How much does Louis Kesten & Esther Kesten Foundation give?

Louis Kesten & Esther Kesten Foundation reported 13 grants totaling $290,082 in its FY2024 IRS filing. It funded between 1 and 30 organizations a year over FY2017 to FY2023.

What does Louis Kesten & Esther Kesten Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2024, its largest causes are International (39%), Religion (34%), Philanthropy (8%).

Who are Louis Kesten & Esther Kesten Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2024: Gindi Maimonides Academy ($250k), Friends of Chana UK Inc ($200k), American Israel Education Foundation Inc ($150k).

Does Louis Kesten & Esther Kesten Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2023, 77% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Louis Kesten & Esther Kesten Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

Which funders back the same organizations as Louis Kesten & Esther Kesten Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Jewish Communal Fund, Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles, Jewish Federation Council of Greater La.

Where is Louis Kesten & Esther Kesten Foundation based?

Louis Kesten & Esther Kesten Foundation is based in CA.

Louis Kesten & Esther Kesten Foundation

Louis Kesten & Esther Kesten Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

Louis Kesten & Esther Kesten Foundation

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.

$290k

Granted FY2024still arriving

Grants FY2024still arriving

States reached

$136k

Largest

01What it funds

0194% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2024.

International$951kReligion$821kPhilanthropy$200kArts & Culture$121kPublic Benefit$99kEducation$80kFood & Nutrition$20kSocial Science$12kOther$0

02FY2024 · 13 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2024

Under $10k7 grants · $11k
$10k–50k4 grants · $69k
$50k–250k2 grants · $210k

$2,905

Median grant

States reached

$2.2M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
AVAILABLE UPON REQUEST	$135,961
OPERATION BENJAMIN	$73,816
SEFORIM BLOG INC	$24,000
AMERICAN FRIENDS OF LEKET ISRAEL INC	$19,000
YISMACH MOSHE INSTITUTE	$16,000
CONGREGATION AGUDATH ISRAEL	$10,000
YOUNG ISRAEL OF CENTURY CITY	$2,905
SHARSHERET	$1,800
RABBINICAL COLLEGE OF AMERICA	$1,800
BNEI AKIVA OF LOS ANGELES	$1,800
Individual grant recipient	$1,000
Individual grant recipient	$1,000
VALLEY TORAH HIGH SCHOOL	$1,000

02The need

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Its human-services grants (FY23–23, $1k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

How this is measured

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.

Which US states its grants reach

How this is measured

US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

64%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$1.4M · 24 repeat orgs$809k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +32% since the first grant, against +14% for those funded once.

24 repeat relationships: 12 still active in FY2024, 12 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$1.4M

$673k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+32%

+14%

Still filing today

46%

42%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 53% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $136k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

InternationalEducationReligionPhilanthropyPublic BenefitHealthOther

How this is measured

First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

FO
FRIENDS OF CHANA UK INC
2× · 2017–2018 · $200k · revenue ×22
OB
OPERATION BENJAMIN INC
3× · 2022–2024 · $89k · revenue +405%
TG
THE GESHER FOUNDATION INC
2× · 2022–2023 · $50k · revenue +23%

Funded once

GM
Gindi Maimonides Academy
one grant, 2018 · $250k
AY
AM YISRAEL CHAI FOUNDATION INCgraduated
one grant, 2017 · $100k · revenue +176%
TD
THE DESTINY FOUNDATION
one grant, 2023 · $100k · revenue +1% · 27% of their budget

How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

University of Judaism Foundation

—

American Friends of Yeshiva Aish Hatorah

—

Yeshiva Ohr Yisroel

Philanthropy

The Bnai Jacob Foundation

—

American Friends of Amshinover Yeshiva Jerusalem Inc

Support of religious schools in Israel

International

Sherit Isroel

—

Bais Yisrael Foundation

—

Yakar Foundation Inc

—

Idf Memorial Foundation

Philanthropy

American Friends of Yeshivat Nachalat Yossef

The organization will provide financial assistance to educational institutions that promote the observance of the jewish religion, its laws and traditions, and sacred texts, including yeshivat nachalat yossef, located in jerusalem, israel.

Religion

Jewish Life Foundation

—

Yeshiva Beit Rafael

Religious & charitable- to provide funds to enable the study of torah.

Philanthropy

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is American Israel Education Foundation Inc; the most unlike its peers is The Tikvah Fund. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

04the grantee network

25 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 25 of the 52 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

23/25

Grantees still filing

18/25

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$1,146,880International$448,350Religion$295,400Education$238,600Philanthropy$219,000Public Benefit$99,216Health$3,600

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Jewish Communal FundNY33.5× affinity21 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Jewish Communal Fund · Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles · Jewish Federation Council of Greater La · Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston Inc · Jay Morris Foundation Inc · Fjc · Davmarn Foundation · Jack and Gitta Nagel Foundation · Ryzman Foundation Inc · The Elishis Family Foundation · Jewish National Fund (Keren Kayemeth Leisrael) Inc · Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco the Peninsula Marin & Sonoma

How this is measured

Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Louis Kesten & Esther Kesten Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Louis Kesten & Esther Kesten Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

2get no government money at all

1report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–25%

typical government reliance, FY20–25

How this is measured

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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to Louis Kesten & Esther Kesten Foundation?

Find your warmest path to Louis Kesten & Esther Kesten Foundation 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.

Play a game based on Louis Kesten & Esther Kesten’s filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions

grants reported with no recipient in the public record

The regranting layer

51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer

The DAF merry-go-round

$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds

The endowment market

who holds foundation money, and what just moved

The camps

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

By state

where grant money is based, and what stays home