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The Lilian Wren Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

The Lilian Wren Foundation

Its FY2024 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

$755k
Granted FY2024still arriving
2
Grants FY2024still arriving
1
States reached
$562k
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its granteesRead
04Its fieldRead
05Through PlinthRead

Read this first · the figures below need context

100% of The Lilian Wren Foundation’s FY2024 grant dollars went to Renaissance Charitable Foundation Inc, not to grantees.

Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2024 names 0 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it.

Organizations named directly on the return

1
’17
0
’18
2
’19
1
’20
0
’21
0
’22
0
’23
0
’24

Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.

01What it funds
01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2024.

Philanthropy$6.2MEnvironment$123kArts & Culture$16kHealth$10k
02FY2024 · 2 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2024

  • $50k–250k1 grant · $194k
  • $250k+1 grant · $562k
$561,606
Median grant
1
States reached
$0
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
RENAISSANCE CHARITABLE FOUNDATION INC$561,606
RENAISSANCE CHARITABLE FOUNDATION INC$193,754
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:

Its human-services grants (FY18–18, $5k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 9%TIDES CENTER: $5k → 10%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.
04

Where the work is directed

The same grants placed two ways: where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose sends the money.

About 97% of The Lilian Wren Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked for a different county than the recipient’s own address.

The Lilian Wren Foundationlessmore of its giving
Placed by recipient address
How this is measured
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the funder’s own 990 grant descriptions.
03Its grantees
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.

1
Us - China Policy Foundation
—
2
The Goldman Sachs Foundation
Philanthropy
3
The Triangle Fund
Philanthropy
4
Gates Foundation Trust
Philanthropy
5
Tides Network

The tides entities work in partnership with community leaders, nonprofits, donors, foundations, and corporations to provide fiscal sponsorship, donor advised funds, grantmaking, and other philanthropic services.

Philanthropy
6
The International Foundation
—
7
Gates Foundation
Philanthropy
8
The Mayer - Rothschild Foundation
Health
9
The Serengeti Foundation
Environment
10
Wt Stanford Foundation
Philanthropy
11
Rosenberg Foundation
Philanthropy
12
Stanbridge University Foundation
Education
How this is measured
The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is National Philanthropic Trust; the most unlike its peers is The Sapling Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
05the grantee network

9 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. 9 of the 11 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)
1
Early backer (in before they grew)
9/9
Grantees still filing
8/9
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

NATIONAL PHILANTHROPIC TRUST: $3,886,358 · PhilanthropyNATIONAL PHILANTHROPIC TRUSTTIDES FOUNDATION: $767,356 · PhilanthropyTIDES FOUNDATIONRenaissance Charitable Foundation Inc: $755,360 · PhilanthropyRenaissance Charitable Foundation IncThe Community Foundation of Utah: $741,000 · PhilanthropyThe Community Foundation of Utah+1 more: $14,000 · PhilanthropySUSTAINABLE MARKETS FOUNDATION: $102,500 · EnvironmentTHE MEZIMBITE FOREST CENTRE: $20,000 · OtherMARET SCHOOL INC: $10,000 · OtherELTON JOHN AIDS FOUNDATION INC: $10,000 · HealthNATIONAL WWI MUSEUM AND MEMORIAL: $5,575 · Arts & CultureTIDES CENTER: $5,000 · Human Services
Philanthropy$6,164,074Environment$102,500Other$30,000Health$10,000Arts & Culture$5,575Human Services$5,000

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 budgetNATIONAL PHILANTHROPIC TRUST: $3,886,358 over 3y, 0.1% of budgetTIDES FOUNDATION: $767,356 over 4y, 0.1% of budgetRenaissance Charitable Foundation Inc: $755,360 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetThe Community Foundation of Utah: $741,000 over 4y, 1.5% of budgetSUSTAINABLE MARKETS FOUNDATION: $102,500 over 1y, 0.4% of budgetELTON JOHN AIDS FOUNDATION INC: $10,000 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetNATIONAL WWI MUSEUM AND MEMORIAL: $5,575 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetTIDES CENTER: $5,000 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.

How much its grantees rely on government

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

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%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
    0get 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 Lilian Wren Foundation?

    Find your warmest path to The Lilian Wren 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.

    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 11 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 2024, released 2024. 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