A family of soluble organic-inorganic hybrid doughnut-like anions, hydoughnuts, has been prepared by the self-assembly of polyoxovanadate anions and 1,3-benzenedicarboxylate (bdc) linkers. Derivatives of the parent hydoughnut, [(V4O8Cl)4(bdc)8](4-), can be obtained by changing the counter-ion or by using a variant of bdc.