· Private foundation
Lucky Star 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.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2021.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2021
- Under $10k1 grant · $8k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $20k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Individual grant recipient | $10,000 |
| PALM ARTS | $10,000 |
| TELLURIDE AIDS BENEFITS | $7,500 |
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 (FY17–21) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 23% of your dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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 +66% since the first grant, against +28% for the ones you funded once.
8 repeat relationships — 3 still active in FY2021, 5 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 FY2021, 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
- PAPALM ARTS INC4× · 2018–2021 · $40k · revenue +3%
- TATELLURIDE AIDS BENEFIT INC3× · 2018–2021 · $24k · revenue +66%
- TRTELLURIDE REPERTORY THEATRE COMPANY2× · 2018–2019 · $10k · revenue +103%
Funded once
- WAWE ARE FOUNDATIONone grant, 2020 · $25k
- MDMICHAEL D PALM THEATERone grant, 2017 · $10k
- MUMOTHERS2MOTHERS UNITED STATES INCone grant, 2019 · $8k · revenue +3%
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.
The telluride institute is an innovative non-profit organization that fosters the transition to a sustainable world. we work with communities, business, and the public sector to create and advance real solutions that support the health of…
Telluride arts vitalizes the region by advancing the appreciation and participation in the arts through three main program areas: providing resources for regional artists; connecting diverse audiences with dynamic and broard local arts…
Artibus is dedicated to strengthening community through the experience of live performance. We are a hub in Denver for intimate, original performances that explore important social themes and for building community through shared space,…
Entrada serves as an arts and educational center to promote public understanding and appreciation of the high desert colorado plateau.
The Telluride Film Festival is an international educational arts event educating while celebrating through the art of film. It conducts an annual film festival in Telluride Colorado. See Schedule O for more details as to the programs and…
Support creatives to live work thrive.
Boulder ballet creates engaging dance performances and educational initiatives that enrich human connections through the transformative power of the arts.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Palm Arts Inc and the most unlike its peers is The Pinhead Institute. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
10 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. 10 of the 17 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 PALM ARTS INC ↗
- Who funds TELLURIDE AIDS BENEFIT INC ↗
- Who funds TELLURIDE REPERTORY THEATRE COMPANY ↗
- Who funds FRACTURED ATLAS INC ↗
- Who funds MOTHERS2MOTHERS UNITED STATES INC ↗
- Who funds ROCKY MOUNTAIN ARTS ↗
- Who funds Fund for Change ↗
- Who funds The Pinhead Institute ↗
- Who funds TELLURIDE CHAMBER MUSIC ↗
- Who funds THE GEORGE B STORER FOUNDATION 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: Just For Kids Foundation Inc · Community Foundation of the Gunnison Valley · Telluride Foundation · The Thomas Phillips and Jane Moore Johnson Foundation · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · 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 Lucky Star 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.
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 Lucky Star Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Lucky Star 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.