How much does Sylvia Perkin Perpetual Charitable Trust give?

Sylvia Perkin Perpetual Charitable Trust reported 46 grants totaling $312,000 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 27 and 40 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does Sylvia Perkin Perpetual Charitable Trust fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Human Services (41%), Education (14%), Arts & Culture (10%).

Who are Sylvia Perkin Perpetual Charitable Trust's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: Cedar Crest College ($180k), Jewish Community Center of Allentown ($170k), Congregation Keneseth Israel ($138k).

Does Sylvia Perkin Perpetual Charitable Trust fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 13% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Sylvia Perkin Perpetual Charitable Trust 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 Sylvia Perkin Perpetual Charitable Trust?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Lehigh Valley Community Foundation, United Way of the Greater Lehigh Valley, Harry C Trexler Estate.

Where is Sylvia Perkin Perpetual Charitable Trust based?

Sylvia Perkin Perpetual Charitable Trust is based in PA.

Sylvia Perkin Perpetual Charitable Trust

Sylvia Perkin Perpetual Charitable Trust at a glance

· Private foundation

Sylvia Perkin Perpetual Charitable Trust

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.

$312k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$75k

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.

Human Services$987kEducation$350kArts & Culture$240kFood & Nutrition$183kYouth Development$162kReligion$158kHousing & Shelter$133kHealth$111kOther$0

02FY2025 · 46 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k41 grants · $180k
$10k–50k4 grants · $58k
$50k–250k1 grant · $75k

$5,000

Median grant

States reached

$5.7M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
JEWISH FAMILY SERVICE OF THE LV	$75,000
CEDAR CREST COLLEGE	$20,000
MEALS ON WHEELS OF GREATER LEHIGH VALLEY	$15,000
JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER OF ALLENTOWN PA	$12,500
ALLENTOWN ECUMENICAL FOOD	$10,000
THE LITERACY CENTER	$8,500
COMMUNITY BIKE WORKS	$7,500
VALLEY YOUTH HOUSE	$7,500
CENTER FOR HUMANISTIC CHANGE INC	$7,500
VOLUNTEERS OF AMERICA	$6,500
CONGREGATION KENESETH ISRAEL	$6,000
COMMUNITY MUSIC SCHOOL	$6,000
THIRD STREET ALLIANCE FOR WOMEN & CHILDREN	$6,000
BETHLHEM EMERGENCY SHELTERING	$5,000
RIVER CROSSING YMCA	$5,000

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 (FY17–25, $221k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 13%. 2% 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.

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.

$2.3M · 70 repeat orgs$103k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +28% since the first grant, against +5% for those funded once.

70 repeat relationships: 42 still active in FY2025, 28 since wound down; 4 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$2.3M

$87k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+28%

+5%

Still filing today

56%

35%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 95% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $16k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

Human ServicesArts & CultureHealthEducationYouth DevelopmentFood & NutritionOther

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

CC
CEDAR CREST COLLEGE
9× · 2017–2025 · $180k · revenue +5%
JC
JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER OF ALLENTOWN
8× · 2017–2025 · $170k · revenue +29%
CB
COMMUNITY BIKE WORKS
9× · 2017–2025 · $57k · revenue +251%

Funded once

CA
COMMUNITY ACTION COMMITTEE OF THE LV INC
one grant, 2022 · $7k
CS
CACL - SIXTH STREET SHELTER
one grant, 2023 · $6k
LV
LEHIGH VALLEY PUBLIC TELEVISION COR
one grant, 2019 · $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.

Lehigh Valley Economic Development Corporation (Lvedc)

The mission of the lehigh valley economic development corporation is to market the economic assets of the lehigh valley and to create partnerships to support the recruitment, growth and retention of employers, and the creation of jobs for…

Community Improvement

Via of the Lehigh Valley Inc

To help people reach their full potential through a rewarding career, meaningful relationships, and an enriching community life. Via creates pathways to success through vocation, inclusion, and advocacy.

Human Services

Pocono Health System

We heal, comfort and care for the people of our community by providing advanced and compassionate health care of superior quality and value supported by education and clinical research.

—

Greater Lehigh Valley Chamber of Commerce

To improve the economy and quality of communities in the lehigh valley metropolitan area.

—

Bethlehem Area Public Library

To provide educational, informational, cultural, and recreational services to the public. services are provided in bethlehem, pennsylvania and its supporting communities.

Education

Lehigh Valley Center for Independent Living Inc

Lehigh valley center for independent living empowers persons with all types of disabilities to achieve independence in an inclusive community.

—

Valley Comprehensive Community Health Center Inc

Valley healthcare system shall improve our community's health by delivering the highest quality behavioral healthcare guided by our consumer's needs.

—

Lehigh Valley Academy Regional Charter School

The mission of the lehigh valley academy regional charter school, a fully authorized, dynamic k-12 ib world school, is to educate all students through best learning practices and innovative teaching strategies to be responsible…

Education

Allegheny Lutheran Social Ministries Inc

To serve people through a ministry of love, compassion, and mercy in the name of our lord, jesus christ.

Human Services

Lehigh Valley Consumerfamily Satisfac- Tion Team D/B/a Recovery Partnership

To collect information from consumers and families of individuals in the mental health care system and report on their level of satisfaction with these services, in order to achieve a better understanding of how to serve these individuals…

Human Services

The Learning Community of Pennsylvania

To provide companion services to individuals with special needs.

Human Services

Lehigh Valley Health Network

We heal, comfort, and care for the people of our community by providing advanced and compassionate health care of superior quality and value supported by education and clinical research.

—

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Children's Home of Easton Inc; the most unlike its peers is Bloom for Women Inc. 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

51 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. 51 of the 97 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)

50/51

Grantees still filing

35/51

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$1,570,468Human Services$247,450Education$245,500Arts & Culture$171,250Youth Development$96,500Food & Nutrition$56,000Health$28,044

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.

Lehigh Valley Community FoundationPA83.5× affinity38 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Lehigh Valley Community Foundation · United Way of the Greater Lehigh Valley · Harry C Trexler Estate · The Century Fund Trust · Air Products Foundation · Ppl Foundation · Martin Guitar Charitable Foundation · John a and Margaret Post Foundation · Ross J Born and Wendy G Born Charitable Trust · The Donald B and Dorothy L Stabler Foundation · Leona Gruber Charitable Trust · Julius & Katheryn Hommer 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 Sylvia Perkin Perpetual Charitable Trust funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Sylvia Perkin Perpetual Charitable Trust. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

0get no government money at all

23report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

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 Sylvia Perkin Perpetual Charitable Trust?

Find your warmest path to Sylvia Perkin Perpetual Charitable Trust 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.

Play a game based on Sylvia Perkin Perpetual’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