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· Private foundation

The Lucas Brothers 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.

$2.7M
Granted FY2025still arriving
5
Grants FY2025still arriving
3
States reached
$1.2M
Largest
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 2025.

Health$3.8MEducation$1.6MScience & Tech$1.2MInternational$400kPhilanthropy$250k
02FY2025 · 5 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

  • $50k–250k2 grants · $290k
  • $250k+3 grants · $2.4M
$250,000
Median grant
3
States reached
$40M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
Individual grant recipient$1,199,999
MYRIEL INC CO KAREN ASHE$1,000,000
St Joseph Financial Services$250,000
HOUSE OF HOPE FOR COSTA RICA$200,000
THE PENINSULA COLLEGE FUND$90,000
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.

US giving: 84% of grant dollars ($6.1M). The need read here covers only this US portion; the 16% that went abroad ($1.2M) is mapped below.

show:

Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 7%, against an area that typically sits at 6%. 49% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants spread fairly evenly across need levels.

area typical 6%MYRIEL INC CO KAREN ASHE: $1.0M → 6%UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA: $320k → 11%St Joseph Financial Services: $250k → 8%HOUSE OF HOPE FOR COSTA RICA: $200k → 8%MYRIEL INC CO KAREN ASHE: $1.0M → 6%UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA FOUNDATION: $200k → 11%SANTA CLARA UNIVERSITY: $700k → 8%HOUSE OF HOPE FOR COSTA RICA: $200k → 8%Myriel Inc co Dr Karen Ashe: $750k → 6%UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA: $185k → 11%THE PENINSULA COLLEGE FUND: $162k → 8%MYRIEL INC CO KAREN ASHE: $385k → 6%UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA: $100k → 11%Peninsula College fund: $140k → 8%UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA: $77k → 11%THE PENINSULA COLLEGE FUND: $90k → 8%Santa Clara University: $300k → 8%SCU College of Arts Science: $50k → 8%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.

Beyond the US: 16% of all-years giving ($1.2M)

1 country, by the recipient’s country on the filing.

grant dollars sentlessmore
Czechia$1.2M · 1 grant
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. International giving is mapped by the recipient’s country from the same 990 filings; comparable need data isn’t available at that grain.
03Its grantees
repeat funding

Who it funds again

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

66%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$4.9M · 5 repeat orgs$2.4M to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +17% since the first grant, against -12% for those funded once.

5 repeat relationships: 3 still active in FY2025, 2 since wound down; 2 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

5
3

Total granted

$4.9M
$1.0M

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+17%
-12%

Still filing today

40%
33%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 47% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $1.4M went to new ones.

50%100%’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25
RenewedFirst-time
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

  • MI
    MYRIEL INC CO KAREN ASHE
    3× · 2023–2025 · $2.4M
  • PO
    PRESIDENT-BOARD OF TRUSTEES SANTA CLARA COLLEGE
    2× · 2023–2024 · $1.0M · revenue +17%
  • UO
    UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
    4× · 2017–2020 · $682k

Funded once

  • MI
    Myriel Inc co Dr Karen Ashe
    one grant, 2022 · $750k
  • UO
    UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA FOUNDATION
    one grant, 2021 · $200k · revenue -12%
  • SC
    SCU College of Arts Science
    one grant, 2024 · $50k
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
04the grantee network

4 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. 4 of the 10 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)
0
Early backer (in before they grew)
4/4
Grantees still filing
1/4
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

MYRIEL INC CO KAREN ASHE: $2,385,000 · OtherMYRIEL INC CO KAREN ASHEIndividual grant recipient: $1,199,999 · OtherIndividual grant recipientMyriel Inc co Dr Karen Ashe: $750,000 · OtherMyriel Inc co Dr Karen AsheUNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA: $681,500 · OtherUNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTAHOUSE OF HOPE FOR COSTA RICA: $400,000 · OtherHOUSE OF HOPE FOR COSTA RICAST JOSEPH FINANCIAL SERVICES: $250,000 · Other+1 more: $50,000 · OtherPRESIDENT-BOARD OF TRUSTEES SANTA CLARA COLLEGE: $1,000,000 · EducationPRESIDENT-BOARD OF TRUST…The Peninsula College Fund: $392,000 · EducationThe Peninsula College Fu…UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA FOUNDATION: $200,000 · EducationUNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA …
Other$5,716,499Education$1,592,000

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

25%50%75%100%$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetPRESIDENT-BOARD OF TRUSTEES SANTA CLARA COLLEGE: $1,000,000 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetThe Peninsula College Fund: $392,000 over 3y, 7.8% of budgetST JOSEPH FINANCIAL SERVICES: $250,000 over 1y, 4.7% of budgetUNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA FOUNDATION: $200,000 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.

  • Who funds PRESIDENT-BOARD OF TRUSTEES SANTA CLARA COLLEGE ↗
  • Who funds The Peninsula College Fund ↗
  • Who funds ST JOSEPH FINANCIAL SERVICES ↗
  • Who funds UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA FOUNDATION ↗

How much its grantees rely on government

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

2025
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%1%3%6%10%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
    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.
    05Through Plinth

    Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

    How do I get to The Lucas Brothers Foundation?

    Find your warmest path to The Lucas Brothers 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 10 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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