· Private foundation
The Lester and Roberta Smith Foundation
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k2 grants · $11k
- $10k–50k5 grants · $95k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| SOUTHERN ARIZONA AIDS FOUNDATION | $30,000 |
| AZ CYBER INITIATIVE | $25,000 |
| YOUTH ON THEIR OWN | $20,000 |
| KXCI TUCSON COMMUNITY RADIO | $10,000 |
| TUCSON BADGER YOUTH WRESTLING CLUB | $10,000 |
| BOOKS FOR CLASSROOMS | $6,000 |
| ANGEL HEART PAJAMA PROJECT | $5,000 |
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.
Your human-services grants (FY19–25, $70k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 100% of those 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.
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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +71% since the first grant, against +53% for the ones you funded once.
12 repeat relationships — 3 still active in FY2025, 9 since wound down; 4 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Median revenue growth · since first grant
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2025, 57% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $46k 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
- LCLITERACY CONNECTS4× · 2017–2023 · $100k · revenue +71%
Southern Arizona AIDS Foundation3× · 2020–2025 · $90k · revenue +80%- YOYOUTH ON THEIR OWN3× · 2022–2025 · $55k · revenue +56%
Funded once
- GVGREATER VAIL COMMUNITY RESOURCESgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $34k · revenue +254%
- HGHIGHER GROUND A RESOURCE CENTER 27-3585869one grant, 2021 · $23k
- GMGAP MINISTRIES FOR FOOD PACKAGING SYSTEMone grant, 2024 · $22k
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.
Goodwill Industries of Southern Arizona works toward ensuring that all people have the opportunity to reach their potential and contribute to our community. Through quality, evidence-based, workforce development programs; Goodwill…
Arizona youth partnership, (azyp), empowers youth to harness their strengths to live healthy and purposeful lives.
To elevate the teaching profession in southern arizona by empowering and celebrating prek-12 teacher excellence through community engagement and investment.
Bringing arizonans together to create a stronger and brighter future for our state.
The mission of the chidrens advocacy center of southern arizona is to provide a safe, compassionate, healing environment for children who have been a victim or witnessed a crime. vision: provide each child with the safety they need to tell…
The arizona center for afterschool excellence is dedicated to the enhancement of child and youth development and educational achievement through quality afterschool programming.
Codac provides tools, support and services to individuals, families, and communities so they may live with dignity, free from the harmful effects of mental illness, substance use disorders and trauma.
Ymca of southern arizona is dedicated to improving the quality of human life and helping all people realize their fullest potential through the development of spirit, mind and body. we are a powerful association of men, women and children,…
Genesis city's mission is to effect positive change in our community by empowering disadvantaged youth to acquire the education and work skills they need to become lifelong learners and productive members of their community in this and…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Literacy Connects and the most unlike its peers is Therapeutic Riding of Tucson Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
17 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. 17 of the 35 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 LITERACY CONNECTS ↗
- Who funds Southern Arizona AIDS Foundation ↗
- Who funds YOUTH ON THEIR OWN ↗
- Who funds Southern AZ Research Science & Eng FDN ↗
- Who funds GREATER VAIL COMMUNITY RESOURCES ↗
- Who funds AZ CYBER INITIATIVE INC ↗
- Who funds GIRL SCOUTS OF SOUTHERN ARIZONA ↗
- Who funds EPIDAURUS DBA AMITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds TUCSON CHILDREN'S MUSEUM INC DBA CHILDREN'S MUSEUM TUCSON ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUBS OF TUCSON INC ↗
- Who funds Step Up To Justice ↗
- Who funds INTERMOUNTAIN CENTERS FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INC ↗
- Who funds TUCSON YOUTH MUSIC CENTER ↗
- Who funds Therapeutic Riding of Tucson Inc ↗
- Who funds Books for Classrooms ↗
- Who funds IMAGO DEI MIDDLE SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds ANGEL HEART PAJAMA PROJECT ↗
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.
Open a dossier: Community Foundation for Southern Arizona · The Hs Lopez Family Foundation · Connie Hillman Family Foundation · Fred & Christine Armstrong Foundation · Angel Charity for Children Inc · Marshall Foundation · The Womens Foundation for the State of Arizona · The Stocker Foundation · Arizona Community Foundation · Southwest Foundation for Education & Historical Preservation · United Way of Tucson and Southern Arizona Inc · Nicholas W Genematas II Foundation
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 organization The Lester and Roberta Smith 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 or a single department — and drag the year to watch it move.
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 Lester and Roberta Smith Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Lester and Roberta Smith 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.