How much does The Lionheart Charitable Trust give?

The Lionheart Charitable Trust reported 33 grants totaling $161,445 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 21 and 35 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does The Lionheart Charitable Trust fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Philanthropy (47%), Health (16%), Education (8%).

Who are The Lionheart Charitable Trust's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: The University of Vermont Medical Center ($404k), Guanacaste Dry Forest Conservation Fund ($102k), Milton Artists Guild Inc ($100k).

Does The Lionheart Charitable Trust fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 16% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does The Lionheart Charitable Trust accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it accepts unsolicited grant applications.

Which funders back the same organizations as The Lionheart Charitable Trust?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include The Vermont Community Foundation, National Life Group Charitable Foundation Inc, Ben & Jerry's Foundation Inc.

Where is The Lionheart Charitable Trust based?

The Lionheart Charitable Trust is based in VT.

The Lionheart Charitable Trust

The Lionheart Charitable Trust at a glance

· Private foundation

The Lionheart Charitable Trust

Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.

$161k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$33k

Largest

01What it funds

0189% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.

Philanthropy$1.3MHealth$437kEducation$206kArts & Culture$192kEnvironment$154kAnimals$153kHuman Services$66kRecreation & Sports$34kOther$0

02FY2025 · 33 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k29 grants · $73k
$10k–50k4 grants · $88k

$2,500

Median grant

States reached

$1.0M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
NATIONAL AUDUBON SOCIETY	$33,403
GUANACASTE DRY FOREST CONSERVATION	$24,992
BUILDING BURLINGTONS FUTURE	$20,000
PATHWAYS VERMONT	$10,000
VERMONT PUBLIC RADIO	$6,200
FLYNN CENTER FOR PERFORMING ARTS	$5,250
Landmark College	$5,000
Individual grant recipient	$5,000
BRADFORD TEEN CENTER	$5,000
Boys and Girls Club of Burlington V	$5,000
AGE WELL	$5,000
Guatemala Aid Fund	$5,000
ORANGE COUNTY PARENT CHILD CTR	$3,000
NORTH END FOOD PANTRY	$2,500
Shelburne Museum	$2,500

02The need

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 (FY17–25, $76k) 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.

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.

Which US states its grants reach

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 grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

86%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$1.3M · 50 repeat orgs$197k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +41% since the first grant, against 0% for those funded once.

50 repeat relationships: 18 still active in FY2025, 32 since wound down; 14 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$1.3M

$136k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+41%

Still filing today

56%

39%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 62% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $61k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

Human ServicesEnvironmentArts & CultureHealthCrime & LegalYouth DevelopmentOther

How this is measured

First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

TU
THE UNIVERSITY OF VERMONT MEDICAL CENTER
5× · 2018–2022 · $404k · revenue +74%
GD
GUANACASTE DRY FOREST CONSERVATION FUND
5× · 2020–2025 · $102k · revenue +67%
MA
MILTON ARTISTS GUILD INC
6× · 2017–2023 · $100k · revenue +170% · 31% of their budget

Funded once

GP
GRAMERCY PARK BLOCK FOUNDATION
one grant, 2021 · $25k
AF
ACLU FOUNDATION OF VT
one grant, 2021 · $10k
JK
JOHN KENT MEMORIAL FUND
one grant, 2020 · $10k

How this is measured

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

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.

Vermont Trails & Greenways Council

To promote trails and greenways and to ensure that people will always have access to the landscape of vermont.

Environment

Vermont Center for Emerging Technologies Inc

Vcet's purpose is to accelerate innovation and entrepreneurship across vermont. this is accomplished by providing expert mentoring and technical assistance, the operation of coworking/incubation facilities and the operation of early stage…

Community Improvement

Cooperation Vermont

The mission of cooperation vermont is to build thriving community economic and enviromental democracy.

Community Improvement

Vermont Public Co

Vermont public informs, educates, and entertains through public service journalism and enlightening content rooted in vermont. our storytelling enriches lives and fosters community connection and understanding.

Arts & Culture

Vermont Woodlands Association

Vermont woodlands association's (vwa) mission is to educate and advocate for the practices of productive stewardship, use, and enjoyment of vermont's woodlands. we achieve this mission by delivering educational programs and technical…

Environment

Cooperation Vermont Community Land Trust

The mission of cooperation vermont community land trust is to reclaim the commons.

Community Improvement

Vermont Business Roundtable Inc

To sustain a sound economy and preserve vermont's unique quality of life by studying and making recommendations on statewide public policy issues.

—

Alliance for Vermont Communities Inc

The mission of alliance for vermont communities, inc. is to protect working farms, forests and communities of central vermont and to promote responsible development that will sustain the rural heritage and values for present and future…

—

Hunger Free Vermont Inc

To end the injustice of hunger for everyone and prioritize the people most affected by hunger to make a permanent systemic change.

Crime & Legal

Vermont Riverlands Llc

To protect and enhance the natural resources of vermont in order to promote the well-being of present and future generations of vermonters and visitors; preserve and aid in the preservation of open land along rivers and lakes; protect and…

Environment

Vermont Natural Resources Council Inc

Through research, education, collaboration and advocacy, vnrc protects and enhances vermont's natural environments, vibrant communities, productive working landscapes, rural character and unique sense of place, and prepares the state for…

Environment

Vermont Association of Conservation Districts Inc

Vermont association of conservation districts (vacd) promotes the conservation of vermont's soil, water, forests, wildlife and other natural resources by supporting vermont's fourteen natural resource conservation districts and…

—

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Vermont Council On the Arts Inc; the most unlike its peers is Yachtaid Global. 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

66 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. 66 of the 123 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.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

61/66

Grantees still filing

42/66

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Philanthropy$1,263,393Other$629,184Health$420,713Arts & Culture$164,000Environment$139,519Human Services$79,045International$17,920

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

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.

The Vermont Community FoundationVT64.5× affinity33 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: The Vermont Community Foundation · National Life Group Charitable Foundation Inc · Ben & Jerry's Foundation Inc · The Windham Foundation Inc · George W Mergens Foundation · The Morris & Bessie Altman Foundation · Antonio B and Rita M Pomerleau Foundation Inc · Oakland Foundation Inc · Price Chopper's Golub Foundation · The Onda Foundation Inc · The Robert Fleming & Jane Howe Patrick Foundation Inc · RUTH & PETER METZ FAMILY FOUNDATION co THOMAS PHELAN

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 Lionheart Charitable Trust funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Lionheart Charitable Trust. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

16get no government money at all

7report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

9rely on government for over half their income

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 Lionheart Charitable Trust?

Find your warmest path to The Lionheart Charitable Trust 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.

Play a game based on Lionheart’s filings →

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