· Private foundation
Lifeway Foundation Inc
Its FY2024 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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k11 grants · $38k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $17k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $59k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| DISCIPLESHIP UNLIMITED | $58,625 |
| ORPHANOS | $16,780 |
| STUDENTS STANDING STRONG | $8,000 |
| SAMARITAN'S PURSE | $5,000 |
| CARENET | $5,000 |
| PIONEER BIBLE TRANSLATORS | $5,000 |
| CHRISTIAN WOMENS JOB CORP | $3,500 |
| SALVATION ARMY | $3,500 |
| JUDICIAL WATCH | $2,000 |
| HABITAT FOR HUMANITY | $2,000 |
| GOSPEL EXPRESS MINISTRIES | $2,000 |
| LEADERSHIP INSTITUTE | $1,000 |
| FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL | $1,000 |
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 (FY17–24, $565k) land where the poverty rate runs at 20%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 88% 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.
Which US states your grants reach
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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 44% of Lifeway Foundation Inc’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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 +18% since the first grant, against +16% for the ones you funded once.
28 repeat relationships — 11 still active in FY2024, 17 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).
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 FY2024, 98% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2k 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
- DUDISCIPLESHIP UNLIMITED INC7× · 2018–2024 · $121k · revenue +24%
- UIUTTERMOST INTERNATIONAL4× · 2017–2023 · $59k · revenue +688%
- SPSAMARITAN'S PURSE5× · 2020–2024 · $42k · revenue +106%
Funded once
- SSSAMUEL'S SANCTUARY MINISTRIES ORPHAone grant, 2023 · $15k
- LILIFESHAPE INCone grant, 2022 · $10k · revenue -37%
- SASOUTH ASIA ADVOCATESone grant, 2023 · $10k · revenue +10%
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.
Christian Mission for the United Nations Community is a ministry aimed at leading the head of every nation and other top leaders to faith in Jesus Christ and helping them to walk in dependence upon God as they discharge the…
Christianity Today is a global community inspired by evangelical conviction to advance the stories and ideas of the kingdom of God. Our mission is to elevate the storytellers and sages of the global church.
Mobilization of churches in America by taking pastors and laymen on vision and service trips overseas in fulfillment of Jesus command to go ye into all the world, making disciples...
The organization is dedicated to reaching people for christ through an international network of christians who journey with the poor and marginalized, bringing practical and spiritual support with hope of a better future,(continued on…
As part of the body of Christ, to see that every young person in every people group in every nation has the opportunity to make an informed decision to be a follower of Jesus Christ and become a part of the local church.
Walk thru the bible (wtb) ignites passion for god's word. by developing a global network of influential pastors and leaders and then resourcing them with tools and training, wtb fulfills its role in the great commission.
Mission Without Borders (MWB) is dedicated to reaching people for Christ through an international network of Christians who journey with the poor and marginalized, bringing practical and spiritual support with hope of a better future,…
The organization exists to spread the gospel of Jesus Christ while providing support and serving the poor through benevolent assistance, medical services, education, orphan care, church planting, etc.
The organizations exempt purpose is to rescue orphans and widows, feed the poor, build the local church through ministry, crusades and outreaches and to win souls around the world.
The international leadership institute (ili) changes history by accelerating the spread of the gospel through training and mobilizing leaders of leaders to reach their nations. ili accomplishes this purpose through cutting edge leadership…
Christar international serves as a catalyst to the network of christar ministries by facilitating and encouraging partnerships with churches who sen dout men and women who proclaim the gospel for life-giving transformation in communitiesw…
Our mission is to affirm life through evangelism, education, counseling and practical assistance.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Lifeshape Inc and the most unlike its peers is Meals On Wheels. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 31 years old; the field is 12. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 26% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% lost their exemption, against 15% of the field you don’t fund.
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.
31 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. 31 of the 60 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 LIFEWAY HAVEN INC ↗
- Who funds DISCIPLESHIP UNLIMITED INC ↗
- Who funds UTTERMOST INTERNATIONAL ↗
- Who funds SAMARITAN'S PURSE ↗
- Who funds Orphanos Foundation ↗
- Who funds STUDENTS STANDING STRONG ↗
- Who funds Pioneer Bible Translators ↗
- Who funds ALLIANCE DEFENDING FREEDOM ↗
- Who funds JUDICIAL WATCH INC ↗
- Who funds Living Water International ↗
- Who funds Restoration Development Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds LIFESHAPE INC ↗
- Who funds SOUTH ASIA ADVOCATES ↗
- Who funds PROYECTO DESARROLLO HUMANO ↗
- Who funds CHRISTIAN WOMENS JOB CORP ↗
- Who funds FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL ↗
- Who funds GOSPEL EXPRESS EVANGELISTIC TEAM MINISTRY INC ↗
- Who funds COASTAL BEND GRACE HOUSE ↗
- Who funds Christian Aid Ministries ↗
- Who funds Child Legacy International Inc ↗
- Who funds ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE & RELATED DISORDERS ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE MOUNTAIN ON MASTERS ROAD ↗
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: Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · Christian Community Foundation Inc · Servant Foundation · Shell USA Company Foundation · Communities Foundation of Texas Inc · Texas Instruments Foundation · American Endowment Foundation · Raymond James Charitable Endowment Fund · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Paypal Charitable Giving Fund · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc
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 Lifeway Foundation Inc 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 Lifeway Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to Lifeway Foundation Inc 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.