How much does Operation Lifesaver Inc give?

Operation Lifesaver Inc reported 31 itemized grants totaling $741,003, out of $765,102 in total grant expense reported on the return in its FY2024 IRS filing. It funded between 15 and 27 organizations a year over FY2017 to FY2023.

What does Operation Lifesaver Inc fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2024, its largest causes are Public Safety & Disaster (69%), Public Benefit (23%), Human Services (6%).

Who are Operation Lifesaver Inc's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2024: California Operation Lifesaver Inc ($303k), New York Operation Lifesaver ($285k), Indiana Highway-Safety Grade Crossing and Trespass ($280k).

Does Operation Lifesaver Inc fund new organizations?

In FY2023, 11% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Which funders back the same organizations as Operation Lifesaver Inc?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Amazonsmile Foundation.

Where is Operation Lifesaver Inc based?

Operation Lifesaver Inc is based in DC.

Operation Lifesaver Inc

Operation Lifesaver Inc at a glance Also receives grants: funding profile →

· Public charity

Operation Lifesaver Inc

To educate the public on rail safety around highway-rail grade crossings and pedestrian safety around tracks and trains.

$765k

Granted FY2024still arriving

Grants FY2024still arriving

States reached

$53k

Largest

01What it funds

01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2024.

Public Safety & Disaster$2.9MPublic Benefit$965kHuman Services$233kArts & Culture$50kEducation$35kEnvironment$10k

02FY2024 · 31 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

How this is measured

The 31 grants below total $741,003, the rows itemized in this filing. The $765,102 headline is the total grant expense on the return; the other $24,099 is giving the schedule does not break out (grants under the $5,000 itemization floor, grants to individuals, grants on other schedules). Every figure below describes the itemized rows only.

By grant size · FY2024

Under $10k2 grants · $17k
$10k–50k27 grants · $620k
$50k–250k2 grants · $104k

$21,500

Median grant

States reached

$1.8M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
Ohio Operation Lifesaver	$53,327
Missouri Operation Lifesaver	$50,630
Indiana Operation Lifesaver	$43,773
Tennessee Operation Lifesaver	$42,959
California Operation Lifesaver	$42,762
South Carolina Operation Lifesaver	$42,100
Washington Operation Lifesaver	$31,601
Illinois Operation Lifesaver	$31,500
New York Operation Lifesaver	$30,768
Hampton Roads Transit	$28,963
San Diego Metropolitan Transit System	$22,513
Pennsylvania Operation Lifesaver	$22,193
North Dakota Safety Council	$22,000
Connecticut Operation Lifesaver	$21,500
Montana Operation Lifesaver	$21,500

02The need

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:

Its human-services grants (FY17–24, $233k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 0% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.

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

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.

96%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$4.0M · 39 repeat orgs$179k to everyone else

39 repeat relationships: 27 still active in FY2024, 12 since wound down; 4 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$4.0M

$112k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

-7%

+17%

Still filing today

59%

33%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 91% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $67k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

Public Safety & DisasterPublic BenefitHuman ServicesCommunity 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

IH
Indiana Highway-Safety Grade Crossing and Trespass
8× · 2017–2024 · $280k · revenue +23% · 31% of their budget
SC
Southeastern Chapter National Safety Council
8× · 2017–2024 · $272k · revenue +133%
MO
MISSOURI OPERATION LIFESAVER INC
8× · 2017–2024 · $233k · revenue +44% · 41% of their budget

Funded once

WO
WISCONSIN OPERATION LIFESAVER INC
one grant, 2017 · $24k
NO
NEVADA OPERATION LIFESAVER INC
one grant, 2017 · $16k
RT
Regional Transit Authority - New Orleans
one grant, 2021 · $15k

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

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

Iowa Operation Lifesaver Inc

Promoting highway-rail grade crossing safety and trespass prevention throughout the state of iowa

Public Safety & Disaster

Utah Operation Lifesaver Inc

To educate and promote safety at railroad crossings

Public Safety & Disaster

Operation Lifesaver Inc

To educate the public on rail safety around highway-rail grade crossings and pedestrian safety around tracks and trains.

—

Chattanooga Society of Model Engineers Inc

To educate about railroad operation and safety

Arts & Culture

Xr Safety Initiative

Philanthropy

Rescue Rides Celtic Hill Farm

Animals

Transitcenter Inc

Public Benefit

Below 100

Prevent officer line of duty deaths injuries

Crime & Legal

National Firefighters Training Foundation Inc

Safety training for firefighters.

Public Safety & Disaster

Ohio Association of Railroad Passengers

The Ohio Association of Railroad Passengers (OARP), doing business as All Aboard Ohio, supports the innovative design and development of a robust transportation system that provides diverse transit options to all Ohioans. OARP believes…

—

Old Railroad Bridge Company

Community Improvement

Ryan Saves Lives

Health

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Minnesota Operation Lifesaver Inc; the most unlike its peers is Idaho Operation Lifesaver. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

04the grantee network

27 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

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 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 27 of the 52 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.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

27/27

Grantees still filing

10/27

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Public Safety & Disaster$1,787,564Other$1,664,870Public Benefit$317,943Human Services$233,045Community Improvement$169,303

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

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.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a set of overlaps that mostly run through this funder rather than between each other.

Amazonsmile FoundationWA0.6× affinity10 shared granteesties to 0 of 0Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Amazonsmile Foundation

How this is measured

Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

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

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

3get no government money at all

4report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–5%

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.

Play a game based on Operation Lifesaver’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