How much does Paul and Ruth Lyon Family Foundation give?

Paul and Ruth Lyon Family Foundation reported 20 grants totaling $90,000 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 17 and 23 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does Paul and Ruth Lyon Family Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Arts & Culture (22%), Health (21%), Philanthropy (15%).

Who are Paul and Ruth Lyon Family Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: Volunteers of America Utah ($42k), The Road Home ($40k), Best Friends Animal Society ($38k).

Does Paul and Ruth Lyon Family Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 6% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Paul and Ruth Lyon Family Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

Which funders back the same organizations as Paul and Ruth Lyon Family Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Sorenson Legacy Foundation, Larry H Miller and Gail Miller Family Foundation, The Community Foundation of Utah.

Where is Paul and Ruth Lyon Family Foundation based?

Paul and Ruth Lyon Family Foundation is based in UT.

Paul and Ruth Lyon Family Foundation

Paul and Ruth Lyon Family Foundation at a glance

· 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.

$90k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$15k

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 2025.

Arts & Culture$149kHealth$142kPhilanthropy$100kHousing & Shelter$85kAnimals$56kReligion$38kHuman Services$38kEducation$32kOther$0

02FY2025 · 20 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k17 grants · $52k
$10k–50k3 grants · $38k

$3,000

Median grant

States reached

$1.8M

Total assets

Largest grants
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
PRIMARY CHILDRENS HOSPITAL	$5,000
BEST FRIENDS ANIMAL SOCIETY	$5,000
SWITCHPOINT	$4,000
JOHN A MORAN EYE CENTER	$3,000
GUIDE DOGS FOR THE BLIND	$2,250
HUMANE SOCIETY OF UTAH	$2,000
HUNTSMAN CANCER FOUNDATION	$2,000
UTAH FOOD BANK	$2,000
WASATCH COMMUNITY ACUPUNCTURE	$2,000

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 (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 its grants land in higher-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.

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.

93%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$638k · 31 repeat orgs$45k to everyone else

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

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$638k

$43k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+64%

+72%

Still filing today

58%

33%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 98% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

Human ServicesEducationArts & CultureAnimalsHealthReligionOther

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

VO
VOLUNTEERS OF AMERICA UTAH
7× · 2019–2025 · $42k · revenue +105%
TR
THE ROAD HOME
7× · 2018–2025 · $40k · revenue +117%
BEST FRIENDS ANIMAL SOCIETY
9× · 2017–2025 · $38k · revenue +31%

Funded once

CO
CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LDS
one grant, 2019 · $13k
TO
The Other Side Academygraduated
one grant, 2018 · $6k · revenue +171%
IF
INTERMOUNTAIN FOUNDATION - PCH
one grant, 2018 · $5k

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.

The Center for Economic Opportunity and Belonging

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.

Community Improvement

Utah Geological Foundation

—

Celestial Zoo Pet Rescue

To help homeless pets find their forever home. it includes fostering, medicdal and microchipping them.

Animals

Utah Regional Housing Corporation

Provide housing to low-income families in provo, utah.

Housing & Shelter

Family Promise - Salt Lake

We help families experiencing homelessness find lasting independence and security.

Housing & Shelter

Clean Slate Utah

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;…

Crime & Legal

United Way of Greater Salt Lake

United way of salt lake (uwsl) mobilizes people and resources to support basic needs and education.

Human Services

Utah Valley Chamber of Commerce

Stimulate local business establishment, growth, and development by facilitating business to business and business to community relationships throughout Utah County.

—

Utah Safety Council

The mission of the Utah Safety Council is to save lives by promoting safety and health through education, services, and products.

Public Safety & Disaster

Utah Zoological Society

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.

Animals

Utah Public Lands Alliance

Education

Utah Animal Adoption Center

The organization is dedicated to reducing pet overpopulation, eliminating euthanasia as a means of controlling pet overpopulation, and preventing animal suffering in utah.

Animals

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Big Brothers Big Sisters of Utah; 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.

04the grantee network

25 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. 25 of the 49 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)

25/25

Grantees still filing

20/25

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$433,240Human Services$74,750Animals$53,613Arts & Culture$42,300Education$37,541Health$36,000Crime & Legal$5,500

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 tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Sorenson Legacy FoundationUT25.9× affinity10 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

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

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 Paul and Ruth Lyon Family Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Paul and Ruth Lyon Family Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

0get no government money at all

6report 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.

Play a game based on Paul and Ruth Lyon Family’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