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William Lion Penzner Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

William Lion Penzner 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.

$219k
Granted FY2025still arriving
8
Grants FY2025still arriving
2
States reached
$51k
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its granteesRead
04Its fieldRead
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$1.9MInternational$242kHousing & Shelter$87kHuman Services$62kYouth Development$20kCommunity Improvement$5k
02FY2025 · 8 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

  • Under $10k1 grant · $5k
  • $10k–50k5 grants · $113k
  • $50k–250k2 grants · $101k
$27,500
Median grant
2
States reached
$9.3M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
UNIVERSITY OF CA - SAN FRANCISCO FOUNDATION$50,500
MARY AND KEITH HUDSON MINISTRIES (ARISE)$50,000
UNIVERSITY OF CA - IRVINE$30,000
ALZHEIMERS ASSOCIATION$27,500
RONA BARRETT FOUNDATION$25,000
THE ASSOCIATION FOR FRONTOTEMPROAL DEGENERATION (AFTD)$20,588
NEIGHBORHOOD CLINIC$10,000
ONE 805 FOUNDATION$5,000
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.

show:

Its human-services grants (FY22–22, $10k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 11%ADAM'S ANGELS: $10k → 14%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.
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.
03Its grantees
repeat funding

Who it funds again

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

93%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$2.2M · 10 repeat orgs$169k to everyone else

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

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

10
4

Total granted

$2.2M
$134k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

-12%
+319%

Still filing today

50%
25%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 84% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $36k went to new ones.

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

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25
HealthEducationYouth DevelopmentHousing & ShelterHuman ServicesPhilanthropyOther
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

  • UO
    UNIVERSITY OF CA - IRVINE
    9× · 2017–2025 · $1.3M
  • AI
    ARISE INTERNATIONAL
    3× · 2019–2021 · $232k
  • UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN FRANCISCO FOUNDATION
    3× · 2023–2025 · $201k · revenue -47%

Funded once

  • MA
    MARY AND KEITH HUDSON MINISTRIES
    one grant, 2022 · $104k
  • IH
    IN HIS HANDS MINISTRY
    one grant, 2022 · $10k
  • CC
    CITY CHURCH OF VENTURA
    one grant, 2023 · $10k
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

7 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. 7 of the 17 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.

1
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
2
Early backer (in before they grew)
7/7
Grantees still filing
3/7
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

UNIVERSITY OF CA - IRVINE: $1,308,431 · OtherUNIVERSITY OF CA - IRVINEARISE INTERNATIONAL: $232,014 · OtherARISE INTERNATIONALMARY AND KEITH HUDSON MINISTRIES (ARISE): $163,226 · OtherMARY AND KEITH HUDSON MINISTRIES (ARISE)MARY AND KEITH HUDSON MINISTRIES: $103,539 · OtherALZHEIMERS ASSOCIATION: $77,750 · Other+5 more: $86,500 · OtherUNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN FRANCISCO FOUNDATION: $200,500 · EducationUNIVERSIT…The Rona Barrett Foundation: $50,000 · PhilanthropyAmerican Heart Association Inc: $23,200 · HealthTHE ASSOCIATION FOR FRONTOTEMPORAL DEGENERATION: $20,588 · HealthTHE TURNER FOUNDATION - SINCE 1958: $37,300 · Housing & ShelterFIREWORK FOUNDATION: $20,000 · Youth DevelopmentADAMS ANGELS: $10,000 · Human Services
Other$1,971,460Education$200,500Philanthropy$50,000Health$43,788Housing & Shelter$37,300Youth Development$20,000Human Services$10,000

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

25%50%75%100%$100k$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetUNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN FRANCISCO FOUNDATION: $200,500 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetThe Rona Barrett Foundation: $50,000 over 2y, 11% of budgetTHE TURNER FOUNDATION - SINCE 1958: $37,300 over 3y, 0.8% of budgetAmerican Heart Association Inc: $23,200 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetTHE ASSOCIATION FOR FRONTOTEMPORAL DEGENERATION: $20,588 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetFIREWORK FOUNDATION: $20,000 over 2y, 0.9% of budgetADAMS ANGELS: $10,000 over 1y, 49% 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 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SAN FRANCISCO FOUNDATION ↗
  • Who funds The Rona Barrett Foundation ↗
  • Who funds THE TURNER FOUNDATION - SINCE 1958 ↗
  • Who funds American Heart Association Inc ↗
  • Who funds THE ASSOCIATION FOR FRONTOTEMPORAL DEGENERATION ↗
  • Who funds FIREWORK FOUNDATION ↗
  • Who funds ADAMS ANGELS ↗

How much its grantees rely on government

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

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%3%13%28%50%funder's share of their income ↑0%10%20%30%40%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    2report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–40%
    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.

    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 17 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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    More from the funding graph

    The unnamed billions
    grants reported with no recipient in the public record
    The regranting layer
    51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer
    The DAF merry-go-round
    $9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds
    The endowment market
    who holds foundation money, and what just moved
    The camps
    funders cluster by geography, not ideology
    By state
    where grant money is based, and what stays home