and surrounding communities with book materials and information necessary for personal growth and life long learning. We seek to guide community and business…
Bridgeville Public Library operates as a public library that provides books, videos, periodicals and other educational materials for area residents to use and borrow.
The shippensburg public library exists to provide cultural vitality and lifelong learning through open access to reading, reference, programs, and community space.
Operate and maintain a free community library for purposes of providing the community of Elkland, PA and surrounding area with books, multi-media and information services.
The Murrysville Community Library serves the communitys evolving informational needs. We connect people with ideas and information, promote lifelong learning, and help build the community.
Operate a public library
A welcoming community center that provides information and equitable access to space, collections, materials, programs and services that enrich the quality of life and facilitate lifelong learning.
Public Library providing books and computer network to the public
To ensure the preservation and transmission of society's knowledge, history and culture, and to provide the people of Millvale with free and open access to information for education, recreation and reference.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Eastern Lancaster County Library and the most unlike its peers is Strasburg-Heisler Library. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
13 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. 13 of the 14 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 LANCASTER PUBLIC LIBRARY ↗
- Who funds EPHRATA PUBLIC LIBRARY ↗
- Who funds LITITZ PUBLIC LIBRARY INC ↗
- Who funds INTERCOURSE LIBRARY INC ↗
- Who funds ELIZABETHTOWN PUBLIC LIBRARY ↗
- Who funds MILANOF-SCHOCK LIBRARY ↗
- Who funds QUARRYVILLE LIBRARY CENTER ↗
- Who funds ADAMSTOWN AREA LIBRARY ↗
- Who funds EASTERN LANCASTER COUNTY LIBRARY ↗
- Who funds STRASBURG-HEISLER LIBRARY ↗
- Who funds MOORES MEMORIAL LIBRARY ↗
- Who funds COLUMBIA PUBLIC LIBRARY ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds MANHEIM COMMUNITY LIBRARY ↗
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: Lancaster County Community Foundation · Ashland Foundation · 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 Library System of Lancaster County 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Library System of Lancaster County?
Find your warmest path to Library System of Lancaster County 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.