· Private foundation
The Robert Lemelson 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.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k3 grants · $4k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $50k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $280k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| AMERICAN FRIENDS OF HEBREW UNIVERSITY | $180,000 |
| UCLA FOUNDATION | $100,000 |
| MYRIAD USA | $49,721 |
| BEYOND BAROQUE FOUNDATION | $2,700 |
| BROOKLYN WORKFORCE INNOVATIONS | $1,023 |
| PAN-MASSACHUSETTS CHALLENGE | $513 |
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 (FY17–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 78% 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.
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.
5 repeat relationships — 2 still active in FY2024, 3 since wound down; 2 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, 2% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $181k 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
- AAAMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION5× · 2017–2023 · $298k · revenue -12%
INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY FOUNDATION INC4× · 2017–2022 · $170k · revenue -21%- BBBeyond Baroque Foundation2× · 2023–2024 · $8k · revenue -19%
Funded once
- ROREGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIAone grant, 2021 · $142k
- TSTRIPLE SHADOW INCone grant, 2017 · $34k · revenue 0%
University of Chicagograduatedone grant, 2021 · $24k · revenue +34%
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.
The specific purposes for which bafta na is organized is to promote, maintain, improve and advance original and creative work among individuals employed professionally in film and television production and allied industries, to create and…
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
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.
Undergraduate, graduate, and professional education and research across a broad array of academic domains.
Advance science, engineering, and innovation throughout the world for the benefit of all. the world's largest multidisciplinary scientific society and a leading publisher of cutting-edge research through its science family of journals,…
The University of New Haven is a student-centered comprehensive university with an emphasis on excellence in liberal arts and professional education. Our mission is to prepare our students to lead purposeful and fulfilling lives in a…
The mission of mit is to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century.
Our mission is to invest in and accelerate the development of the most promising future leaders in biomedical research with global impact.
The mission of the uc davis foundation is to secure, steward and manage private gifts for uc davis.
A nonprofit scientific research organization that develops vaccines and antibodies for hiv, tuberculosis, and emerging infectious diseases.
The Television Academy is dedicated to celebrating excellence, innovation and the advancement of the telecommunications arts and sciences through recognition, education and leadership, while fostering a diverse, inclusive and accessible…
The uc santa barbara foundation actively works to further the goals of the university of california, santa barbara. the foundation seeks to maintain and nurture the university's quality and distinction. on behalf of the campus, the…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Myriad Usa Inc and the most unlike its peers is I Am a Girl. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
20 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. 20 of the 25 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 UCLA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN ANTHROPOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds INTERNATIONAL DOCUMENTARY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds GIVE2ASIA ↗
- Who funds MYRIAD USA INC ↗
- Who funds TRIPLE SHADOW INC ↗
- Who funds University of Chicago ↗
- Who funds CASE WESTERN RESERVE UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds SANDY HOOK PROMISE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SANTA BARBARA MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY ↗
- Who funds AMEINU OUR PEOPLE INC ↗
- Who funds I Am A Girl ↗
- Who funds CHARITIES AID FOUNDATION AMERICA ↗
- Who funds Beyond Baroque Foundation ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN'S TUMOR FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds PAN-MASSACHUSETTS CHALLENGE INC ↗
- Who funds DOCUMENTARY EDUCATIONAL RESOURCES INC ↗
- Who funds LEAP INC ↗
- Who funds HEAL THE BAY ↗
- Who funds SAMARITANS INC ↗
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: Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile 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 Robert Lemelson 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, a single department, or state — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Samaritans Inc — 31% of income from government
- Documentary Educational Resources Inc — 1% of income from government
- Sandy Hook Promise Foundation — 0% of income from government
- Pan-Massachusetts Challenge Inc — 0% 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 Robert Lemelson Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Robert Lemelson 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.