Skip to content
Monument Lab Inc at a glanceMostly funded, not a grantmaker: see who funds it →

· Public charity

Monument Lab Inc

Monument lab is a nonprofit public art and history studio based in philadelphia.

$150k
Granted FY2025still arriving
10
Grants FY2025still arriving
8
States reached
$15k
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its granteesRead
04Its fieldRead
05Through PlinthRead
01What it funds
01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2024 to 2025.

Education$400kArts & Culture$200kEmployment$100kCivil Rights$100kCommunity Improvement$100kReligion$100k
02FY2025 · 10 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

$15,000
Median grant
8
States reached
$5.3M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
LARAMIE PUBLIC ART COALITION$15,000
KLONDIKE SMOKEY CITY CDC INC$15,000
FIU FOUNDATION INC$15,000
FARMER-LABOR EDUCATION COMMITTE$15,000
CALVARY EPISCOPAL CHURCH$15,000
MOBILE COUNTY TRAINING SCHOOL ALUMNI$15,000
THE DESCENDANTS PROJECT$15,000
THE CORPORATION OF MERCER UNIVERSITY$15,000
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON$15,000
MUSIC AND CULTURE COALITION OF NEW ORLEANS$15,000
02The need
03

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY24–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 18%, against an area that typically sits at 14%. 88% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 14%FARMER-LABOR EDUCATION COMMITTE: $85k → 11%MOBILE COUNTY TRAINING SCHOOL ALUMNI: $85k → 19%CALVARY EPISCOPAL CHURCH: $85k → 17%THE CORPORATION OF MERCER UNIVERSITY: $85k → 23%LARAMIE PUBLIC ART COALITION: $85k → 17%THE DESCENDANTS PROJECT: $85k → 16%MUSIC AND CULTURE COALITION OF NEW ORLEANS: $85k → 23%FARMER-LABOR EDUCATION COMMITTE: $15k → 11%MOBILE COUNTY TRAINING SCHOOL ALUMNI: $15k → 19%CALVARY EPISCOPAL CHURCH: $15k → 17%THE CORPORATION OF MERCER UNIVERSITY: $15k → 23%LARAMIE PUBLIC ART COALITION: $15k → 17%THE DESCENDANTS PROJECT: $15k → 16%MUSIC AND CULTURE COALITION OF NEW ORLEANS: $15k → 23%KLONDIKE SMOKEY CITY CDC INC: $85k → 17%KLONDIKE SMOKEY CITY CDC INC: $15k → 17%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount
How this is measured
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.

Which US states its grants reach

MN
WY
CA
TN
LA
AL
GA
FL
How this is measured
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.
03Its grantees
repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

100%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$1.0M · 10 repeat orgs$0 to everyone else

10 repeat relationships: 10 still active in FY2025, 0 since wound down.

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

10
0

Total granted

$1.0M
$0

Still filing today

70%
0%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.

50%100%’24’25
RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

’24’25
EducationArts & CultureCommunity ImprovementOther
How this is measured
First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

  • MC
    Mobile County Training School High School Alumni Association
    2× · 2024–2025 · $100k · revenue -47% · 65% of their budget
  • TD
    THE DESCENDANTS PROJECT
    2× · 2024–2025 · $100k · revenue 0%
  • TC
    THE CORPORATION OF MERCER UNIVERSITY
    2× · 2024–2025 · $100k · revenue +2%

Funded once

    How this is measured

    Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

    04Its field
    04the grantee network

    7 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.

    Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

    How this is measured

    Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2026, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 7 of the 10 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

    Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

    2
    Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
    0
    Early backer (in before they grew)
    7/7
    Grantees still filing
    2/7
    Grew since first funded

    Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

    Mobile County Training School High School Alumni Association: $100,000 · EducationMobile County Training School High…THE CORPORATION OF MERCER UNIVERSITY: $100,000 · EducationTHE CORPORATION OF MERCER UNIVERSI…FLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION INC: $100,000 · EducationFLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY F…FARMER LABOR EDUCATION COMMITTEE INC: $100,000 · OtherFARMER LABOR EDUCATION COMMITTEE I…UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON: $100,000 · OtherUNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTONCALVARY EPISCOPAL CHURCH: $100,000 · OtherCALVARY EPISCOPAL CHURCHKLONDIKE SMOKEY CITY COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CORPORA: $100,000 · Arts & CultureKLONDIKE SMOKEY CITY COMMUNITY DEV…MUSIC AND CULTURE COALITION OF NEW ORLEANS NONPROFIT CORPORATION: $100,000 · Arts & CultureMUSIC AND CULTURE COALITION OF NEW…LARAMIE PUBLIC ART COALITION: $100,000 · Arts & CultureLARAMIE PUBLIC ART COALITIONTHE DESCENDANTS PROJECT: $100,000 · Community ImprovementTHE DESCEND…
    Education$300,000Other$300,000Arts & Culture$300,000Community Improvement$100,000

    Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

    25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetMobile County Training School High School Alumni Association: $100,000 over 2y, 65% of budgetTHE DESCENDANTS PROJECT: $100,000 over 2y, 3.3% of budgetTHE CORPORATION OF MERCER UNIVERSITY: $100,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetKLONDIKE SMOKEY CITY COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CORPORA: $100,000 over 2y, 17% of budgetMUSIC AND CULTURE COALITION OF NEW ORLEANS NONPROFIT CORPORATION: $100,000 over 2y, 17% of budgetFLORIDA INTERNATIONAL UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION INC: $100,000 over 2y, 0.2% of budgetLARAMIE PUBLIC ART COALITION: $100,000 over 2y, 29% of budget
    Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

    A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

    How much its grantees rely on government

    Each dot is one organization Monument Lab Inc funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Monument Lab Inc. Bigger dots raise more.

    2024
    ’20’21’22’23’24’25
    no gov · 10%5%19%42%75%funder's share of their income ↑0%10%20%30%40%share of the org’s income from government →
      no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
      1get no government money at all
      1report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
      0rely on government for over half their income
      ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–40%
      typical government reliance, FY20–25
      How this is measured
      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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.
      05Through Plinth

      Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

      How do I get to Monument Lab Inc?

      Find your warmest path to Monument Lab 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.

      On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 10 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

      How this is measured
      Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears.

      Generated from the IRS Form 990 e-file return for fiscal year 2025, released 2025. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

      Source object · view filing

      Play a game based on Monument Lab’s filings →

      More from the funding graph

      The unnamed billions
      grants reported with no recipient in the public record
      The regranting layer
      51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer
      The DAF merry-go-round
      $9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds
      The endowment market
      who holds foundation money, and what just moved
      The camps
      funders cluster by geography, not ideology
      By state
      where grant money is based, and what stays home