· Public charity
Louisville Downtown Lions Charitiesinc
Assist blind and visually impaired.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2021–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 20 grants below total $534,752 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $575,335 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $40,583 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k5 grants · $26k
- $10k–50k11 grants · $205k
- $50k–250k4 grants · $303k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| VISUALLY IMPAIRED PRESCHOOL SERVICES INC | $122,800 |
| VISUALLY IMPAIRED PRESCHOOL SERVICES INC | $80,500 |
| WATER STEP | $50,000 |
| KY SCHOOL FOR THE BLIND CHARITABLE FOUNDATION | $50,000 |
| KENTUCKY LIONS EYE FOUNDATION | $34,482 |
| KENTUCKY LIONS EYE FOUNDATION | $30,000 |
| THE SALVATION ARMY | $30,000 |
| TODD CRAWFORD FD TO CURE PARALYSIS INC | $25,000 |
| U OF L HEALTH FOUNDATION | $25,000 |
| AMERICAN PRINTING HOUSE FOR THE BLIND | $10,970 |
| WATERFRONT BOTANICAL GARDENS | $10,000 |
| PROJECT FRIENDSHIP | $10,000 |
| THE DREAM FOUNDATION OF KY | $10,000 |
| WATER STEP | $10,000 |
| WHAS CRUSADE FOR CHILDREN | $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 (FY24–25, $31k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 84% 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.
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 +6% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
14 repeat relationships — 11 still active in FY2025, 3 since wound down; 4 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, 94% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $31k 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
- VIVISUALLY IMPARIED PRESCHOOL SERVICES INC5× · 2021–2025 · $566k · revenue +2%
- KLKENTUCKY LIONS EYE FOUNDATION INC5× · 2021–2025 · $237k · revenue +6%
- UOUNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE FOUNDATION INC3× · 2021–2023 · $100k · revenue +13%
Funded once
- ODOPEN DOOR MINISTRIESone grant, 2024 · $14k
- KHKY HISTORICAL SOCIETY OF THE BLINDone grant, 2024 · $10k
- KCKY COUNCIL OF THE BLINDone grant, 2024 · $6k
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.
Provide innovative training and tools for people who are blind or visually impaired to help them achieve their goals and dreams
Keralink international works to end avoidable blindness by developing, delivering, and scaling affordable solutions for all, powered by innovative technology and partnerships.
To empower people with disabilities through employment, services and advocacy.
To improve occupational opportunity and public perception of legally blind arkansans through community engagement, work skills enhancement and the production of quality goods and services.
Empower, educate, and enhance the lives of idividuals impacted by vision loss through all of life's transitions.
Lighthouse for the blind of the palm beaches, inc's mission is to assist persons with visual impairments to develop their capabilities to the fullest and to utilize them in the pursuits of life which are the right and privilege of all.
Employment of the blind and visually impaired
Friends for sight works passionately each day to save sight and change lives. we do this by providing free vision screenings, working to ensure that people of all ages and backgrounds have access to quality eye care, and disseminating…
BLIND, Inc. was founded by blind Minnesotans who believe that, given the proper training and opportunity, blind people can lead normal, independent, and fulfilled lives. We believe that blindness is respectable and that with proper…
Goodwill's mission is to help people with disabilities or other disadvantages achieve and maintain employment to gain a better quality of life.
To engage in grant making to medical educational organizations and related charitable activities in the area of eye disease and vision disorder, and the care and treatment thereof.
New vision for independence, inc. (new vision) is a nationally accredited 501(c)(3) tax-exempt organization providing rehabilitation, community education, and support services for people with low vision or blindness, and their families to…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Kentucky Lions Eye Foundation Inc and the most unlike its peers is Prodigal Ministries Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
14 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. 14 of the 25 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 VISUALLY IMPARIED PRESCHOOL SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds KENTUCKY LIONS EYE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds KENTUCKY SCHOOL FOR THE BLIND CHARITABLE ↗
- Who funds WATERSTEP INC ↗
- Who funds THE WHAS CRUSADE FOR CHILDREN INC ↗
- Who funds Lions Clubs International Foundation ↗
- Who funds Project Friendship - KY Inc ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN PRINTING HOUSE FOR THE BLIND INC ↗
- Who funds RADIO EYE INC ↗
- Who funds THE HEALING PLACE INC ↗
- Who funds WATERFRONT BOTANICAL GARDENS INC ↗
- Who funds ENVISION BLIND SPORTS ↗
- Who funds PRODIGAL MINISTRIES 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: The Community Foundation of Louisville Corporate Depository Inc · The Community Foundation of Louisville Depository Inc · The Community Foundation of Louisville Inc · The Gilbert Foundation Inc · The Gheens Foundation Inc · Irvin F & Alice S Etscorn Charitable Foundation · Wood & Marie Hannah Foundation · V V Cooke Foundation Corporation · Cralle Foundation Inc · Republic Bank Foundation Inc · Snowy Owl Foundation Inc · LG&E and Ku 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 Louisville Downtown Lions Charitiesinc 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.
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.