· Private foundation
Lilly Endowment Inc
Its FY2025 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 FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k462 grants · $1.4M
- $10k–50k441 grants · $10M
- $50k–250k489 grants · $51M
- $250k+893 grants · $3.8B
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| INDIANA COMMUNITY DEVELPMNTPROJECTS | $400,000,000 |
| INDIANA LIFELONG LEARNING PROJECTS | $400,000,000 |
| FEEDING AMERICA | $75,000,000 |
| NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY | $57,036,726 |
| UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME DU LAC | $50,868,725 |
| INDIANA YOUTH INSTITUTE INC | $48,000,000 |
| CICP FOUNDATION INC | $44,000,000 |
| DUKE UNIVERSITY | $40,000,000 |
| STATE OF IN-DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATN | $40,000,000 |
| PERRY TOWNSHIP SCHOOLS | $40,000,000 |
| WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY | $35,000,000 |
| CHURCH BENEFITS ASSOCIATION | $30,000,000 |
| MSD OF WARREN TOWNSHIP | $30,000,000 |
| FRANKLIN TOWNSHIP COMMUNITY SCHOOL | $29,553,117 |
| MSD OF PIKE TOWNSHIP | $25,501,863 |
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 (FY17–25, $678.3M) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 99% of those 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.
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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 7% of Lilly Endowment Inc’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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 +35% since the first grant, against +4% for the ones you funded once.
1116 repeat relationships — 639 still active in FY2025, 477 since wound down; 225 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (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 FY2025, 67% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $1.2B 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
Indiana University Foundation9× · 2017–2025 · $266M · revenue +97% · 36% of their budget- ICIndependent Colleges of Indiana Inc9× · 2017–2025 · $216M · revenue +13% · 96% of their budget
- CFCICP FOUNDATION INC9× · 2017–2025 · $172M · revenue +40% · 89% of their budget
Funded once
- COCITY OF INDIANAPOLIS-PARKS&REC DEPTone grant, 2022 · $72M
- IDINDIANA DEPARTMENT OF NATURAL RESone grant, 2024 · $40M
- IWINDIANA WHITE RIVER STATE PARKone grant, 2024 · $30M
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.
Central indiana corporate partnership (cicp) is an alliance of indiana's business and research university leaders coming together to foster long-term prosperity for the region. cicp's mission is to transform the economy of indiana in order…
Enroll indy helps families choose schools that meet their children's needs by providing a one-stop enrollment process, school information that is relevant and easy to understand, and data to inform school improvement in indianapolis,…
As a christian university, we provide education and research opportunities preparing global leaders to partner with local communities.
Engage actively and continuously in medical research, education and training in the practice of medicine in conjunction with the department of family medicine of the indiana university school of medicine and indiana university…
Illinois college is a co-educational institution of higher education learning providing a four-year educational program leading to the baccalaureate degree. illinois college is a community committed to the highest standards of scholarship…
The indiana university alumni association activates and supports the global alumni network- encouraging alumni to grow a lifelong connection with indiana university, and inspiring their ongoing generosity toward each other and the…
Rooted in the liberal arts & sciences & lutheran expression of the christian faith, & is committed to offering a challenging education that develops qualities of mind, spirit, & body necessary for a rewarding life of leadership & service…
We provide exemplary interdisciplinary programs for a community of scholar-practitioners within a distributed learning model grounded in student-driven inquiry and leading to enhanced knowledge.
Columbia college improves lives by providing quality education to both traditional and nontraditional students, helping them achieve their true potential.
Benedictine University is an inclusive academic community dedicated to teaching and learning, scholarship and service, truth and justice, as inspired by the Catholic intellectual tradition, the social teaching of the Church, and the…
The primary mission of furman as a liberal arts institution is to provide a distinctive education in fine arts, humanities, social sciences, mathematics and the sciences, as well as selected professional disciplines.
Trusted journalism, inspiring stories and lifelong learning.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Indiana Youth Services Association Inc and the most unlike its peers is Thackery Foundation for Senior Living. 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 35 years old; the field is 20. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 19% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 9% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.8% lost their exemption, against 11% 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.
1104 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. 1104 of the 2,000 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
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
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 INDIANA LIFELONG LEARNING PROJECTS INC ↗
- Who funds INDIANA COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PROJECTS INC ↗
- Who funds Indiana University Foundation ↗
- Who funds University of Notre Dame du Lac ↗
- Who funds Independent Colleges of Indiana Inc ↗
- Who funds Purdue Research Foundation ↗
- Who funds INDIANA ASSOCIATION OF UNITED WAYS INC ↗
- Who funds CICP FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF CENTRAL INDIANA INC ↗
- Who funds DUKE UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds EARLY LEARNING INDIANA INC ↗
- Who funds American National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches ↗
- Who funds UNITED NEGRO COLLEGE FUND INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL URBAN LEAGUE INC ↗
- Who funds Indianapolis Center for Congregations Inc ↗
- Who funds INDIANA YOUTH INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL PARK FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION ↗
- Who funds WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds Feeding America ↗
- Who funds FULLER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF AMERICA ↗
- Who funds Wabash College ↗
- Who funds CALVIN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN INDIAN COLLEGE FUND ↗
- Who funds 16 TECH COMMUNITY CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds ASSOCIATION OF THEOLOGICAL SCHOOLS ↗
- Who funds INDIANA WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds National Council of YMCAs of the USA ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CAMPING ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds COUNCIL OF INDEPENDENT COLLEGES ↗
- Who funds THE FUND FOR THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION 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: Nicholas H Noyes Jr Memorial Foundation · The Indianapolis Foundation Inc · United Way of Central Indiana Inc · Richard M Fairbanks Foundation Inc · Allen Whitehill Clowes Charitable Foundation Inc · Maurer Family Foundation Inc · Indiana Youth Institute Inc · The Brave Heart Foundation Inc · Central Indiana Community Foundation Inc · Christel DeHaan Family Foundation Inc · Eugene & Marilyn Glick Foundation · Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust
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 Lilly Endowment 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 or a single department — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Big Brothers Big Sisters of America — 21% of income from government
- Trustees of Boston College — 3% of income from government
- Wounded Warrior Project Inc — 0% of income from government
- Palm Beach Atlantic University 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 Lilly Endowment Inc?
Find your warmest path to Lilly Endowment 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.