· Private foundation
Lightner Sams Foundation of Wyoming
Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
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 $10k34 grants · $108k
- $10k–50k16 grants · $236k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $53k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| LANDER COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | $53,000 |
| FAYETTE ALLIANCE FOUNDATION INC | $25,000 |
| KENTUCKY HORSE PARK FOUNDATION | $25,000 |
| WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY | $20,000 |
| ACCESS FUND | $20,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY | $20,000 |
| AMERICAN SAFE CLIMBING ASSOCIATION | $15,000 |
| ST JUDE'S CHILDRENS RESEARCH | $15,000 |
| EQUINE LAND CONSERVATION RESOURCE | $14,000 |
| CENTRAL KENTUCKY RIDING FOR HOPE | $12,000 |
| COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF JACKSON HOL | $10,000 |
| CAMILLE PLAYERS INC | $10,000 |
| JACKSON HOLE THERAPEUTIC RIDING | $10,000 |
| STEPHEN SILLER TUNNEL TO TOWERS | $10,000 |
| SAMARITAN'S PURSE INTERNATIONAL REL | $10,000 |
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, $104k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 30% 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.
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.
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 +54% since the first grant, against +36% for the ones you funded once.
69 repeat relationships — 32 still active in FY2024, 37 since wound down; 17 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, 80% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $67k 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
- FAFAYETTE ALLIANCE FOUNDATION INC8× · 2017–2024 · $80k · revenue +54%
- JHJACKSON HOLE THERAPEUTIC RIDING8× · 2017–2024 · $70k · revenue +155%
- CPCAMILLE PLAYERS INC5× · 2020–2024 · $70k · revenue +22% · 38% of their budget
Funded once
- UWUNITED WAY OF KENTUCKY INCgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $10k · revenue +112%
- LSLANDER SENIOR CITIZENS CENTERgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $10k · revenue +51%
- DODIOCESE OF WEST TEXASone grant, 2019 · $10k
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.
To unite people to advance wyoming wildlife habitat, research, and education.
Rocky mountain wild works to protect, connect, and restore wildlife and wild lands in the southern rocky mountain region. we work to secure the biodiversity of the mountains, plains, and desert ecosystems of colorado, wyoming, utah, and…
Greater yellowstone coalition works with all people to protect the lands, waters, and wildlife of the greater yellowstone ecosystem, now and for future generations.
Health care services for the people of western nebraska and eastern wyoming.
The mission of the montana land reliance (mlr) is to partner with landowners to provide permanent protection for private lands that are significant for agricultural production, fish and wildlife habitat, and open space.
The wyoming association of conservation districts provides leadership for the conservation of wyoming's soil and water resources through a responsible conservation ethic.
Wildearth guardians works to protect and restore the wildlife, wild places, wild rivers, and health of the american west.
To conserve the unique character of tennessee's natural and historic landscapes and sites for future generations.
To support the cheyenne mountain zoological society by investing contributions and managing investment income.
Wyofile is an independent, nonprofit news service focused on the people, places and policy of wyoming. recognizing the rapid decline in resources among traditional news outlets, wyofile offers in-depth coverage of complicated subjects and…
Wetlands america trust, inc. is a nonprofit organization formed in 1985 to expand ducks unlimited, inc's mission to provide leadership in the protection of the natural balance of wetlands ecosystems ensuring the future viability of…
Sierra watch secures conservation outcomes to protect the natural resources, mountain communities, and timeless values of the tahoe sierra.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Wyoming Community Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Hot City Outdoor Alliance. 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 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 1.0% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
94 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. 94 of the 149 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 LANDER COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds KENTUCKY HORSE PARK FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds CENTRAL KENTUCKY RIDING FOR HOPE INC ↗
- Who funds FAYETTE ALLIANCE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds JACKSON HOLE THERAPEUTIC RIDING ↗
- Who funds CAMILLE PLAYERS INC ↗
- Who funds WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds THE ACCESS FUND ↗
- Who funds SAYRE SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds EQUINE LAND CONSERVATION RESOURCE ↗
- Who funds RUFFED GROUSE SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds GREENHOUSE17 INC ↗
- Who funds GRAND TETON MUSIC FESTIVAL INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL MUSEUM OF WILDLIFE ART OF THE UNITED STATES ↗
- Who funds LEXINGTON HUMANE SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds BREAKTHROUGH T1D ↗
- Who funds ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INC ↗
- Who funds LEXINGTON SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF JACKSON HOLE ↗
- Who funds Old Friends Inc ↗
- Who funds THE HOPE CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN SAFE CLIMBING ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds UNITED STATES EVENTING ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds BROOKE USA INC ↗
- Who funds Ducks Unlimited Inc ↗
- Who funds CASA OF LEXINGTON INC ↗
- Who funds COMPASSION & CHOICES ↗
- Who funds STEPHEN SILLER TUNNEL TO TOWERS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Naples Therapeutic Riding Center 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: Blue Grass Community Foundation Inc · Lander Community Foundation · Community Foundation of Jackson Hole · The Mt Brilliant Family Foundation (Formerly Hgg Family Foundation) · Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels Inc · Rosenstein Family Charitable Foundation Inc · W L Lyons Brown Foundation · Wyoming Community Foundation · The Carl Family Foundation co McDaniel Wealth Mgmt PLLC · Crutcher Family Foundation Inc · Hilary Boone Foundation Inc · Limestone Family Foundation 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 Lightner Sams Foundation of Wyoming 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.
- The Shriners' Hospital for Children — 6% of income from government
- Shriners Hospitals for Children — 0% of income from government
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 Lightner Sams Foundation of Wyoming?
Find your warmest path to Lightner Sams Foundation of Wyoming 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.