· Private foundation
Robert W and Elise B Lykins Charitable Foundation Inc C/O Melanie Lykins
Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| FRIENDS OF RADNOR LAKE | $5,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $5,000 |
| WPLN NASHVILLE PUBLIC RADIO | $5,000 |
| NASHVILLE TREE FOUNDATION | $4,500 |
| NASHVILLE PUBLIC TELEVISION CHANNEL 8 | $4,000 |
| AMERICAN PRINTING HOUSE FOR THE BLIND | $3,145 |
| WATERFRONT BOTANICAL GARDEN | $3,145 |
| HONOR FLIGHTS | $3,145 |
| ST JOSEPH CHILDREN'S HOME | $3,145 |
| DARE TO CARE | $3,145 |
| YMCA | $3,145 |
| SALVATION ARMY | $3,145 |
| NATIONAL PARK FOUNDATION | $3,145 |
| JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT OF KENTUCKY | $3,145 |
| EDISTO ISLAND OPEN LAND TRUST | $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 (FY17–24, $14k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 24% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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.
Which US states your grants reach
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.
38 repeat relationships — 21 still active in FY2024, 17 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 98% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $1k 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
- FOFRIENDS OF RADNOR LAKE7× · 2018–2024 · $28k · revenue +671%
- EIEDISTO ISLAND OPEN LAND TRUST8× · 2017–2024 · $22k · revenue +531%
- NTNASHVILLE TREE FOUNDATION6× · 2019–2024 · $19k · revenue +113%
Funded once
- OPOLMSTEAD PARKS CONSERVANCYone grant, 2017 · $5k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2017 · $5k
- WPWESTMINISTER PRESBYTERIAN CHURCHone grant, 2017 · $4k
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.
Nashville public radio's mission is to be the most trusted & independent nashville voice, connecting our communities through non-partisan journalism, compelling storytelling, civil conversation and music discovery.
Finance impacts everyone. as a socially relevant organization, the museum of american finance seeks to improve understanding of the influence of financial institutions and capital markets on the u.s. and global economies, and on…
In fulfillment of our mission to inspire a culture of understanding and discovery of our natural world through conservation, innovation and leadership, our goal is to build a first class zoo for middle tennessee and to develop a facility…
Eastern national promotes the public's understanding and support of america's national parks and other public trust partners by providing quality educational experiences, products and services.
Jefferson national parks association provides quality educational products and related services that enhance public understanding and appreciation of america's national parks, public lands and historic places.
Greenways for nashville promotes, supports, and enhances a system of greenways and open space in nashville and davidson county.
To enrich life by perpetuating tropical plants, ecosystems and cultural heritage through discovery, scientific research, conservation, and education.
The museum of the american revolution uncovers and shares compelling stories about the diverse people and complex events that sparked america's ongoing experiment in liberty, equality and self-government.
To preserve, maintain and operate the benjamin harrison presidential site, located in indianapolis, indiana as a national historic landmark by the us dept of the interior.
The npr foundation ("foundation") is organized and operated exclusively for the benefit of its sole supported organization, national public radio, inc. ("npr inc."). the foundation supports npr inc. through various activities such as…
The organization's mission is to conserve and promote new england's native plants to ensure healthy, biologically diverse landscapes.
To restore and protect clean water and healthy ecosystems for rivers in tennessee by employing scientific expertise and collaborative relationships to develop, promote, and support broad community stewardship and action.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Make-a-Wish Foundation of Oh Ky & in and the most unlike its peers is Aero Club of Louisville Inc. 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 34 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
39 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. 39 of the 74 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 FRIENDS OF RADNOR LAKE ↗
- Who funds EDISTO ISLAND OPEN LAND TRUST ↗
- Who funds NASHVILLE TREE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds WATERFRONT BOTANICAL GARDENS INC ↗
- Who funds DARE TO CARE INC ↗
- Who funds JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT OF KENTUCKIANA INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL PARK FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN PRINTING HOUSE FOR THE BLIND INC ↗
- Who funds LIVING LANDS & WATERS ↗
- Who funds BELCOURT THEATRE INC ↗
- Who funds TENNGREEN LAND CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds THE LAND TRUST FOR TENNESSEE INC ↗
- Who funds HONOR FLIGHT INC ↗
- Who funds M4K RICHMOND INC ↗
- Who funds WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN INC ↗
- Who funds Honor Flight Bluegrass Chapter Inc ↗
- Who funds Habitat for Humanity ↗
- Who funds WARRIOR EMPOWERMENT FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds NASHVILLE PUBLIC TELEVISION INC ↗
- Who funds Louisville Visual Art Inc ↗
- Who funds THE HOME OF THE INNOCENTS INC ↗
- Who funds KENTUCKY DERBY MUSEUM CORPORATION ↗
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: The Community Foundation of Louisville Inc · The Wade-Buntin Family Foundation · Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels Inc · Baird Foundation Inc · The Steven & Laurie Eskind Family Foundation · W L Lyons Brown Foundation · The Community Foundation of Louisville Corporate Depository Inc · The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee Inc · Anne Bransford Wallace Foundation · James R Meadows Jr Foundation · Henry Laird Smith Foundation · Enchiridion 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 Robert W and Elise B Lykins Charitable Foundation Inc C/O Melanie Lykins 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.
- Food for the Poor Inc — 0% of income from government
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.
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How do I get to Robert W and Elise B Lykins Charitable Foundation Inc C/O Melanie Lykins?
Find your warmest path to Robert W and Elise B Lykins Charitable Foundation Inc C/O Melanie Lykins 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.