· Public charity
Lynx Foundation
Mobilizing the power of community and the resources of philanthropy to advance equity for people, places and the planet.
Read this first · the figures below need context
79% of Lynx Foundation’s FY2023 grant dollars went to Marin Community Foundation, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2023 names 2 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2021, the last year Lynx Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 8 organizations, $530k. 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 FY2017–2023.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 8 grants below total $530,000 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $714,793 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $184,793 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 · FY2021
- $10k–50k1 grant · $25k
- $50k–250k7 grants · $505k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| BRADY CENTER TO PREVENT GUN VIOLENCE | $130,000 |
| GIFFORDS LAW CENTER TO PREVENT GUN VIOLENCE | $100,000 |
| SANDY HOOK PROMISE FOUNDATION | $75,000 |
| UNITED STATES FUND FOR UNICEF | $50,000 |
| NORTH TEXAS FOOD BANK | $50,000 |
| UNITED NATIONS FOUNDATION | $50,000 |
| TARRANT AREA FOOD BANK | $50,000 |
| 10000 DEGREES | $25,000 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–23) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 81% of your 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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 36% of Lynx Foundation’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. Read by recipient address, 47% of the giving stays in CA; read by stated purpose it is 73% — more of the work is directed home than the recipients' locations suggest.
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 +95% since the first grant, against +12% for the ones you funded once.
5 repeat relationships — 4 still active in FY2021, 1 since wound down; 4 grantees were first funded in FY2021 (too recent to call). Read against FY2021, 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 FY2023, 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
- BCBRADY CENTER TO PREVENT GUN VIOLENCE5× · 2018–2022 · $600k · revenue +88%
SANDY HOOK PROMISE FOUNDATION4× · 2018–2023 · $450k · revenue +124%
GIFFORDS LAW CENTER TO PREVENT GUN VIOLENCE2× · 2021–2022 · $200k · revenue +95%
Funded once
UNITED NATIONS FOUNDATION INCone grant, 2021 · $50k · revenue -11%
UNITED STATES FUND FOR UNICEFgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $50k · revenue +64%- TATarrant Area Food Bankone grant, 2021 · $50k · revenue +9%
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.
To end hunger in san francisco and marin counties by soliciting food donations nationally, distributing this food to qualifying public service agencies and neighborhood pantries, advocating for improved government food programs, and…
The we are family foundation celebrates the vision of a global family by creating and supporting programs that inspire and educate people about mutual respect, understanding and appreciation of cultural diversity.
To engage and catalyze global seafood supply chains in rebuilding depleted fish stocks and reducing the environmental impacts of fishing and fish farming.
Iatp works locally and globally at the intersection of policy and practice to ensure fair and sustainable food, farm and trade systems.
Committed to helping families and communities nationwide build brighter futures through literacy
The mission of the global alliance for improved nutrition (gain) is to improve the consumption of healthier diets for all, especially the most vulnerable, by improving the availability, affordability, desirability, and sustainability of…
The council on foreign relations (cfr) is an independent, nonpartisan membership organization, think tank, and publisher dedicated to being a resource for its members, government officials, business executives, journalists, educators and…
The maryland food bank is a nonprofit hunger-relief organization dedicated to feeding people, strengthening communities, and ending hunger for more marylanders.
Project drawdown's mission is to drive meaningful climate action by advancing science-based solutions and strategies. project drawdown's work is focused on three pillars: science - advancing science-based climate solutions and strategies;…
Global ties u.s. (global ties) powers individuals, communities, and nations to build trust and advance peace and prosperity through international exchange.
Wwf's mission is to conserve nature and reduce the most pressing threats to the diversity of life on earth. (continued on schedule o)
The federation for american immigration reform's (fair) mission is to educate the public about the economic, sociological, environmental, demographic and other effects of mass immigration to the united states.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Marin Community Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Legal Community Against Violence dba Law Cntr to Prevent Gun Violence. 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.
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 BRADY CENTER TO PREVENT GUN VIOLENCE ↗
- Who funds SANDY HOOK PROMISE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds LEGAL COMMUNITY AGAINST VIOLENCE dba LAW CNTR TO PREVENT GUN VIOLENCE ↗
- Who funds MARIN COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds GIFFORDS LAW CENTER TO PREVENT GUN VIOLENCE ↗
- Who funds 10000 DEGREES ↗
- Who funds UNITED NATIONS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds UNITED STATES FUND FOR UNICEF ↗
- Who funds Tarrant Area Food Bank ↗
- Who funds NORTH TEXAS FOOD BANK ↗
Government reliance of your grantees
Every dot is one organization Lynx 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.
- Sandy Hook Promise Foundation — 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 Lynx Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Lynx 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.