Grantmakers › Pennsylvania

The Lenfest Institute for Journalism

Philadelphia, PA · EIN 04-3731829. Reported 247 grants totalling $54.0M to 161 organizations across tax years 2021-2024, on Form 990 Schedule I.

Does this grantmaker accept applications?

Its tax return does not say, and we will not guess. Private foundations file Form 990-PF, which asks outright whether they fund only organizations they select themselves -- 78% say yes, and that one answer is what lets the rest of this site tell you which foundations are worth approaching. Grantmaking charities like this one file a regular Form 990 instead, and the IRS never puts the question to them. Anyone claiming to know the answer from the filing is inventing it.

Three things in the filing do bear on it:

1. What kind of organization it is. For The Lenfest Institute for Journalism, the IRS classifies it as a fundraising and fund-distribution organization (NTEE T12).
2. How spread out its giving is. 161 distinct organizations, with 53% of the dollars going to the largest single recipient. That is concentrated. Most of the money has a settled destination, and the remainder is what is realistically in play.
3. How much its list changes. 48% of one year's grantees are funded again the next, across 3 year-to-year transitions. That is below the 57% median for grantmaking charities, and well below the 67% private foundations manage. A list that turns over this much is one a newcomer can realistically join.

How big are its grants?

The median reported grant is $30,000. Half of what it reported fell between $15,000 and $80,000; the smallest was $5,000 and the largest $7,847,500. If you are asking for materially more than the top of that range, you are asking the wrong organization.

Every organization it funded

This is the complete list from its filings, largest first. Recipients are grouped by the EIN the filer reported, not by name, so an organization that was typed differently in two years appears once rather than twice.

60 of 161 (37%) received money in more than one year over the 4 years we hold. Remember the $5,000 floor: an organization funded every year at $3,000 shows up here as never funded at all.

What the money was for

Taken verbatim from the purpose column of its filings, largest first. This is the closest thing to a statement of what it funds, in its own words.

• The Philadelphia Inquirer $7,847,500 · 2024
  THE INSTITUTE IS SUPPORTING THE INQUIRERS TRANSITION FROM A TRADITIONAL PRINTED NEWSPAPER TO AN ECONOMICALLY SUSTAINABLE, PRIMARILY DIGITAL, EQUITABLE NEWS ENTERPRISE. A SERIES OF GRANTS WERE MADE TO THE INQUIRER TO FUND (A) HIGH IMPACT JOURNALISM, INCLUDING WORK BY ITS INVESTIGATIVE TEAM, SPOTLIGHT PA AND HEALTH COVERAGE AND (B) NEWS TECHNOLOGY AND PRODUCT IMPROVEMENTS, INCLUDING A GRANT FOR DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION ACCELERATION, BRAND DEVELOPMENT, TECHNOLOGY FOR AUDIENCE GROWTH, DIGITAL SUBSCRIPTION PROCESS IMPROVEMENTS, AND OTHER TECHNOLOGY SUPPORT.
• Temple University $1,389,073 · 2022
  (A) = $152,000, (I) = $1,237,073.00
• Whyy $693,859 · 2022
  (C) = $85,000.00, (Z) = $607,059.00, (AA) = $1,800.00
• National Trust for Local News $535,500 · 2021
  (N) = $100,000.00 (O) = $435,500
• Spotlight Pa $510,000 · 2024
  (O) = $10,000, (S) = $500,000
• Federation of Neighborhood Centers Inc $325,000 · 2024
  (A) = $130,000, (E) = $15,000, (M) = $100,000, (N) = $80,000

What kind of organizations it funds

By each recipient's own IRS classification, for the 94 of 161 recipients we could match to a registered organization. These are assigned categories, not our guesses -- Schedule I reports the recipient's EIN, so this is a lookup rather than a name match.

Giving by year

Tax years, not calendar years, and the most recent year is usually incomplete -- Form 990 arrives about a year after the year it covers, so a low final year means late paperwork rather than a grantmaker winding down.

Where its money goes

77% of its giving went to organizations in Pennsylvania. Community foundations and federated funds are usually the most geographically bounded funders there are -- being outside the footprint is normally disqualifying in a way that a weak programme fit is not.

Down to the city

Funders that support the same organizations

These grantmakers and private foundations gave to organizations this one also funded. Shared grantees are the strongest signal available that two funders have overlapping priorities -- and a funder already backing your peers is a far warmer prospect than one that merely lists your cause.

How to approach this grantmaker

1. Look for a published programme first. Unlike most private foundations, organizations of this kind often do run open, deadlined grant cycles with written guidelines. Its own website is the authority on that; this page is the authority on who it has actually paid.
2. Check you are its size. The median reported grant is $30,000 -- and because grants under $5,000 need not be reported, it very likely writes smaller cheques than this page can see.
3. Check you are in its geography. Its giving concentrates in Pennsylvania.
4. Read the recipient list for organizations like yours. If nothing on it resembles your work, that is a real answer and a cheap one to get.

Related guides

Where these numbers come from

Everything above is taken from The Lenfest Institute for Journalism's own Form 990 Schedule I filings, which the IRS publishes in bulk. We used 4 returns (tax years 2021-2024). Nothing here is scraped, inferred or estimated.

On its most recent return it told the IRS it made grants to 65 section 501(c)(3) organizations and 32 other organizations. That is the filer's own count for one year; the totals above cover every year we hold.

Address of record on the latest return: 1835 Market Street 2410, Philadelphia, PA, 19103.

EIN 04-3731829 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this

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