· Private foundation
Lightening the Load
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 FY2019–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k2 grants · $13k
- $10k–50k6 grants · $130k
- $50k–250k5 grants · $468k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OF PHILADELPHIA | $200,000 |
| COMMUNITY VOLUNTEERS IN MEDICINE | $75,000 |
| PHILABUNDANCE | $70,000 |
| TRAVIS MANION FOUNDATION | $62,500 |
| PHILADELPHIA EDUCATION FUND | $60,000 |
| WCU FOUNDATION | $45,000 |
| MELMARK | $25,000 |
| WEST CHESTER AREA SENIOR CENTER | $20,000 |
| CARE | $20,000 |
| DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS | $10,000 |
| FRIENDS ASSOCIATION FOR CARE OF CHILD | $10,000 |
| ST JAMES SCHOOL | $7,500 |
| MIB AGENTS | $5,000 |
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 (FY19–24, $240k) land where the poverty rate runs at 6%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 0% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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 +52% since the first grant, against +31% for the ones you funded once.
17 repeat relationships — 12 still active in FY2024, 5 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; $10k 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
- TCTHE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OF PHILADELPHIA6× · 2019–2024 · $1.2M · revenue +59%
Philabundance6× · 2019–2024 · $530k · revenue +83%- CVCOMMUNITY VOLUNTEERS IN MEDICINE6× · 2019–2024 · $395k · revenue +124%
Funded once
- CFCCSA FOUNDATIONone grant, 2019 · $50k · revenue +18%
- BABOYS AND GIRLS CLUBS OF PHILADELPHIA INCgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $10k · revenue +51%
- BFBread For The World Incgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $10k · revenue +31%
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 trustees of the university of pennsylvania (the "university") sees itself as having a public service mission. in such regard, the university aims to provide a rich and diverse educational environment for its students; to pioneer…
Philhaven promotes hope, healing and wholeness through the provision of behavioral resources.
The chambersburg hospital is a regional non-profit health care organization committed to the improvement of the health and well-being of the people in southcentral pennsylvania.
(msh) saves lives and improves the health of the world's poorest (see schedule o) and most vulnerable people by closing the gap between knowledge and action in public health.
To heal. to teach. to empower. to amaze.
We champion the health needs of children and families. we are committed to improving children's health by providing the highest-quality, family centered care, advanced through research and education.
Website: https://towerhealth.org/locations/st-christophers-hospital- children stc opco, llc (st. christopher's hospital for children) provides a full range of high-quality healthcare services to all children and youth up to age 21 who seek…
Our mission at the university of chicago medicine is to provide superior health care through rigorous research, innovative education, and comprehensive care and healing. in partnership with our colleagues, we pursue life-changing…
Leadership in the prevention, treatment, and cure of cancer through excellence, vision and cost effectiveness in patient care, outreach programs, research, and education.
Drexel university fulfills its founder's vision of preparing each new generation of students for productive professional and civic lives while also focusing its collective expertise on solving society's greatest problems. drexel is an…
Summary
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Philabundance and the most unlike its peers is Mib Agents Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
16 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. 16 of the 21 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 THE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OF PHILADELPHIA ↗
- Who funds Philabundance ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY VOLUNTEERS IN MEDICINE ↗
- Who funds THE PHILADELPHIA EDUCATION FUND ↗
- Who funds Travis Manion Foundation ↗
- Who funds MELMARK INC ↗
- Who funds WEST CHESTER AREA SENIOR CENTER ↗
- Who funds CCSA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds COOPERATIVE FOR ASSISTANCE AND RELIEF EVERYWHERE INC ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS ASSOCIATION FOR THE CARE AND PRO ↗
- Who funds SMILE TRAIN INC ↗
- Who funds MIB AGENTS INC ↗
- Who funds FAMILY SERVICE ASSOCIATION OF BUCKS COUNTY ↗
- Who funds BOYS AND GIRLS CLUBS OF PHILADELPHIA INC ↗
- Who funds Bread For The World Inc ↗
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: The Philadelphia Foundation · The Leo and Peggy Pierce Family Foundation Inc · The Gordon Charter Foundation · W W Smith Charitable Trust · Connelly Foundation · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · National Philanthropic Trust · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund
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 Lightening the Load 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 Lightening the Load?
Find your warmest path to Lightening the Load 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.