· Private foundation
The George Lucas Educational Foundation
Its FY2024 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Read this first · the figures below need context
50% of The George Lucas Educational Foundation’s FY2023 grant dollars went to President And Fellows Of Harvard College, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2023 names 4 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2023.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2023
- $50k–250k7 grants · $500k
- $250k+1 grant · $503k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| HARVARD UNIVERSITY | $503,048 |
| THE CONCORD CONSORTIUM | $150,000 |
| MICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY | $100,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF GEORGIA | $50,499 |
| NEW YORK UNIVERSITY | $50,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA BERKELEY | $50,000 |
| NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY | $50,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO - BOULDER | $50,000 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY20–23) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 57% of your 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.
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.
9 repeat relationships — 7 still active in FY2023, 2 since wound down.
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2023, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
- MSMICHIGAN STATE UNIVERSITY4× · 2020–2023 · $1.9M
- TCTHE CONCORD CONSORTIUM INCORPORATED2× · 2022–2023 · $297k · revenue -27%
- NYNew York University3× · 2021–2023 · $200k · revenue +30%
Funded once
- UOUNIVERSITY OF COLORADOone grant, 2020 · $110k
- UOUNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LOS ANGELESone grant, 2022 · $100k
- SSFUSDone grant, 2020 · $39k
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.
See Form 990, Part I, Line 1, Description of Organization Mission.
Drexel university fulfills its founder's vision of preparing each new generation of students for productive professional and civic lives while also focusing its collective expertise on solving society's greatest problems. drexel is an…
As a leading research university with a distinctive commitment to undergraduate education, Rice University aspires to path breaking research, unsurpassed teaching, and contributions to the betterment of our world. It seeks to fulfill this…
The institute for advanced study (the institute) is one of the world's leading centers for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. see schedule o.
Western new england university, a comprehensive private institution with a tradition of excellence in teaching and scholarship and a commitment to service, awards undergraduate, master's, and doctoral degrees in various departments from…
The principal objects of the University are the advancement of learning by teaching and research, and its dissemination by every means. We work as one Oxford bringing together our staff, students and alumni, our colleges, faculties,…
The museum's mission statement is: "to discover, interpret, and disseminate - through scientific research and education - knowledge about human cultures, the natural world, and the universe."
Biu produces students who excel in the sciences, humanities, law, engineering, business & the arts.
The mission of southern california university of health sciences (scu) is to educate students as competent, caring and successful practitioners of integrative healthcare. the university is committed to providing excellence in academics,…
Mission strengthened by more than a century and a half of dedication to academic excellence, boston college commits itself to the highest standards of teaching and research in undergraduate, graduate and professional programs and to the…
Organization's mission bentley university believes good business can impact more than the bottom line - it can change the world. bentley is a community of future business leaders who will deliver value in the marketplace and lasting…
We educate the next generation of leaders to improve the health of our society.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University and the most unlike its peers is Mathaction. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
8 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. 8 of the 17 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 President and Fellows of Harvard College ↗
- Who funds TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA ↗
- Who funds THE CONCORD CONSORTIUM INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds New York University ↗
- Who funds Northwestern University ↗
- Who funds MATHACTION ↗
- Who funds THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY ↗
Government reliance of your grantees
Every dot is one organization The George Lucas Educational 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, a single department, or state — and drag the year to watch it move.
- The Concord Consortium Incorporated — 37% of income from government
- President and Fellows of Harvard College — 7% 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to The George Lucas Educational Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The George Lucas Educational Foundation 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.