· Private foundation
The Lilly Christy Busch Hermann Foundation
Its FY2024 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 FY2020–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k71 grants · $120k
- $10k–50k10 grants · $128k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN | $30,000 |
| ST LOUIS COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | $18,080 |
| THE GARDEN CONSERVANCY | $10,000 |
| DREAM BUILDERS 4 EQUITY | $10,000 |
| PRESERVATION FOUNDATION OF PALM BEACH | $10,000 |
| ST LOUIS COUNTY POLICE WELFARE ASSOC | $10,000 |
| THE SOCIETY OF THE FOUR ARTS | $10,000 |
| MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN | $10,000 |
| ST LOUIS ART MUSEUM FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| BISSELL PET FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| ST PETER'S EPISCOPAL CHURCH | $8,515 |
| UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI - ST LOUIS | $8,000 |
| LAGUNA BLANCA SCHOOL | $7,600 |
| LOVE FOR THE NATIONS FELLOWSHIP | $5,300 |
| MICDS (MARY INSTITUTE AND SAINT LOUIS COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL) | $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 (FY20–24, $21k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 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.
Which US states your grants reach
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 +39% since the first grant, against +31% for the ones you funded once.
92 repeat relationships — 41 still active in FY2024, 51 since wound down; 26 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 79% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $51k 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
- MBMISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BOARD OF TRUSTEES4× · 2020–2024 · $138k · revenue +42%
- TSThe Society of the Four Arts Inc5× · 2020–2024 · $63k · revenue ×11
- SLST LOUIS ART MUSEUM FOUNDATION5× · 2020–2024 · $39k · revenue +64%
Funded once
- RHReproductive Health Servicesone grant, 2021 · $25k
- CSCox Science Center and Aquarium Incgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $13k · revenue +82%
- SLSt Louis Art Museumone grant, 2020 · $10k
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.
Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.
Jefferson national parks association provides quality educational products and related services that enhance public understanding and appreciation of america's national parks, public lands and historic places.
The wildlife society's mission is to inspire, empower, and enable wildlife professionals to sustain wildlife populations and habitats through science-based management and conservation.
To sustain, restore, and enhance the nation's fish, wildlife, plants, and habitats.
To promote public health, safety, and welfare through the improvement of the quality and quantity of drinking water and the development and furtherance of understanding of the problems relating thereto.
The zoological society of pittsburgh is dedicated to being a leader in, and significant contributor to, the conservation of endangered and threatened species. the society provides an enjoyable family experience that fosters understanding,…
The missouri western state university foundation is a not-for-profit charitable organization that functions solely to support the mission of missouri western state university, as stated in the university's mission statement. the foundation…
The primary mission of furman as a liberal arts institution is to provide a distinctive education in fine arts, humanities, social sciences, mathematics and the sciences, as well as selected professional disciplines.
The purpose of the water research foundation (wrf) is a definitive research organization to advance the science of all things water to better meet the evolving needs of its subscribers and the water sector. to engage exclusively in…
To inspire conservation leadership by connecting people with wildlife and nature.
Columbia college improves lives by providing quality education to both traditional and nontraditional students, helping them achieve their true potential.
Eastern national promotes the public's understanding and support of america's national parks and other public trust partners by providing quality educational experiences, products and services.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Missouri Botanical Garden Board of Trustees and the most unlike its peers is Bissell Pet Foundation. 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.
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 42 years old; the field is 24. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 18% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 2% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 12% of the field you don’t fund.
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.
136 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.
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 2017–2026, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 136 of the 214 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
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
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 MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BOARD OF TRUSTEES ↗
- Who funds The Society of the Four Arts Inc ↗
- Who funds ST LOUIS ART MUSEUM FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds GREAT RIVERS HABITAT ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds The Preservation Foundation of Palm Beach Inc ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN RIVERS INC ↗
- Who funds LAGUNA BLANCA SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds Little Traverse Conservancy Inc ↗
- Who funds CONSERVATION RESOURCE ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds College Outreach ↗
- Who funds GREAT RIVERS GREENWAY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds BISSELL Pet Foundation ↗
- Who funds THE GARDEN CONSERVANCY INC ↗
- Who funds Cox Science Center and Aquarium Inc ↗
- Who funds Mary Institute and St Louis Country Day School ↗
- Who funds TRAILNET INC ↗
- Who funds MUNICIPAL THEATRE ASSOCIATION OF ST LOUIS ↗
- Who funds DREAM BUILDERS 4 EQUITY ↗
- Who funds ST LOUIS COUNTY POLICE WELFARE ASSOC ↗
- Who funds VARIETY THE CHILDRENS CHARITY OF ST LOUIS ↗
- Who funds Ducks Unlimited Inc ↗
- Who funds MISSOURI CONSERVATION HERITAGE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE ASPEN COUNTRY DAY SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds ST LOUIS CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL FOUNDATION ↗
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: St Louis Community Foundation Inc · St Louis Community Foundation · Hermann Family Foundation · Moneta Group Charitable Foundation · United Way of Greater St Louis Inc · The Stephen F & Camilla T Brauer Charitable Trust · Youthbridge Community Foundation · Zsolt and Mary Rumy Charitable Foundation · Sander Foundation · Pershing Charitable Trust · Brown Dana Charitable Trust · Fischer-Bauer-Knirps 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 Lilly Christy Busch Hermann 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.
- The Lord's Place Inc — 12% of income from government
- The Trustees of Princeton University — 11% of income from government
- Cox Science Center and Aquarium Inc — 6% of income from government
- Florida Sheriffs Association Inc — 4% of income from government
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 Lilly Christy Busch Hermann Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Lilly Christy Busch Hermann 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.