· Private foundation
Lillian S Wells 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 FY2020–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- $10k–50k2 grants · $40k
- $50k–250k4 grants · $450k
- $250k+4 grants · $2.5M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA FOUNDATION | $1,000,000 |
| HERITAGE FOUNDATION | $500,000 |
| JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT OF SOUTH FLORIDA | $500,000 |
| BROWARD PERFORMING ARTS FOUNDATION | $500,000 |
| JAMES MADISON INSTITUTE | $200,000 |
| INTERCOLLEGIATE STUDIES INSTITUTE INC | $100,000 |
| ANN & ROBERT H LURIE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OF CHICAGO | $100,000 |
| NOVA SOUTHEASTERN UNIVERSITY | $50,000 |
| MISS PORTER'S SCHOOL | $25,000 |
| THE LATINO STUDENT FUND | $15,000 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY20–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 96% of your 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.
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.
11 repeat relationships — 10 still active in FY2024, 1 since wound down.
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, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
THE UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA FOUNDATION INC5× · 2020–2024 · $5.0M · revenue +31%
THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION5× · 2020–2024 · $2.5M · revenue +12%- JAJUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT OF SOUTH FLORIDA INC5× · 2020–2024 · $2.5M · revenue +124%
Funded once
- HCHOLY CROSS HOSPITAL INCgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $293k · revenue +43%
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.
See Form 990, Part I, Line 1, Description of Organization Mission.
The institute for advanced study (the institute) is one of the world's leading centers for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. see schedule o.
Research, education and general - princeton university is a private not-for-profit, non-sectarian institution of higher learning with approximately 5,700 undergraduate and 3,300 graduate students. 2,500 students graduated in the 2024-2025…
The university's goal in the coming decade is to advance learning through the integration of teaching, research and service to others. the core of this goal is to prepare graduates to engage with the world and lead lives of meaning. to do…
Nyu is a private university with approximately 60,000 matriculating students in 20 schools and institutes. nyu's primary missions are education, research and scholarship, and patient care.
Hillsdale college is a private liberal arts college with approximately 1,500 students. founded in 1844, the college remains, in the words of its articles of association, "grateful to god for the inestimable blessings resulting from the…
Embry-riddle is the world leader in aviation and aerospace higher education. its mission is to teach the science, practice and business of aviation and aerospace, preparing students for productive careers and leadership roles in business,…
Undergraduate, graduate, and professional education and research across a broad array of academic domains.
The central mission of the university of southern california is the development of human beings and society as a whole through the cultivation and enrichment of the human mind and spirit. the principal means by which our mission is…
Florida southern college (florida southern or the college) is committed to educational excellence and is a selective comprehensive, private, united methodist affiliated college with a strong liberal arts core and signature programs. (see…
The mission of mit is to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The University of Florida Foundation Inc and the most unlike its peers is Ann & Robert H Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
11 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. 11 of the 12 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 UNIVERSITY OF FLORIDA FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT OF SOUTH FLORIDA INC ↗
- Who funds BROWARD PERFORMING ARTS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Ann & Robert H Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago ↗
- Who funds THE JAMES MADISON INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC POLICY STUDIES INC ↗
- Who funds INTERCOLLEGIATE STUDIES INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds HOLY CROSS HOSPITAL INC ↗
- Who funds Nova Southeastern University Inc ↗
- Who funds MISS PORTER'S SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds LATINO STUDENT FUND ↗
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: National Philanthropic Trust · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · 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 organization Lillian S Wells 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, a single department, or state — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Nova Southeastern University Inc — 2% of income from government
- Holy Cross Hospital Inc — 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 Lillian S Wells Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to Lillian S Wells 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.