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The Lessing Family Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

The Lessing Family Foundation

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.

$30k
Granted FY2025still arriving
2
Grants FY2025still arriving
2
States reached
$25k
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its fieldRead
01What it funds
0194% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2020 to 2025.

Education$501kHealth$76kRecreation & Sports$28kReligion$25kYouth Development$15kFood & Nutrition$10kArts & Culture$5kOther$0
02FY2025 · 2 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

  • Under $10k1 grant · $5k
  • $10k–50k1 grant · $25k
$25,000
Median grant
2
States reached
$451k
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
LEADERSHIP ROUNDTABLE$25,000
SOUTHERN VERMONT ARTS CENTER$5,000
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 (FY21–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 97% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 8%GLENADA CASINO FOUNDATION INC: $20k → 7%FIVER FOUNDATION: $5k → 17%BOYS HOPE GIRLS HOPE: $5k → 20%LEADERSHIP ROUNDTABLE: $25k → 14%Jupiter Island Medical Clinic Inc: $25k → 10%JUPITER MEDICAL CENTER FOUNDATION: $26k → 11%FAIRFIELD UNIVERSITY: $496k → 9%SOUTHERN VERMONT ARTS CENTER: $5k → 11%CITYLAX: $3k → 17%JUPITER MEDICAL CENTER FOUNDATION: $15k → 11%JUPITER MEDICAL CENTER FOUNDATION: $10k → 11%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 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.

1
Long Island Jewish Medical Center

Long island jewish medical center is part of the northwell health ("northwell"), which strives to improve the health of the communities it serves and is committed to providing the highest quality clinical care; educating the current and…

Health
2
Glen Cove Hospital

Glen cove hospital is part of northwell health, inc. ("northwell"), which strives to improve the health of the communities it serves and is committed to providing the highest quality geriatric care; educating the current and future…

Health
3
Lenox Hill Hospital

Lenox hill hospital is part of northwell health ("northwell"), which strives to improve the health of the communities it serves and is committed to providing the highest quality clinical care; educating the current and future generations…

Health
4
South Shore University Hospital

South shore university hospital is part of northwell health ("northwell"), which strives to improve the health of the communities it serves and is committed to providing the highest quality clinical care; educating the current and future…

Health
5
John T Mather Memorial Hospital

John t. mather memorial hospital ("mather") is a non-profit community hospital that is part of northwell health. mather strives to improve the health of the communities it serves and is committed to providing the highest quality clinical…

Health
6
North Shore University Hospital

North shore university hospital is part of northwell health ("northwell"), which strives to improve the health of the communities it serves and is committed to providing the highest quality clinical care; educating the current and future…

Health
7
St Vincent's Medical Center Foundation Inc

None

Health
8
Staten Island University Hospital Foundation

The mission of staten island university hospital's foundation is to achieve philanthropic relationships for support and endowment, providing highest quality care, services and state of the art equipment. philanthropy has played an…

Health
9
Jupiter Medical Center Inc

The mission of jupiter medical center is to deliver excellent and compassionate healthcare advancing the well-being of the people we serve, regardless of their ability to pay. certain services are provided at a loss or at no payment…

Health
10
Jupiter Medical Center Physicians Group Inc

JMCPG is committed to providing compassionate, personalized care from the region's most trusted team of physicians and health care professionals. Across the Palm Beaches and the Treasure Coast of Florida, JMCPG practice locations offer…

Health
11
Northwell Health Inc

Northwell health is the parent company of a fully integrated health system that is committed to promote clinical care, health education, conduct biomedical research, and caring for the community regardless of ability to pay.

Community Improvement
12
Friends of Catholic University in Chile Inc

Promoting and furthering educational opportunities of higher education in chile. provide scholarships for students of the catholic university in chile and to facilitate the transfer of resources, knowledge and experience from the u.s. to…

—
How this is measured
The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Jupiter Medical Center Foundation Inc; the most unlike its peers is Glenada Casino Foundation 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

8 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.

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 2026, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 8 of the 13 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)
2
Early backer (in before they grew)
8/8
Grantees still filing
5/8
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Fairfield University: $496,470 · EducationFairfield UniversityLEADERSHIP ROUNDTABLE INC: $25,000 · EducationJupiter Medical Center Foundation Inc: $50,912 · PhilanthropyOld Westbury Gardens: $10,000 · OtherJames B Lee Jr. Scholarship: $5,000 · OtherBOYS HOPE GIRLS HOPE: $5,000 · OtherBoys Hope Girls Hope NY: $5,000 · OtherInternational Tennis Hall of Fame: $5,000 · OtherJUPITER ISLAND MEDICAL CLINIC INC: $25,000 · HealthGLENADA CASINO FOUNDATION INC: $20,000 · Community ImprovementFIVER CHILDREN'S FOUNDATION INC: $5,000 · Youth DevelopmentSOUTHERN VERMONT ARTS CENTER INC PO BOX 617: $5,000 · Arts & CultureCITY LAX INC: $2,500 · Recreation & Sports
Education$521,470Philanthropy$50,912Other$30,000Health$25,000Community Improvement$20,000Youth Development$5,000Arts & Culture$5,000Recreation & Sports$2,500

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

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetFairfield University: $496,470 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetJupiter Medical Center Foundation Inc: $50,912 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetJUPITER ISLAND MEDICAL CLINIC INC: $25,000 over 1y, 2.4% of budgetGLENADA CASINO FOUNDATION INC: $20,000 over 1y, 13% of budgetFIVER CHILDREN'S FOUNDATION INC: $5,000 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetCITY LAX INC: $2,500 over 1y, 0.6% 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.

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.

Donor Advised Charita…Fidelity Investments …
Donor Advised Charitable Giving IncCO6.5× affinity4 shared granteesties to 1 of 1Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund

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 Lessing Family Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Lessing Family Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 30%1%4%8%15%funder's share of their income ↑0%1%3%4%5%share of the org’s income from government →median 1%
  • Fairfield University: 1% of income from government
no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
3get no government money at all
1report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
0rely on government for over half their income
⤢ axis zoomed · 0–5%
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.

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 13 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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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