· Private foundation
Paul and Ruth Lyon Family Foundation
Its FY2025 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 FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k17 grants · $52k
- $10k–50k3 grants · $38k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| PHILANTHROPIES | $14,750 |
| HALE CENTER THEATER-FRIENDS OF HCT | $13,000 |
| ST GEORGE MUSICAL THEATER | $10,000 |
| NAMI | $6,700 |
| VOLUNTEERS OF AMERICA | $6,700 |
| THE ROAD HOME | $6,700 |
| BEST FRIENDS ANIMAL SOCIETY | $5,000 |
| PRIMARY CHILDRENS HOSPITAL | $5,000 |
| SWITCHPOINT | $4,000 |
| JOHN A MORAN EYE CENTER | $3,000 |
| GUIDE DOGS FOR THE BLIND | $2,250 |
| UTAH FOOD BANK | $2,000 |
| HUMANE SOCIETY OF UTAH | $2,000 |
| HUNTSMAN CANCER FOUNDATION | $2,000 |
| WASATCH COMMUNITY ACUPUNCTURE | $2,000 |
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.
Your human-services grants (FY18–25, $46k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 7%. 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.
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.
31 repeat relationships — 17 still active in FY2025, 14 since wound down; 3 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (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 FY2025, 98% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2k 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
- VOVOLUNTEERS OF AMERICA UTAH7× · 2019–2025 · $42k · revenue +105%
- TRTHE ROAD HOME7× · 2018–2025 · $40k · revenue +117%
BEST FRIENDS ANIMAL SOCIETY9× · 2017–2025 · $38k · revenue +31%
Funded once
- COCHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LDSone grant, 2019 · $13k
- TOThe Other Side Academygraduatedone grant, 2018 · $6k · revenue +171%
- IFINTERMOUNTAIN FOUNDATION - PCHone 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.
Our mission is to engage with communities and catalyze private, public, and philanthropic partnerships to remedy opportunity gaps in economic opportunity, education, health, and housing in Utah.
To help homeless pets find their forever home. it includes fostering, medicdal and microchipping them.
Provide housing to low-income families in provo, utah.
We help families experiencing homelessness find lasting independence and security.
To help people clear their criminal records and access opportunities. we will do this by: 1) spreading the word about utah's clean slate law to individuals with records, so they are aware of the law and its positive impact on their lives;…
United way of salt lake (uwsl) mobilizes people and resources to support basic needs and education.
Stimulate local business establishment, growth, and development by facilitating business to business and business to community relationships throughout Utah County.
The mission of the Utah Safety Council is to save lives by promoting safety and health through education, services, and products.
Utah's hogle zoo creates champions for wildlife and is our community's gateway to animals, connecting our visitors with the natural world and engaging them in wildlife conservation action locally and worldwide.
The organization is dedicated to reducing pet overpopulation, eliminating euthanasia as a means of controlling pet overpopulation, and preventing animal suffering in utah.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Big Brothers Big Sisters of Utah and the most unlike its peers is St George Musical Theater. 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 43 years old; the field is 11. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 29% startups (under 5 years old) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 16% 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.
25 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. 25 of the 49 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 VOLUNTEERS OF AMERICA UTAH ↗
- Who funds THE ROAD HOME ↗
- Who funds BEST FRIENDS ANIMAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds ST GEORGE MUSICAL THEATER ↗
- Who funds Granite Education Foundation ↗
- Who funds WASATCH COMMUNITY ACUPUNCTURE ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF SWITCHPOINT INC ↗
- Who funds HUNTSMAN CANCER FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds UTAH FOOD BANK ↗
- Who funds HUMANE SOCIETY OF UTAH ↗
- Who funds Big Brothers Big Sisters of Utah ↗
- Who funds GUIDE DOGS FOR THE BLIND INC ↗
- Who funds Alpine School District Foundation ↗
- Who funds The Other Side Academy ↗
- Who funds GUIDE DOG FOUNDATION FOR THE BLIND INC ↗
- Who funds BOOK OF MORMON CENTRAL ↗
- Who funds OUR RESCUE ↗
- Who funds MARINE TOYS FOR TOTS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Mission Pre-Born Inc ↗
- Who funds RESCUE MISSION OF SALT LAKE INC ↗
- Who funds SPECIAL OLYMPICS UTAH INC ↗
- Who funds FULLER CENTER FOR HOUSING OF CACHE VALLEY INC ↗
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: Sorenson Legacy Foundation · Larry H Miller and Gail Miller Family Foundation · The Community Foundation of Utah · Thom & Gail Williamsen Family Foundation · The Miner Foundation · George S and Dolores Dore Eccles Foundation · Kennecott Utah Copper Visitors Center Charitable Foundation · Beesley Family Foundation · McCarthey Family Foundation · Making a Difference Foundation · Pacificorp Foundation Aka Pacific Power Foundation Aka Rocky Mountain Power Foundati · Dominion Energy 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 Paul and Ruth Lyon Family 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.