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· Private foundation

The Lenfest Scholars Foundation Inc

Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.

$1.6M
Granted FY2025still arriving
8
Grants FY2025still arriving
4
States reached
$1.3M
Largest
01What it funds
0197% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2018 to 2025.

Education$12MPhilanthropy$320kOther$0
02FY2025 · 8 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

  • $10k–50k5 grants · $80k
  • $50k–250k2 grants · $235k
  • $250k+1 grant · $1.3M
$30,000
Median grant
4
States reached
$65M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
SCHEDULE OF SCHOLARSHIP RECIPIENTS$1,276,295
SCHEDULE OF FINALIST GRANTS - INFOR$131,000
SCHEDULE OF SPECIAL EDUCATION EXPEN$104,065
FIDELITY CHARITABLE GIFT FUND$30,000
VANGUARD CHARITABLE FUND$20,000
SCHWAB CHARITABLE FUND$10,000
RAYMOND JAMES CHARITABLE FOUNDATION$10,000
Individual grant recipient$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:

Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY18–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 20%, against an area that typically sits at 18%. 92% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 18%EDWARD JONES INVESTMENTS: $10k → 9%SCHEDULE OF SCHOLARSHIP RECIPIENTS: $908k → 22%VANGUARD CHARITABLE FUND: $20k → 7%SCHEDULE OF FINALIST GRANTS: $40k → 22%VANGUARD CHARITABLE FUND: $20k → 7%SCHEDULE OF SEEF SPECIAL EDUCATION: $26k → 22%Vanguard Charitable DAF: $20k → 7%Philadelphia Foundation DAF: $10k → 22%VANGUARD CHARITABLE FUND: $20k → 7%PHILADELPHIA FOUNDATION: $10k → 22%PHILADELPHIA FOUNDATION: $10k → 22%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.
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.

91%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$11M · 3 repeat orgs$1.1M to everyone else

3 repeat relationships: 3 still active in FY2025, 0 since wound down; 2 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

3
6

Total granted

$11M
$1.1M

Still filing today

0%
0%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 99% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $20k went to new ones.

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

  • SO
    SCHEDULE OF SCHOLARSHIP RECIPIENTS
    7× · 2018–2025 · $9.5M
  • SO
    SCHEDULE OF FINALIST GRANTS - INFOR
    7× · 2019–2025 · $651k
  • SO
    SCHEDULE OF SPECIAL EDUCATION EXPEN
    7× · 2019–2025 · $431k

Funded once

  • SO
    Schedule of Scholarship Receipients
    one grant, 2019 · $913k
  • FC
    Fidelity Charitable DAF
    one grant, 2019 · $50k
  • SO
    SCHEDULE OF FINALIST GRANTS
    one grant, 2018 · $40k
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
04the grantee network

4 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. 4 of the 15 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)
0
Early backer (in before they grew)
4/4
Grantees still filing
3/4
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

SCHEDULE OF SCHOLARSHIP RECIPIENTS: $9,509,898 · OtherSCHEDULE OF SCHOLARSHIP RECIPIENTSSchedule of Scholarship Receipients: $913,295 · OtherSchedule of Scholarship ReceipientsSCHEDULE OF FINALIST GRANTS - INFOR: $651,000 · OtherSCHEDULE OF FINALIST GRANTS - INFORSCHEDULE OF SPECIAL EDUCATION EXPEN: $430,783 · Other+7 more: $165,825 · OtherFIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND: $140,000 · Community ImprovementVANGUARD CHARITABLE ENDOWMENT PROGRAM: $60,000 · PhilanthropyTHE PHILADELPHIA FOUNDATION: $20,000 · PhilanthropyDONOR ADVISED CHARITABLE GIVING INC: $10,000 · Philanthropy
Other$11,670,801Community Improvement$140,000Philanthropy$90,000

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

25%50%75%100%$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetFIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND: $140,000 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetVANGUARD CHARITABLE ENDOWMENT PROGRAM: $60,000 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetTHE PHILADELPHIA FOUNDATION: $20,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetDONOR ADVISED CHARITABLE GIVING INC: $10,000 over 1y, 0.0% 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 FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ↗
  • Who funds VANGUARD CHARITABLE ENDOWMENT PROGRAM ↗
  • Who funds THE PHILADELPHIA FOUNDATION ↗
  • Who funds DONOR ADVISED CHARITABLE GIVING INC ↗

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization The Lenfest Scholars Foundation Inc funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Lenfest Scholars Foundation Inc. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 10%0%1%3%5%funder's share of their income ↑0%1%3%4%5%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    1get no government money at all
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–5%
    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 The Lenfest Scholars Foundation Inc?

    Find your warmest path to The Lenfest Scholars Foundation 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 15 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-PF 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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