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· Private foundation
LIGHTSPARK FOUNDATION
This foundation does not accept unsolicited requests — it funds preselected organizations.
$328k
Granted FY2024
38
Grants
5
Communities
$43k
Largest
01What you fund
01
What you funded, over time
By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).
A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 88% of LIGHTSPARK FOUNDATION’s grantee dollars go to organizations outside the IRS cause taxonomy (common for large international and research funders), so a chart would be mostly “unclassified” and misrepresent the portfolio.
02beneath the categories
Past the labels — and the year it shifted
Beneath the NTEE codes, this is what the grant descriptions actually say.
…and in their own words, year by year
2020
guild advisorsguild innovatorsimpact guild
2021
nourish flourish
2023
further foundation's
Words distinctive to each year’s grant purposes (TF-IDF) · event-driven terms in cyan.
03FY2024 · 38 grants
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k26 grants · $95k
- $10k–50k12 grants · $233k
$5,000
Median grant
5
States reached
$6.5M
Total assets
Largest grants
- Ashlee Preston$42,500
- Focus on Democracy Fund$25,000
- Impact Guild$25,000
- Boys and Girls Club$25,000
- Strategic Victory Fund IE PAC$25,000
- Better Utah$20,000
- Waste Less Solutions$15,000
- Ignite Utah$15,000
- Protect the Sacred$10,000
- Women of the World$10,000
- Tolu Olumbunmi$10,000
- Patriotic Millionaires$10,000
- Utah Clean Energy$6,667
- o2 Utah Foundation$5,000
- Utah Investigative Journalism Project$5,000
02The need
04
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.
show:
Your human-services grants (FY23–24, $23k) land where the poverty rate runs at 7% — the area typically sits at 11%. 0% of those dollars reach neighborhoods with above-average need. Your grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount
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; 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, United Way ALICE — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.
03Your edge
repeat funding
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.
43%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.
$533k · 26 repeat orgs$713k to everyone else
26 repeat relationships — 25 still active in FY2024, 1 since wound down; 13 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).
How the two cohorts compare
Re-uppedFunded once
Organizations
26
42
Total granted
$533k
$580k
Median revenue growth · since first grant
+98%
+208%
Still filing today
35%
14%
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2024, 60% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $133k went to new ones.
RenewedFirst-time
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
Arts & CultureHuman ServicesCivil RightsCrime & LegalInternationalPublic BenefitOther
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
- IGImpact Guild2× · 2023–2024 · $50k · revenue +863% · 25% of their budget
- WOWomen of the World2× · 2023–2024 · $15k · revenue +98%
- TRThe Road Home2× · 2023–2024 · $10k · revenue +56%
Funded once
- PCPREMIER CATERINGone grant, 2021 · $128k
- DDIVERSIONone grant, 2021 · $92k
- YRYOKO RAMENone grant, 2021 · $61k
Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
04Your field
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.
1
Utah Donor Collaborative
Democracy Means Equality, Freedom & Justice: It means having a representative government. UDC is here to transform Utah politics and ensure that every voice counts.
—
2
Utah Museum of Contemporary Art
The utah museum of contemporary art believes in the power of the art of our time. through programming, advocacy, and collaboration, we work with artists and communities to build a better world.
Arts & Culture
3
Utah Legal Services Inc
Our mission at ULS is to provide quality civil legal aid without cost to people who are unable to afford legal representation or are facing disadvantages, ensuring meaningful access to justice, and promoting education, stability, safety,…
Crime & Legal
4
OneJustice
Strengthen the legal services sector's expertise and capacity to advance justice and equity.
—
5
Corporate Accountability Lab
The Organization unleashes the creative potential of the law to protect people and the planet from corporate abuse.
International
6
Comunidades Unidas
We are dedicated to empowering the Latino community in Utah to recognize and achieve their own potential and become a positive force for change in the larger community.
Human Services
7
Civicus World Alliance for Citizen
Civicus is a global alliance of civil society organisations and activists dedicated to strengthening citizen action and civil society throughout the world.
Youth Development
8
Citizens Project
Citizens project is a fearless, bold advocate and an engaging voice that empowers and challenges our entire community to embrace equity, inclusion, and justice.
Human Services
9
Fund for Justice
Fund for Justice is a nationally connected social impact research and advocacy organization that works to achieve fundamental, systemic reform by addressing policies and practicies that prevent individuals from reaching their full…
Crime & Legal
10
Aclu of Utah Foundation Inc
The organization's mission is to preserve and promote individual civil rights and civil liberties as guaranteed by the united states and utah constitutions and the civil rights laws within the state of utah.
—
11
Equal Justice Center
The Equal Justice Center is a non-profit law firm and employment justice organization which empowers low-income families, workers, and communities to achieve fair treatment in the workplace, in the justice system, and in our shared society…
Civil Rights
12
Utah Film Center
Utah film center inspires and engages diverse audiences to initiate conversation and community building through curated film exhibition, educational programs, and artist support.
Arts & Culture
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Impact Guild Inc and the most unlike its peers is Immigrant Legal Services. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 21 years old; the field is 13. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 24% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
Closures · last 5 years
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 13% of the field you don’t fund.
orgs you fund
0.0%0/21
the rest of the field
13%
9,380/72,739
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.
05the grantee network
19 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2017–2025.
Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue.
1
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
11
Early backer (in before they grew)
19/19
Grantees still filing
16/19
Grew since you first funded
Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee
Other$1,099,698Arts & Culture$70,000Civil Rights$23,500Human Services$22,500International$15,048Crime & Legal$10,000Public Benefit$5,000
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.
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.
Marguerite Casey FoundationWA13.6× affinity4 shared granteesties to 6 of 7Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →
Open a dossier: Marguerite Casey Foundation · Sorenson Legacy Foundation · American Endowment Foundation · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Amazonsmile Foundation
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 organisation LIGHTSPARK FOUNDATION 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.
2024
’20’21’22’23’24
no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
0get no government money at all
0rely on government for over half their income
⤢ axis zoomed · 0–40%
typical government reliance, FY20–24
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. 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.
05Through Plinth
Through Plinth
Your grantmaking, live and operational
This dossier was generated cold from public filings. In Plinth it’s a working system — every applicant assessed and every grant monitored. Here’s a taste, run on one of your grantees: Impact Guild.
Agentic due diligence · confidence × risk
Financial management
low risk
~14 months of operating runway; revenue grew over 6 filed years.
Track record & reputation
low risk
6 years of Form 990 filings, still active; revenue up 9.6× since.
Legal standing
low risk
US 501(c)(3); EIN 364880244 on file with current IRS Form 990 filings.
Governance
Live in Plinth
Board composition & governance documents — verified live in Plinth from the applicant.
Compliance & sanctions
Live in Plinth
OFAC / UN sanctions screening — run live in Plinth at assessment.
Program capacity
Live in Plinth
Staffing, M&E and activity alignment — assessed live in Plinth from submitted proposals.
Live · Plinth’s real DD engine
Run the actual assessment on Impact Guild, cold from public data.
Generated live from public IRS filings + open web sources by Plinth’s agentic engine. Shown as an illustration of the product, not a formal assessment.
Post-award monitoring · continuous checks
- On trackFinancial stability— Roughly 14 months of cash on hand.
- On trackSustained operations— Filing through 2024; revenue grew over the period.
- On trackReliance on your funding— Your grants peaked at 25% of their budget — diversified.
- Awaiting reportEvidence of delivery— Plinth collects the grantee's own monitoring reports post-award.
What you see here is static and public. In Plinth it’s operational — the full six-pillar framework on every applicant (with their own documents + live registry and sanctions checks), monitoring dashboards on every award, custom board reports, and eligibility routing for intake.
Agentic due diligenceMonitoring dashboardsCustom board reportsEligibility routing
Preview generated from this grantee’s public IRS filings and independent reporting. Pillars marked “live in Plinth” require the applicant’s submitted documents. Shown as illustration, not a formal assessment.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPro
How do I get to Lightspark Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Lightspark Foundation through people who sit on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the introduction across shared trustees and officers.
Every link is a documented governance overlap in public IRS 990 filings — not a personal network — and each hop carries its own confidence tier. Low-confidence or distant paths are held back rather than guessed.
More from the funding graph
The regranting layer
51% of grant dollars pass through an intermediary
The DAF merry-go-round
$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds
Strange bedfellows
the named clusters of US funding
The camps
funders cluster by geography, not ideology
By state
where grant money is based, and what stays home
State money flows
the interactive map of money crossing state lines