· Private foundation
The W Bruce Lunsford Foundation Inc
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 FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k13 grants · $43k
- $10k–50k9 grants · $198k
- $50k–250k3 grants · $200k
- $250k+1 grant · $300k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| NORTHERN KY UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION | $300,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY | $100,000 |
| THE LEXINGTON THEATRE COMPANY | $50,000 |
| WEST END SCHOOL | $50,000 |
| FRANCIS PARKER SCHOOL OF LOUISVILLE | $40,000 |
| BELLARMINE UNIVERSITY | $33,400 |
| BELLARMINE UNIVERSITY | $25,000 |
| CATHOLIC EDUCATION FOUNDATION | $25,000 |
| NORTHWESTERN MEMORIAL FOUNDATION | $20,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY | $15,600 |
| UNIVERSITY OF LOUISVILLE | $15,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY | $13,600 |
| ST JAMES CATHOLIC SCHOOL | $10,000 |
| CATHOLIC EDUCATION FOUNDATION | $7,500 |
| CATHOLIC EDUCATION FOUNDATION | $7,500 |
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 (FY20–25, $15k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 93% 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.
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 +52% since the first grant, against +31% for the ones you funded once.
33 repeat relationships — 18 still active in FY2025, 15 since wound down; 1 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, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2k 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
- LTLEXINGTON THEATRE COMPANY5× · 2021–2025 · $250k · revenue ×12
- CECATHOLIC EDUCATION FOUNDATION INC6× · 2020–2025 · $238k · revenue +55%
- BUBELLARMINE UNIVERSITY INCORPORATED5× · 2020–2025 · $130k · revenue +1%
Funded once
- TLTHE LEXINGTON THEATERone grant, 2020 · $50k
- NCNATIONAL CENTER FOR FAMILIES LEARNING INCgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $13k · revenue +61%
- GLGREATER LOUISVILLE SPORTS COMMISSION INCone grant, 2020 · $10k · revenue +17%
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.
Louisville collegiate school inspires academic excellence, extraordinary character and global citizenship.
To improve the quality of life for all kentuckians through research, education and advocacy on important policy issues facing the commonwealth.
To represent our members, creating the environment and opportunity for economic prosperity and quality living in central kentucky.
The kentucky college of art and design opens the door to a creative and productive life through an undergraduate education in the contemporary arts.
Lpm provides independent and courageous news, music and experiences that serve the needs and aspirations of our diverse communities.
Endeavor Louisville is leading the high-impact entrepreneurship movement in Kentucky, Indiana and Ohio, catalyzing long-term economic growth by selecting, mentoring, and supporting the best high-impact entrepreneurs in our region.…
The Kentucky Chamber Foundation's purpose is to unlock the power of business, accelerate solutions, and build opportunity in Kentucky.
Kentucky country day school challenges its students to achieve their highest level of academic excellence and to grow into honorable men and women of confidence and integrity. we inspire personal growth through a diverse community and…
To provide, in cooperation with public and private schools, equitable access to the highest quality musical opportunities and to foster a life- long love of music for dedicated young musicians. ckyo enriches the lives of its student…
To provide effective advocacy for the financial services industry both in kentucky and on a national level; to serve as a reliable and responsive source of information and education about areas of interest to the industry; and to provide a…
Broadens the perspectives of current and emerging leaders through experiential education that inspires them to advance kentucky.
The louisville academy of music welcomes everyone to join our musical community. lam nurtures lifelong learners, not solely as musicians but also as creative, inspired people. equity in music education is a force to realize potential,…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Greater Louisville Sports Commission Inc and the most unlike its peers is West End School Inc. 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 33 years old; the field is 18. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 19% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% 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.
48 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. 48 of the 74 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 LEXINGTON THEATRE COMPANY ↗
- Who funds CATHOLIC EDUCATION FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds West End School Inc ↗
- Who funds BELLARMINE UNIVERSITY INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds FRANCIS PARKER SCHOOL OF LOUISVILLE INC ST FRANCIS HIGH SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds DARE TO CARE INC ↗
- Who funds FUND FOR THE ARTS INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL STEM CELL FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE LOUISVILLE ORCHESTRA INC ↗
- Who funds COMMONWEALTH FUND FOR KET INC ↗
- Who funds SARATOGA PERFORMING ARTS CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL CENTER FOR FAMILIES LEARNING INC ↗
- Who funds GREATER LOUISVILLE SPORTS COMMISSION INC ↗
- Who funds AWESOME CENTER FOR ENTREPRENEURSHIP INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL MUSEUM OF RACING INC ↗
- Who funds TRINITY HIGH SCHOOL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN FRIENDS OF TIFF ↗
- Who funds DREAMS WITH WINGS INC ↗
- Who funds THE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF LOUISVILLE INC ↗
- Who funds KRIS LANDERS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE POINTARC OF NORTHERN KENTUCKY ↗
- Who funds OLDHAM COUNTY ATHLETIC BOOSTERS INC ↗
- Who funds LEAGUE OF WOMEN VOTERS OF LOUISVILL ↗
- Who funds Kentucky Race Track Chaplaincy Inc ↗
- Who funds SECOND STRIDE INC ↗
- Who funds BARREN HEIGHTS CHRISTIAN RETREAT CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds Vanderbilt University Medical Center ↗
- Who funds 21ST CENTURY PARKS ENDOWMENT INC ↗
- Who funds KENTUCKY DANCE COUNCIL INC DBA LOUISVILLE BALLET ↗
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: The Community Foundation of Louisville Inc · The Community Foundation of Louisville Depository Inc · The Community Foundation of Louisville Corporate Depository Inc · Snowy Owl Foundation Inc · LG&E and Ku Foundation Inc · The Gheens Foundation Inc · Cralle Foundation Inc · Republic Bank Foundation Inc · Honorable Order of Kentucky Colonels Inc · Julia & Isadore Klein Family Foundation Inc · Norton Healthcare Inc · W L Lyons Brown 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 W Bruce Lunsford Foundation Inc 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.
- Down Syndrome Association of Connec — 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 W Bruce Lunsford Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to The W Bruce Lunsford Foundation Inc 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.