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Foundation Dossiers

California · Private foundation

Light Matters Foundation

Its FY2019 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

$159k
Granted FY2018
2
Grants FY2018
2
Organizations funded FY2018
100%
First-time grantees FY2018
Read the full brief
Median grant, FY2018
$150,000
Largest grant, FY2018
$150,000
Organizations funded a year
1 to 2
FY2017 to FY2018
States reached, FY2018
2
Applications
Preselected organizations only
Per its most recent filing; check its own site

How open it is to new grantees

In FY2018, 100% of the organizations Light Matters Foundation funded were first-time grantees, receiving 100% of its grant dollars.

The numbers by year
Fiscal yearOrganizations fundedTo those organizationsFirst-time grantees
FY20182$159k100%
FY20171$50kn/a
67% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2018.

Health$200kOther$0

Top grantees

Largest recipients by total granted, FY2017 to FY2018, and the share of each one’s budget the grants supplied at peak.

GranteeTotal grantedYearsShare of their budget
Eb Research Partnership Inc$50,00012%

Plus 2 recipients with no EIN on record ($159k), not named here.

Compare Light Matters Foundation with peer funders

About Light Matters Foundation

How much does Light Matters Foundation give?
Light Matters Foundation reported 2 grants totaling $159,000 in its FY2018 IRS filing. It funded between 1 and 2 organizations a year over FY2017 to FY2018.
What does Light Matters Foundation fund?
By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2018, its largest causes are Health (96%).
Who are Light Matters Foundation's largest grantees?
By total granted over FY2017 to FY2018: Eb Research Partnership Inc ($50k).
Does Light Matters Foundation fund new organizations?
In FY2018, 100% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.
Does Light Matters Foundation accept unsolicited applications?
Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Where is Light Matters Foundation based?
Light Matters Foundation is based in CA.

On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 3 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

How this is measured
Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears.

Generated from the IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2018, released 2018. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Possibly out of date. A more recent filing (FY2019) is on record but names no grant recipient in the published copy, so the figures above are from FY2018, the most recent year this funder’s grantee list reached the public record.

Source object · view filing

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