How much does Library System of Lancaster County give?

Library System of Lancaster County reported 14 grants totaling $1,949,569 in its FY2024 IRS filing. It funded between 14 and 14 organizations a year over FY2017 to FY2023.

What does Library System of Lancaster County fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2024, its largest causes are Education (100%).

Who are Library System of Lancaster County's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2024: Lancaster Public Library ($3.6M), Ephrata Public Library ($1.5M), Manheim Township ($1.4M).

Does Library System of Lancaster County fund new organizations?

In FY2023, 0% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Which funders back the same organizations as Library System of Lancaster County?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Lancaster County Community Foundation, Ashland Foundation, Amazonsmile Foundation.

Where is Library System of Lancaster County based?

Library System of Lancaster County is based in PA.

Library System of Lancaster County

Library System of Lancaster County at a glance Also receives grants: funding profile →

· 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

$1.9M

Granted FY2024still arriving

Grants FY2024still arriving

States reached

$478k

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.

Education$13M

02FY2024 · 14 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2024

$50k–250k13 grants · $1.5M
$250k+1 grant · $478k

$98,245

Median grant

States reached

$3.3M

Total assets

Largest grants
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

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:

Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY17–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 7%. 100% of its 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.

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.

100%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$13M · 14 repeat orgs$0 to everyone else

14 repeat relationships: 14 still active in FY2024, 0 since wound down.

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$13M

Still filing today

93%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

EducationArts & CultureOther

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

LP
LANCASTER PUBLIC LIBRARY
8× · 2017–2024 · $3.6M · revenue +15%
EP
EPHRATA PUBLIC LIBRARY
8× · 2017–2024 · $1.5M · revenue +36%
LP
LITITZ PUBLIC LIBRARY INC
8× · 2017–2024 · $1.0M · revenue +46%

Funded once

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.

Eccles-Lesher Memorial Library Association

—

Indian Valley Public Library Foundation of Friends

Philanthropy

Mountain Lakes Free Public Library

The mission of the Mountain Lakes Free Public Library is to provide free access to books, periodicals, magazines, audio, video, digital and internet media

Education

Parkesburg Free Library

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

Bridgeville Public Library operates as a public library that provides books, videos, periodicals and other educational materials for area residents to use and borrow.

—

Shippensburg Public Library

The shippensburg public library exists to provide cultural vitality and lifelong learning through open access to reading, reference, programs, and community space.

Education

Elkland Area Community Library

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.

Education

Murrysville Community Library

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.

Education

Palmerton Area Library Association

Operate a public library

—

Penn Hills 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.

Education

Morris Plains Library Association

Public Library providing books and computer network to the public

Education

Millvale Community Library

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.

Education

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Eastern Lancaster County Library; 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.

04the grantee network

13 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. 13 of the 14 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)

13/13

Grantees still filing

11/13

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Education$7,029,459Other$5,534,074Arts & Culture$886,950

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.

Lancaster County Community FoundationPA30.1× affinity12 shared granteesties to 2 of 2Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Lancaster County Community Foundation · Ashland Foundation · Amazonsmile Foundation

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 Library System of Lancaster County funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Library System of Lancaster County. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

0get no government money at all

13report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–5%

typical government reliance, FY20–24

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 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.

Play a game based on Library System of Lancaster County’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