· Private foundation
Mark C Lemons 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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k13 grants · $53k
- $10k–50k20 grants · $316k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $144k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA | $143,500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $30,865 |
| THE FORMAN SCHOOL | $25,000 |
| PARK CITY COMMUNITY FDN | $25,000 |
| NATIONAL CHARITY LEAGUE | $25,000 |
| NATUREBRIDGE | $20,000 |
| ALL FOR KIDS | $20,000 |
| AAPLE ACADEMY FOUNDATION | $15,500 |
| MENTAL WELLNESS CENTER | $15,000 |
| LAS MADRINAS | $15,000 |
| ROD DEDEAUX FOUNDATION | $15,000 |
| USSSA FDN (SKI AND SNOWBOARD) | $15,000 |
| DREAM FOUNDATION | $13,025 |
| THE COLLEAGUES | $11,500 |
| SBNL | $10,100 |
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 (FY20–24, $55k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 100% 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +33% since the first grant, against +6% for the ones you funded once.
44 repeat relationships — 23 still active in FY2024, 21 since wound down; 9 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 81% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $64k 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
- TTThe Thacher School Inc3× · 2019–2021 · $117k · revenue +31%
- FSFORMAN SCHOOL INC6× · 2017–2024 · $115k · revenue +19%
- LMLAS MADRINAS4× · 2021–2024 · $105k · revenue +28%
Funded once
- UOUNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFone grant, 2021 · $50k
- TTCUone grant, 2023 · $25k
- AIATLANTIC INITIATIVE (ATLANTIC COMMUNITY)one grant, 2022 · $25k
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.
Pitzer College produces engaged socially responsible citizens of the world through an academically rigorous, interdisciplinary liberal arts education emphasizing social justice, intercultural understanding and environmental sensitivity.…
The association serves its members by creating resources that enable california school administrators to develop and apply creative leadership and management skills and in turn, improve the educational process for all students.
The uc santa barbara foundation actively works to further the goals of the university of california, santa barbara. the foundation seeks to maintain and nurture the university's quality and distinction. on behalf of the campus, the…
To operate a school for grades 6-9, delivering a holistic program of academics, arts & athletics, community service, and outdoor education that fosters passion for life and learning, self trust, strength and courage to succeed, and…
Santa Barbara Education Foundation (SBEF) provides and supports programs that enrich the academic, artistic, and personal development of all students in the Santa Barbara Unified School District.
To promote philanthropy to make santa cruz county a better place to live, now and in the future.we bring together people, ideas, and resources to inspire philanthropy and accomplish great things.
A private school that cultivates and celebrates the intellectual, imaginative, and humanitarian promise of each student in a community that practices mutual respect, embraces diversity, and inspires passion for learning.
The san diego foundation inspires enduring philanthropy and enables community solutions to improve the quality of life in our region.
The california dental association is committed to the success of our members in service to their patients and the public.
Summit leadership academy (sla) is a tuition-free public charter school where students excel under the mentorship and care of teachers and staff members. sla provides students in grades seven through twelve a traditional educational…
Marin academy asks every individual to think, question, and create in an environment of encouragement and compassion, and challenges each person to accept the responsibilities posed by education in a democratic society.
We inspire in our students a love of knowledge and the ability to use that knowledge creatively, compassionately and courageously throughout their lives.sage hill school's commitment to academic excellence and our outstanding college…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Tiger Woods Foundation Inc and the most unlike its peers is Rod Dedeaux Foundation. 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 36 years old; the field is 12. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 25% startups (under 5 years old) — 5% of your grantees by number, and just 7% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 15% 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.
42 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.
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 2017–2026, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 42 of the 82 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 PARK CITY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ↗
- Who funds The Thacher School Inc ↗
- Who funds FORMAN SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds LAS MADRINAS ↗
- Who funds Summit Land Conservancy ↗
- Who funds PARK CITY DAY SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds TIGER WOODS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds NATUREBRIDGE ↗
- Who funds AAPLE ACADEMY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ROD DEDEAUX FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Park City Education Foundation ↗
- Who funds Page Youth Center ↗
- Who funds SCPGA FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds MONTECITO TRAILS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds UTAH ATHLETIC FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds JOHN TRACY CLINIC ↗
- Who funds THE COLLEAGUES INC ↗
- Who funds DALMATIAN DREAMS DBA DREAM FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Foodbank of Santa Barbara County Inc ↗
- Who funds MENTAL HEALTH ASSOCIATION IN SANTA BARBARA COUNTY ↗
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: Santa Barbara Foundation · Ann Jackson Family Foundation · Hutton Foundation Dba Hutton Parker Foundation · Alice Tweed Tuohy Foundation · Volentine Family Foundation · June G Outhwaite Charitable Trust JS Poucher KL Englert & CM Cooney Co-Tr · Patricia Bragg Foundation · Ssir Cares Inc · Williams-Corbett Foundation · The Wood-Claeyssens Foundation · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc · Latkin Charitable 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 Mark C Lemons 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.