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· Public charity

Pearse Lyons Ace Foundation Inc Fka the Margin of Excellence Inc

To provide educational and charitable activities in the united states and around the world to enhance and improve the quality of life of those in need.

$339k
Granted FY2025still arriving
4
Grants FY2025still arriving
1
States reached
$100k
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.

Education$323kHuman Services$305kPublic Safety & Disaster$132kCrime & Legal$61kArts & Culture$10kFood & Nutrition$10kRecreation & Sports$6k
02FY2025 · 4 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

How this is measured
The 4 grants below total $185,322, the rows itemized in this filing. The $339,421 headline is the total grant expense on the return; the other $154,099 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 · FY2025

  • $10k–50k2 grants · $33k
  • $50k–250k2 grants · $153k
$52,748
Median grant
1
States reached
$116k
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
GREENHOUSE17$100,000
UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY$52,748
FRATERNAL ORDER OF POLICE #73$22,574
GODS PANTRY FOOD BANK$10,000
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:

Its human-services grants (FY18–18, $5k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 15%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 15%DIVINE PROVIDENCE INC DBA CATHOLIC ACTION CENTER: $5k → 15%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.

Grants abroad, by region: $93k on the FY2025 return

Schedule F, as filed: 1 region. The IRS asks for region and purpose, not the recipient, so no country or grantee can be named here.

Europe (including Iceland and Greenland)$93k · 100% · 1 grant

Stated purpose: CANCER RESEARCH & MENTAL HEALTH SUPPORT; GENERAL SUPPORT

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. Grants abroad on Schedule F are filed by region, purpose and amount with no recipient name, so they are shown by region and cannot be placed on the country map or matched to a grantee.
04

Where the work is directed

The same grants placed two ways: where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose sends the money.

About 5% of Pearse Lyons Ace Foundation Inc Fka the Margin of Excellence Inc’s grant dollars are earmarked for a different county than the recipient’s own address.

Pearse Lyons Ace Foundation Inc Fka the Margin of Excellence Inclessmore of its giving
Placed by recipient address
How this is measured
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the funder’s own 990 grant descriptions.
03Its grantees
repeat funding

Who it funds again

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

82%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$685k · 3 repeat orgs$154k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +4% since the first grant, against -49% for those funded once.

3 repeat relationships: 3 still active in FY2025, 0 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

3
8

Total granted

$685k
$144k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+4%
-49%

Still filing today

33%
38%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 95% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $10k went to new ones.

50%100%’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25
RenewedFirst-time

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

’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25
Human ServicesRecreation & SportsOther
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

  • UO
    UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY
    9× · 2017–2025 · $323k
  • GI
    GREENHOUSE17 INC
    3× · 2023–2025 · $300k · revenue +4%
  • FO
    FRATERNAL ORDER OF POLICE FRONTIER LODGE 73
    4× · 2021–2025 · $61k

Funded once

  • SG
    ST GEORGE CHURCH
    one grant, 2022 · $52k
  • MO
    MISSIONARIES OF CHARITY INC
    one grant, 2022 · $25k
  • KF
    KENTUCKY FARM BUREAU EDUCATION FOUNDATION INC
    one grant, 2022 · $20k · revenue -80%
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
05the grantee network

6 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. 6 of the 13 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.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
1
Early backer (in before they grew)
6/6
Grantees still filing
2/6
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY: $323,348 · OtherUNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKYFRATERNAL ORDER OF POLICE FRONTIER LODGE 73: $61,391 · OtherFRATERNAL ORDER OF POLICE FRONTIER LODGE 73ST GEORGE CHURCH: $52,000 · OtherST GEORGE CHURCHMISSIONARIES OF CHARITY INC: $25,000 · OtherKENTUCKY FARM BUREAU EDUCATION FOUNDATION INC: $20,000 · OtherDIOCESE OF OWENSBORO: $18,701 · Other+3 more: $28,250 · Other+3 moreGREENHOUSE17 INC: $300,000 · Human ServicesGREENHOUSE17 INC+1 more: $5,000 · Human ServicesFOUNDATION FOR APPALACHIAN KENTUCKY INC: $8,250 · PhilanthropyKENTUCKY HORSE PARK FOUNDATION INC: $5,500 · Recreation & Sports
Other$528,690Human Services$305,000Philanthropy$8,250Recreation & Sports$5,500

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

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetGREENHOUSE17 INC: $300,000 over 3y, 2.5% of budgetKENTUCKY FARM BUREAU EDUCATION FOUNDATION INC: $20,000 over 1y, 1.7% of budgetGOD'S PANTRY FOOD BANK INC: $10,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetFOUNDATION FOR APPALACHIAN KENTUCKY INC: $8,250 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetKENTUCKY HORSE PARK FOUNDATION INC: $5,500 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetDIVINE PROVIDENCE INC: $5,000 over 1y, 1.2% 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.

  • Who funds GREENHOUSE17 INC ↗
  • Who funds KENTUCKY FARM BUREAU EDUCATION FOUNDATION INC ↗
  • Who funds GOD'S PANTRY FOOD BANK INC ↗
  • Who funds FOUNDATION FOR APPALACHIAN KENTUCKY INC ↗
  • Who funds KENTUCKY HORSE PARK FOUNDATION INC ↗
  • Who funds DIVINE PROVIDENCE INC ↗

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.

Natl Christian Charitable Fdn IncGA9.4× affinity5 shared granteesties to 3 of 3Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund

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 Pearse Lyons Ace Foundation Inc Fka the Margin of Excellence Inc funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Pearse Lyons Ace Foundation Inc Fka the Margin of Excellence Inc. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%0%1%3%5%funder's share of their income ↑0%19%38%56%75%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    2report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–75%
    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 Pearse Lyons Ace Foundation Inc Fka the Margin of Excellence Inc?

    Find your warmest path to Pearse Lyons Ace Foundation Inc Fka the Margin of Excellence 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 13 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

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