· Private foundation
The Monica Lester Charitable Trust
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.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2018–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k1 grant · $5k
- $10k–50k10 grants · $110k
- $50k–250k5 grants · $485k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CEDARS-SINAI MEDICAL CENTER | $150,000 |
| LOYOLA MARYMOUNT UNIVERSITY | $125,000 |
| CITY OF HOPE | $100,000 |
| CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL | $60,000 |
| PROSTATE CANCER FOUNDATION | $50,000 |
| TUNNEL TO TOWERS FOUNDATION | $20,000 |
| JEWISH COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| COLEL CHABAD | $10,000 |
| SELFHELP COMMUNITY SERVICES FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| REMOTE AREA MEDICAL VOLUNTEER CORPS | $10,000 |
| INTERNATIONAL FELLOWSHIP OF CHRISTIANS AND JEWS | $10,000 |
| THE MAHLER FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| CHABAD'S TERROR VICTIMS PROJECT | $10,000 |
| FRIENDS OF UNITED HATZALAH | $10,000 |
| LOS ANGELES REGIONAL FOOD BANK | $10,000 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY18–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 99% of your 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.
11 repeat relationships — 10 still active in FY2025, 1 since wound down; 5 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, 90% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $60k 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
- LMLOYOLA MARYMOUNT UNIVERSITY8× · 2018–2025 · $1.1M · revenue +47%
CEDARS-SINAI MEDICAL CENTER8× · 2018–2025 · $665k · revenue +52%- PCPROSTATE CANCER FOUNDATION7× · 2018–2025 · $340k · revenue +57%
Funded once
- MLMARYMOUNT LOS ANGELES HIGH SCHOOLone grant, 2018 · $250k
- SRSEPULVEDA RESEARCH CORPORATIONone grant, 2018 · $100k · revenue -85%
- GLGREATER LOS ANGELES VETERANS RESEARCH AND EDUCATION FOUNDATIONgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $75k · revenue +48%
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.
Based on jewish values, the jewish federation of greater los angeles convenes and leads the community and leverages its resources to assure the continuity of the jewish people, support a secure state of israel, care for jews in need here…
The american technion society supports the technion's critical research and (continued on sch o)
Support the hebrew univ. of jerusalem, israel's foremost center of higher edu. & research.
Committed to exceptional healthcare quality for all and actively engaged with our community, einstein drives scientific discovery and educates compassionate leaders in health and science.
The shalom hartman institute (shi) is a leading research and educational center serving israel and world jewry. we work to enrich the moral and spiritual life of israel and the jewish people, deepen the commitment to pluralism and israel's…
We steward $1.5 billion in charitable assets through donor-advised funds, endowments, and other giving vehicles. partnering with 1,400 individuals, families, and organizations, we build enduring legacies and multigenerational impact. in…
The jewish agency binds jews across ideologies and civilizations together in a worldwide jewish family with israel at its center. it provides the global framework for aliyah, ensures global jewish safety, strengthens jewish identity and…
Sof is called to empower warriors to find purpose, be resilient, and live well. we develop and provide customized treatment plans for veterans through our national network of partners.
The foundation operates exclusively for charitable, educational or religious purposes by conducting or supporting activities for the benefit of, or to carry out the purposes of the jewish community federation of san francisco, the…
Our mission is to build a unique institute that bridges basic research and drug discovery, and that attracts the best and brightest scientists, physicians and students to work together synergistically to find cures for neglected human…
The mission of the institute is to translate basic genetic and molecular mechanisms of schizophrenia and related developmental brain disorders into clinical advances that change the lives of affected individuals. it is catalyzing a new…
Provide clinical instruction to and supervision of medical school students, interns and residents and, incident thereto, rendering professional services.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Selfhelp Community Services Foundation Inc and the most unlike its peers is Mahler Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
13 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. 13 of the 20 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 LOYOLA MARYMOUNT UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds CEDARS-SINAI MEDICAL CENTER ↗
- Who funds PROSTATE CANCER FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MAHLER FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE JEWISH COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SEPULVEDA RESEARCH CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds GREATER LOS ANGELES VETERANS RESEARCH AND EDUCATION FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Chabad Terror Victims Project Inc ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF UNITED HATZALAH INC ↗
- Who funds INTERNATIONAL FELLOWSHIP OF CHRISTIANS & JEWS INC ↗
- Who funds STEPHEN SILLER TUNNEL TO TOWERS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SELFHELP COMMUNITY SERVICES FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds LOS ANGELES REGIONAL FOOD BANK ↗
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 set of overlaps that mostly run through you, not between each other.
Open a dossier: Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund
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 Monica Lester Charitable Trust 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 Monica Lester Charitable Trust?
Find your warmest path to The Monica Lester 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.