· Private foundation
Lyerly Foundation
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
Read this first · the figures below need context
71% of Lyerly Foundation’s FY2025 grant dollars went to Virginia Tech Foundation Inc, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2025 names 18 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2023, the last year Lyerly Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 21 organizations, $719k. It is dated, not current.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
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 · FY2023
- Under $10k28 grants · $51k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $63k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $105k
- $250k+1 grant · $500k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| SALEM ACADEMY & COLLEGE | $500,000 |
| VIRGINIA TECH FOUNDATION INC | $105,000 |
| UNC ARTS AND SCIENCES FOUNDTION INC - LYERLY STUDENT FUND | $26,000 |
| PRESBYTERIAN MISSION | $17,000 |
| RADFORD CITY SCHOOLS - PARTNERS FOR EXCELLENCE FOUNDATION INC | $10,100 |
| FEEDING AMERICA SOUTHWEST VA | $10,000 |
| RADFORD UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| AMERICAN SOCIETY OF TROPICAL MEDICINE & HYGIENE | $5,000 |
| RADFORD FAIRLAWN DAILY BREAD | $5,000 |
| SCIENCE MUSEUM OF WESTERN VIRGINIA | $5,000 |
| HEIFER INTERNATIONAL | $5,000 |
| BEANS AND RICE | $5,000 |
| GLENCOE MUSEUM | $2,500 |
| RADFORD ELF SHELF | $2,500 |
| RADFORD CLOTHING BANK | $2,000 |
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 (FY17–25, $27k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 13%. 77% 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.
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.
44 repeat relationships — 27 still active in FY2023, 17 since wound down; 14 grantees were first funded in FY2023 (too recent to call). Read against FY2023, the last year this funder named its own grantees directly; its giving has since run through a sponsor, which reports no donor behind each grant.
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, 89% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $16k 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
- SASALEM ACADEMY AND COLLEGE4× · 2020–2024 · $545k · revenue +14%
- TVTHE VIRGINIA BIOSCIENCE FOUNDATION2× · 2021–2022 · $201k · revenue +870%
- RCRADFORD CITY SCHOOLS PARTNERS FOR EXCELLENCE FOUNDATION INC5× · 2017–2023 · $138k · revenue +7% · 89% of their budget
Funded once
- RURADFORD UNIVERSITY BIOLOGY SPEAKER FUNDone grant, 2019 · $50k
- UOUNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL H ARTS & SCIENCES FOUNDATIONone grant, 2017 · $20k · revenue -23%
- BBBOBCAT BACKPACKS PROGRAMone grant, 2019 · $5k
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 foundation determines the patentability and obtains patents on virginia commonwealth university (vcu) inventions and markets and licenses such inventions to commerical entities. the foundation's activities promote research efforts at…
To assist rural virginians in developing and advancing their agricultural, economic and social interests to enhance their quality of life.
Solicitation of public contributions on behalf of member colleges. provides foundations, businesses, and individuals a convenient way of supporting small colleges and universities in virginia.
To provide administrative services to university of virginia (university) entities, university associated organizations, or other entities involved in activities which support the university. to engage in matters pertaining to real…
The university of virginia law school foundation's primary purpose is to receive, manage and expend funds for the benefit of the university of virginia school of law.
Help improve policy and decision making through research and analysis.
The jefferson scholars foundation (foundation) provides academic merit-based scholarship, fellowship and professorship support to students and faculty at the university of virginia (uva).
Foundation for food and agriculture research connects funders, researchers and farmers through public-private partnerships to support audacious research addressing the biggest food and agriculture challenges.
To foster and support research at west virginia university (wvu) and to provide evaluation, development, patenting, management and marketing services for inventions by the faculty, staff, and students of wvu.
To support and foster vcu health and vcu health sciences through philanthropy, stewardship, innovation, communication, and collaboration.
The mission of vt-arc is to extend the impact of the virginia tech research and innovation enterprise, delivering superior analytic and technology solutions to government and non-government customers.
To provide investment and investment management and related services to the rector and the board of visitors of virginia commonwealth university (vcu), and/or to the private and independent foundations and other entities affiliated with…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Feeding Southwest Virginia and the most unlike its peers is Radford Elf Shelf Inc Radford Elf Shelf Inc. 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 53 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 23% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
38 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. 38 of the 78 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 VIRGINIA TECH FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds SALEM ACADEMY AND COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds RADFORD UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE VIRGINIA BIOSCIENCE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds RADFORD CITY SCHOOLS PARTNERS FOR EXCELLENCE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds NEW RIVER COMMUNITY COLLEGE EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds FEEDING SOUTHWEST VIRGINIA ↗
- Who funds RADFORD FAIRLAWN DAILY BREAD ↗
- Who funds SCIENCE MUSEUM OF WESTERN VIRGINIA ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN SOCIETY OF TROPICAL MEDICINE AND HYGIENE ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA AT CHAPEL H ARTS & SCIENCES FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds RADFORD ELF SHELF INC RADFORD ELF SHELF INC ↗
- Who funds Beans and Rice Inc ↗
- Who funds Radford Clothing Bank ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds PRESBYTERIAN CHILDREN'S HOME OF THE HIGHLANDS INC ↗
- Who funds CHURCH WORLD SERVICE INC ↗
- Who funds WOMEN'S RESOURCE CENTER OF THE NEW RIVER VALLEY INC ↗
- Who funds The Community Foundation of the New River Valley Inc ↗
- Who funds SAINT FRANCIS SERVICE DOGS ↗
- Who funds BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICABLUE RIDGE MOUNTAINS COUNCIL ↗
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 the New River Valley Inc · Ge Aerospace Foundation · New River Valley Health Foundation · Community Foundation Serving Western Virginia · Celanese Foundation · United Way of Southwest Virginia Inc · C E Richardson Benevolent Foundation · Mightycause Charitable Foundation · The Winston-Salem Foundation · Chubb Charitable Foundation · United Way Worldwide · Charities Aid Foundation America
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 Lyerly 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.
- Feed the Children Inc — 1% 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.