· Private foundation
Amber Foundation
Its FY2024 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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k5 grants · $12k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $25k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| WOLCOTT SCHOOL | $25,000 |
| NEW YORK THEATER BARN | $7,000 |
| SEE CHICAGO DANCE | $1,500 |
| GLENBROOK SOUTH HIGH SCHOOL | $1,000 |
| ELYSSAS MISSION | $1,000 |
| Jewish National Fund | $1,000 |
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 (FY20–20, $250) land where the poverty rate runs at 7%, 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 +38% since the first grant, against +8% for the ones you funded once.
8 repeat relationships — 5 still active in FY2024, 3 since wound down.
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 FY2024, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
- WSWOLCOTT SCHOOL7× · 2018–2024 · $182k · revenue +38%
- NYNew York Theatre Barn Incorporated8× · 2017–2024 · $41k · revenue +611%
- JUJEWISH UNITED FUND OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO4× · 2017–2022 · $21k · revenue +13%
Funded once
- R9RESPECT 90 FOUNDATIONone grant, 2022 · $6k · revenue -54%
- MYMidwest Young Artistsone grant, 2018 · $3k · revenue +9%
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2020 · $600
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.
Move|nyc| is a civic arts and social justice organization committed to cultivating a more diverse and inclusive society through transforming the field of professional dance. more than an arts organization, move|nyc| is a movement for…
Open Space Arts is a Chicago-based nonprofit dedicated to producing bold LGBTQ-focused theater and presenting independent queer cinema. The organization supports emerging and established artists while engaging audiences through live…
Federation amplifies our collective strength to make the world a better place for everyone. we assist people in need, impact chicagoans of all faiths; support israel and the jewish people worldwide; respond swiftly to crises; cultivate…
To enrich the lives of our community through dance education and performance while developing Chicago's native talent pool in a welcoming environment that celebrates multiculturalism & ethnic diversity.
JCFS Chicago services and programs support wellbeing for children, teens, adults and families regardless of race, culture, religion, disability, age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, or…
For over 150 years, the 92nd street y, new york has been serving its communities and the larger world by bringing people together (continued on schedule o)and providing exceptional, groundbreaking programs in the performing and visual…
Support dancers and the performing arts
The purposes of the corporation are to introduce and foster the arts into the experience, participation and knowledge of children using dance as a catalyst; promote the belief that the arts are primary and vital in our society and should…
To build a foundation for the individual artistic growth of dancers and choreographers, providing a laboratory from which early career artists propel themselves and the art form to a new level through training, collaboration, mentorship,…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Wolcott School and the most unlike its peers is New York Theatre Barn Incorporated. 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 17 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 WOLCOTT SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds New York Theatre Barn Incorporated ↗
- Who funds JEWISH UNITED FUND OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds RESPECT 90 FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds JEWISH NATIONAL FUND (KEREN KAYEMETH LEISRAEL) INC ↗
- Who funds Audience Architects NFP dba See Chicago Dance ↗
- Who funds EISENHOWER DANCE ENSEMBLE INC ↗
- Who funds Elyssas Mission NFP ↗
- Who funds Midwest Young Artists ↗
- Who funds RENEE ISRAEL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SHARE OUR STRENGTH ↗
- Who funds Stars Family Services ↗
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 Chicago Community Trust · National Philanthropic Trust · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · American Online Giving Foundation 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 Amber 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Amber Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Amber Foundation 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.