· Private foundation
Matthew & Susan K Lyons Family Foundation Inc
Its FY2020 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Read this first · the figures below need context
80% of Matthew & Susan K Lyons Family Foundation Inc’s FY2020 grant dollars went to Schwab Charitable Fund, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2020 names 4 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2019, the last year Matthew & Susan K Lyons Family Foundation Inc named its own grantees at scale: 8 organizations, $85k. 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 clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2017–2020.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2019
- Under $10k11 grants · $44k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $40k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| SAMUEL WAXMAN CANCER RESEARCH FOUNDATION | $24,000 |
| SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY | $16,250 |
| ST PATRICK'S CATHEDRAL | $7,500 |
| CATHOLIC CHARITIES OF NY | $6,000 |
| NEW YORK UNIVERSITY | $6,000 |
| FORDHAM UNIVERSITY | $6,000 |
| COLLEGE OF HOLY CROSS | $6,000 |
| HOSPITAL FOR SPECIAL SURGERY | $4,000 |
| NY HISTORICAL SOCIETY | $2,540 |
| AMERICAN MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY | $2,000 |
| MUSEM OF MODERN ART | $1,750 |
| EVA'S VILLAGE | $1,645 |
| THE MORGAN LIBRARY | $1,000 |
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 (FY17–20) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 68% 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.
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 +44% since the first grant, against -4% for the ones you funded once.
9 repeat relationships — 9 still active in FY2019, 0 since wound down; 4 grantees were first funded in FY2019 (too recent to call). Read against FY2019, 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 FY2020, 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
SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY3× · 2017–2019 · $49k · revenue +45%- NYNew York University4× · 2017–2020 · $35k · revenue +76%
- FUFordham University3× · 2017–2019 · $23k · revenue +47%
Funded once
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2017 · $10k
- ASalsac st judeone grant, 2017 · $6k
- CCCATHOLIC CHARITIESone grant, 2018 · $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 institute for advanced study (the institute) is one of the world's leading centers for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. see schedule o.
Undergraduate, graduate, and professional education and research across a broad array of academic domains.
As a leading research university with a distinctive commitment to undergraduate education, Rice University aspires to path breaking research, unsurpassed teaching, and contributions to the betterment of our world. It seeks to fulfill this…
To educate students to be ethical and socially responsible leaders in a global community.
The University of New Haven is a student-centered comprehensive university with an emphasis on excellence in liberal arts and professional education. Our mission is to prepare our students to lead purposeful and fulfilling lives in a…
See Form 990, Part I, Line 1, Description of Organization Mission.
The Morgan Library & Museum celebrates and shares the history and process of human creativity from antiquity to the present day through the preservation, study, and interpretation of a dynamic and growing collection.
Research, education and general - princeton university is a private not-for-profit, non-sectarian institution of higher learning with approximately 5,700 undergraduate and 3,300 graduate students. 2,500 students graduated in the 2024-2025…
Operate a state-of-the-art, world-class genomic research center that creates and uses advanced genomics to understand the genetic basis of disease. for more information, see schedule o.
Education, research, medical services and other public services.
Fairleigh dickinson university is a center of academic excellence dedicated to the preparation of world citizens through global education. the university strives to provide students with the multi-disciplinary, intercultural, and ethical…
The mission of mit is to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Fordham University and the most unlike its peers is Passaic County Historical Society. 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 18 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 DONOR ADVISED CHARITABLE GIVING INC ↗
- Who funds SAMUEL WAXMAN CANCER RESEARCH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds New York University ↗
- Who funds Fordham University ↗
- Who funds TRUSTEES OF THE COLLEGE OF THE HOLY CROSS ↗
- Who funds American Museum of Natural History ↗
- Who funds EVA'S VILLAGE INC ↗
- Who funds Museum of Modern Art ↗
- Who funds PASSAIC COUNTY HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
Government reliance of your grantees
Every dot is one organization Matthew & Susan K Lyons Family Foundation Inc 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, a single department, or state — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Eva's Village Inc — 19% 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 Matthew & Susan K Lyons Family Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to Matthew & Susan K Lyons Family Foundation Inc 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.