Does The HEP Foundation Business Trust L Edwin Paulson Jr Trustee 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.

The HEP Foundation Business Trust L Edwin Paulson Jr Trustee

The HEP Foundation Business Trust L Edwin Paulson Jr Trustee at a glance

· Private foundation

The HEP Foundation Business Trust L Edwin Paulson Jr Trustee

Q: What does The HEP Foundation Business Trust L Edwin Paulson Jr Trustee fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Religion (60%), Education (22%), Philanthropy (6%).

Q: Who are The HEP Foundation Business Trust L Edwin Paulson Jr Trustee's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: First Presbyterian Church ($270k), Sayre School ($27k), The Hope Center Inc ($15k).

Q: Does The HEP Foundation Business Trust L Edwin Paulson Jr Trustee fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 50% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Q: Which funders back the same organizations as The HEP Foundation Business Trust L Edwin Paulson Jr Trustee?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Blue Grass Community Foundation Inc, The Mt Brilliant Family Foundation (Formerly Hgg Family Foundation), Baird Foundation Inc.

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.

$2k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$500

Largest

01What it funds

0196% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.

Religion$272kEducation$100kPhilanthropy$26kHealth$16kYouth Development$15kRecreation & Sports$12kEnvironment$5kArts & Culture$5kOther$0

02FY2025 · 6 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

$200

Median grant

States reached

$25k

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
First Presbyterian Church	$500
Easterseals	$400
Lexington Humane Society	$200
Sayre School	$200
Charleston Animal Society	$150
Cardinal Hill Foundation	$100

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 (FY17–20, $2k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 40% 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.

Which US states its grants reach

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.

87%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$396k · 19 repeat orgs$59k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +32% since the first grant, against +28% for those funded once.

19 repeat relationships: 5 still active in FY2025, 14 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$396k

$59k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+32%

+28%

Still filing today

37%

46%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 90% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $150 went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

Arts & CultureEducationAnimalsHuman ServicesRecreation & SportsHealthOther

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

SS
SAYRE SCHOOL
7× · 2017–2025 · $27k · revenue +32%
LS
LEXINGTON SCHOOL INC
2× · 2022–2023 · $1k · revenue +14%
CC
CORPUS CHRISTI INC
2× · 2017–2018 · $900 · revenue +27%

Funded once

TH
THE HOPE CENTER INCgraduated
one grant, 2023 · $15k · revenue +67%
PM
PHI MU FOUNDATION INCgraduated
one grant, 2018 · $13k · revenue +51%
TB
TOWN BRANCH PARK INC
one grant, 2023 · $10k · revenue -74%

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.

Commerce Lexington Inc

To represent our members, creating the environment and opportunity for economic prosperity and quality living in central kentucky.

—

Civiclex Incorporated

Civiclex strengthens civic health in lexington, kentucky, by helping our community understand and get involved in local issues, connect with their neighbors and make decisions in a better way.

Arts & Culture

Lexington Philharmonic Society Inc

To foster excellence and innovation in performances and presentation of great music; to enrich the lives of our diverse citizenry; to educate current and future audiences and to bring distinction to our community through the orchestra's…

Arts & Culture

Lexington Cemetery Company

To honor, celebrate, and maintain in perpetuity the beauty and dignity of our cemetery for past, present, and future generations.

—

Lexington Public Library Foundation

The lexington public library foundation envisions a thriving public library enriched by philanthropy and advocacy.

Education

Lexington Public Library

Our mission is to enrich and connect our community through welcoming spaces, engaged staff, diverse resources, and lifelong learning opportunities. we create a stronger community by meeting our customers where and how they need us and…

Education

The Land Trust for Tennessee Inc

To conserve the unique character of tennessee's natural and historic landscapes and sites for future generations.

Environment

Lexington Christian Academy

Lexington christian academy is an independent college preparatory school that exists to educate young men and women in the arts and sciences in the context of a complete commitment to the gospel of jesus christ.

Education

Washington and Lee University

Mission statement of washington and lee university: washington and lee university provides a liberal arts education that develops students' capacity to think freely, critically, and humanely and to conduct themselves with honor, integrity,…

Education

Kentucky Bankers Association

To provide effective advocacy for the financial services industry both in kentucky and on a national level; to serve as a reliable and responsive source of information and education about areas of interest to the industry; and to provide a…

—

Louisville Collegiate School

Louisville collegiate school inspires academic excellence, extraordinary character and global citizenship.

Education

Cincinnati Preservation Association

To empower and educate people to value, preserve and save greater cincinnati's historic buildings, communities, landscapes and stories.

Arts & Culture

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Lexington Humane Society; the most unlike its peers is American Heart Association 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

26 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. 26 of the 58 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)

26/26

Grantees still filing

20/26

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$394,370Education$29,250Housing & Shelter$15,000Recreation & Sports$10,750Arts & Culture$3,512Human Services$1,500Animals$1,100

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.

Blue Grass Community Foundation IncKY37.5× affinity16 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Blue Grass Community Foundation Inc · The Mt Brilliant Family Foundation (Formerly Hgg Family Foundation) · Baird Foundation Inc · Hilary Boone Foundation Inc · The Community Foundation of Louisville Inc · Crutcher Family Foundation Inc · American Water Charitable Foundationinc · Norman & Elizabeth Brown Family Charitable Corporation · Rosenstein Family Charitable Foundation Inc · Dean Dorton Allen Ford Charitable Foundation Inc · Christian Word Ministries Inc · Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels Inc

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 The HEP Foundation Business Trust L Edwin Paulson Jr Trustee funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The HEP Foundation Business Trust L Edwin Paulson Jr Trustee. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

0get no government money at all

9report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–30%

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 HEP Foundation Business Trust L Edwin Paulson Jr Trustee’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