How much did THE LENNY ZAKIM FUND grant in FY2024?

Human Services$1.1MCommunity Improvement$459kEducation$408kCivil Rights$406kYouth Development$274kCrime & Legal$249kReligion$228kHealth$227kEmployment$218kOther$2.1M

02beneath the categories

Past the labels — and the year it shifted

Beneath the NTEE codes, this is what the grant descriptions actually say.

…and in their own words, year by year

2018

tpscompleterestorativeassisting refugeesrefugees resettledresettled migrantspuede

2019

athleticoperategardensfarmers marketemploymentblind studentsstrives

2020

comfortadvocacy organizingoverrise abovemvpathleticvolunteers

2021

incarceratedlivesdemocracy movementbuilding growinggrowing transformtransform capitalismcapitalism sustainable

2022

chinesecsuseekmusic educationgenerationinnovativeeast boston

2023

peaceunitydirectsurvivorsresistdomestic violencevolunteer

2024

creatingphysiciansconnectingnemamarginalizedpeaceidentity

Words distinctive to each year’s grant purposes (TF-IDF) · event-driven terms in cyan.

03FY2024 · 55 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

By grant size · FY2024

Under $10k7 grants · $54k
$10k–50k48 grants · $567k

$10,000

Median grant

States reached

$9.2M

Total assets

Largest grants

CODESQUAD$20,000
WE ARE BETTER TOGETHER - THE WARREN DANIEL HAIRSTON PROJECT$17,500
SOMALI PARENTS ADVOCACY CTR FOR EDUCATION$15,000
MY BROTHER'S KEEPER 617$15,000
THE UPWARD PROJECT$15,000
AFRICAN CULTURAL SERVICES$15,000
NEIGHBORHOOD COUNSELING & COMMUNITY SVCS$15,000
RIGHT TO THE CITY OF BOSTON$15,000
CULTURAL EXCHANGE THROUGH SOCCER$13,892
SOUTH COAST LGBTQ NETWORK$13,845
TOP NOTCH SCHOLARS$13,300
PINNACLE PARTNERSHIPS$13,134
TO THE MOON AND BACK$12,500
CITY STRINGS UNITED$12,500
I HAVE A FUTURE$12,500

02The need

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.

show:

Your human-services grants (FY17–24, $1.1M) land where the poverty rate runs at 14% — the area typically sits at 10%. 75% of those dollars reach neighborhoods with above-average need. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

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; grantee ZIP can differ from where services are delivered.

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, United Way ALICE — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.

03Your edge

repeat funding

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.

94%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.

$5.4M · 119 repeat orgs$334k to everyone else

119 repeat relationships — 45 still active in FY2024, 74 since wound down; 8 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

119

Total granted

$5.4M

$260k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+87%

+119%

Still filing today

84%

86%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 88% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $75k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

Human ServicesEducationCommunity ImprovementCivil RightsHealthYouth DevelopmentOther

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

TSNE MISSION WORKS
7× · 2017–2023 · $160k · revenue +34%
SISTERS UNCHAINED (THE CITY SCHOOL)
5× · 2019–2024 · $116k · revenue +299%
CENTRO COMUNITARIO DE TRABAJADORES
5× · 2018–2023 · $100k · revenue +397%

Funded once

FU
FATHERS' UPLIFT INCgraduated
one grant, 2017 · $20k · revenue +1320%
CENTRO PRESENTEgraduated
one grant, 2018 · $20k · revenue +31%
PP
PAIR PROJECT (POLITICAL ASYLUMIMMIGRATION REPRESENTATION)graduated
one grant, 2017 · $15k · revenue +133%

Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Your field

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.

Pathway for Immigrant Workers

The purpose of the corporation is to assist low-income workers in obtaining lawful permanent residence and related legal stability, and to support employers in recruiting and retaining a stable, lawfully authorized workforce that sustains…

Human Services

Start Change Inc

Start Change serves the nonprofit community and nonprofit project through consulting and shared services. Our mission is to expand capacity within the sector by providing low cost services to clients, consulting contract jobs to…

Community Improvement

Youthbuild Boston Inc

To provide educational and skill training for low income youth.

—

Boston Collaborative Inc

To connect, inform and engage christians to drastically impact unacceptable realities in boston. we do this by listening, innovating, and building what god is already doing

Religion

Boston Cares Inc

Boston cares partners with nonprofits and schools to expand their impact by mobilizing diverse people to address our community's critical needs collaborativelty.

—

Iranian Association of Boston Inc

The iranian association of boston is dedicated to promoting the cultural and social understanding of iranian americans.

Arts & Culture

Greater Boston Council On

Philanthropy

Massachusetts Education & Career

Massedco works to bridge the gap in postsecondary education attainment for low-income, first generation youth and adults in massachusetts.

Education

Boston Tenant Coalition Inc

To educate the public concerning the plight of low-income tenants and possible solutions to the crisis

Housing & Shelter

Boston Private Industry Council Inc the

The mission of the PIC is to connect youth and adults of Boston with jobs and careers in the mainstream economy. The PIC brokers jobs and internships for public high school students oversees Boston's One Stop Career Centers and related job…

Employment

Breakthrough Greater Boston Inc

To inspire excitement for learning, create paths to and through college, and promote careers in education.

Education

The Boston Higher Education

The Boston Higher Education Resource Center equips first generation youth to obtain a higher education, break the cycle of poverty, and become agents of changes in their communities.

Education

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Families for Justice As Healing Inc and the most unlike its peers is 2GETHER We Eat. 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.

the sector your giving your giving is ahead of the sector the sector’s ahead of you· dot size = how much the theme matters to each side

Ordered by the change in your giving — leaning in on top, pulling back at the bottom. The bar between the two dots is how out of step you are with the sector. Hover any row for detail.

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 15 years old; the field is 17. You back the younger end — and your money leans older still.

The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 7% of your grantees by number, and just 6% of your money.

Closures · last 5 years

The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% lost their exemption, against 9% of the field you don’t fund.

orgs you fund

3%5/155

the rest of the field

2,376/25,542

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.

05the grantee network

146 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2017–2025.

Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

131/146

Grantees still filing

111/146

Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

Other$2,762,155Human Services$1,138,600Community Improvement$458,550Education$407,525Civil Rights$405,670Youth Development$274,000Crime & Legal$248,500

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.

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.

Boston Foundation IncMA85.8× affinity80 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Boston Foundation Inc · Cummings Foundation Grants Inc (Fka Oneworld Boston Inc) · Eastern Bank Foundation · Foley Hoag Foundation · The Hyams Foundation Inc · Health Resources in Action Inc · Haymarket People's Fund Inc · Children's Hospital Corporation · Philanthropy Massachusetts Inc · Boston Charitable Trust Fund · Amelia Peabody Foundation · Combined Jewish Philanthropies of Greater Boston Inc

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 organisation THE LENNY ZAKIM FUND 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.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

57get no government money at all

6rely on government for over half their income

typical government reliance, FY20–24

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. 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.

05Through Plinth

Through Plinth

Your grantmaking, live and operational

This dossier was generated cold from public filings. In Plinth it’s a working system — every applicant assessed and every grant monitored. Here’s a taste, run on one of your grantees: P&O BEHAVIORAL HEALTH INITIATIVE.

Agentic due diligence · confidence × risk

Financial management

insufficient risk

Limited financial data in public filings.

Track record & reputation

medium risk

2 years of Form 990 filings, still active; revenue up 6.5× since.

Legal standing

low risk

US 501(c)(3); EIN 861196245 on file with current IRS Form 990 filings.

Governance

Live in Plinth

Board composition & governance documents — verified live in Plinth from the applicant.

Compliance & sanctions

Live in Plinth

OFAC / UN sanctions screening — run live in Plinth at assessment.

Program capacity

Live in Plinth

Staffing, M&E and activity alignment — assessed live in Plinth from submitted proposals.

Live · Plinth’s real DD engine

Run the actual assessment on P&O BEHAVIORAL HEALTH INITIATIVE, cold from public data.

Generated live from public IRS filings + open web sources by Plinth’s agentic engine. Shown as an illustration of the product, not a formal assessment.

Post-award monitoring · continuous checks

Awaiting reportFinancial stability— Runway not derivable from filings.
On trackSustained operations— Filing through 2024; revenue grew over the period.
WatchReliance on your funding— Your grants peaked at 69% of their budget — load-bearing; a dependency Plinth would track.
Awaiting reportEvidence of delivery— Plinth collects the grantee's own monitoring reports post-award.

What you see here is static and public. In Plinth it’s operational — the full six-pillar framework on every applicant (with their own documents + live registry and sanctions checks), monitoring dashboards on every award, custom board reports, and eligibility routing for intake.

Agentic due diligenceMonitoring dashboardsCustom board reportsEligibility routing

Preview generated from this grantee’s public IRS filings and independent reporting. Pillars marked “live in Plinth” require the applicant’s submitted documents. Shown as illustration, not a formal assessment.

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPro

How do I get to The Lenny Zakim Fund?

Find your warmest path to The Lenny Zakim Fund through people who sit on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the introduction across shared trustees and officers.

Every link is a documented governance overlap in public IRS 990 filings — not a personal network — and each hop carries its own confidence tier. Low-confidence or distant paths are held back rather than guessed.

THE LENNY ZAKIM FUND

What you funded, over time

Past the labels — and the year it shifted

Where the money goes

Do your dollars go where the need is?