· Private foundation
Tom and Barbara Lyon Family 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.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k3 grants · $10k
- $10k–50k5 grants · $75k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| COTTONWOODS CANYON FOUNDATION | $15,000 |
| NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY - WOMEN'S BASKETBALL | $15,000 |
| ST OLAF COLLEGE | $15,000 |
| FIRST PRESBYTERIAN CHURCH OF WILMETTE | $15,000 |
| MARKLUND CHILDREN'S HOME | $15,000 |
| SCENIC UTAH | $5,000 |
| CHICAGO JESUIT ACADEMY | $2,500 |
| HERITAGE CENTER AT MOSSY CREEK | $2,500 |
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, $65k) land where the poverty rate runs at 8%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 0% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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 +33% since the first grant, against +30% for the ones you funded once.
8 repeat relationships — 6 still active in FY2025, 2 since wound down; 2 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, 79% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $18k 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
- SOST OLAF COLLEGE8× · 2018–2025 · $115k · revenue +17%
- CCCOTTONWOOD CANYONS FOUNDATION7× · 2019–2025 · $85k · revenue +205%
Northwestern University6× · 2018–2023 · $81k · revenue +33%
Funded once
- TTRUENUone grant, 2024 · $15k · revenue 0%
- NINORTHEAST ILLINOIS COUNCIL (BOY SCOUTS)one grant, 2018 · $6k
- LULOYOLA UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGOgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $5k · revenue +30%
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.
Nebraska wesleyan university is an academic community dedicated to intellectual and personal growth within the context of a liberal arts education and in an environment of christian concern.
Saint xavier university, a catholic institution inspired by the heritage of the sisters of mercy, educates persons to search for truth, think critically, communicate effectively and serve wisely and compassionately in support of human…
Trinity university is an independent co-educational university whose mission is excellence in the interrelated areas of teaching, research and services.
As an institution of higher education committed to the reformed christian perspective, dordt university equips students, alumni, and the broader community to work effectively toward christ-centered renewal in all aspects of contemporary…
Enriched by the lasallian catholic heritage, saint mary's university of minnesota awakens, nurtures, and empowers learners to ethical lives of service and leadership.
Benedictine University is an inclusive academic community dedicated to teaching and learning, scholarship and service, truth and justice, as inspired by the Catholic intellectual tradition, the social teaching of the Church, and the…
North central college prepares students to become curious, engaged, ethical, and purposeful citizens and leaders in local, national and global contexts. the college serves approximately 3,000 fulltime and part-time students. about 1,250…
Xavier is a jesuit catholic university rooted in the liberal arts tradition. our mission is to educate each student intellectually, morally, and spiritually. we create learning opportunities through rigorous academic and professional…
Education and Research
For more than a century, southwestern has educated lawyers ready to serve clients, the profession, and our society with excellence. we empower students to reach their potential. we cultivate inclusion and belonging. we promote equity and…
North central university is a christian university with a commitment to academic excellence.
Scu is a catholic and jesuit institution that makes student learning its central focus, promotes faculty and staff learning in its various forms, and exhibits organizational learning.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Northwestern University and the most unlike its peers is Scenic Utah. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
12 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. 12 of the 19 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 ST OLAF COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds COTTONWOOD CANYONS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Northwestern University ↗
- Who funds MARKLUND CHILDRENS HOME ↗
- Who funds SANTA PAULA ANIMAL RESCUE CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds TRUENU ↗
- Who funds Scenic Utah ↗
- Who funds LOYOLA UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds ANDREW JACKSON FOUNDATION FKA LADIES' HERMITAGE ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds WILMETTE BASEBALL ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds OPPORTUNITY GRANTED INC ↗
- Who funds NEW TRIER EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION ↗
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: Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · 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 Tom and Barbara Lyon Family 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 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.