· Public charity
Associated Colleges of Illinois Inc
Associated Colleges of Illinois has supported numerous independent colleges and universities with a liberal arts tradition in Illinois for more than 70 years benefitting thousands of underrepresented students through scholarships, emergency financial aid, mentoring, and other forms of college to career support.
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.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Knox College | $25,762 |
| Olivet Nazarene University | $25,512 |
| Rockford University | $25,062 |
| Eureka College | $25,062 |
| North Central College | $24,862 |
| Millikin University | $24,812 |
| Quincy University | $24,812 |
| North Park University | $24,812 |
| Augustana College | $24,812 |
| Monmouth College | $24,812 |
| Lewis University | $24,762 |
| Trinity Christian College | $24,762 |
| St Xavier University | $24,762 |
| Elmhurst University | $24,762 |
| University of St Francis | $24,762 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 65% of your dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-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.
27 repeat relationships — 21 still active in FY2025, 6 since wound down.
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2025, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.
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
- NCNorth Central College9× · 2017–2025 · $246k · revenue +22%
- KCKNOX COLLEGE9× · 2017–2025 · $223k · revenue +12%
- LULewis University9× · 2017–2025 · $221k · revenue +36%
Funded once
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.
Inspired by lutheran scholarly tradition and the liberal arts, augustana provides an education of enduring worth that challenges the intellect, fosters integrity and integrates faith with learning and service in a diverse world.
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…
Union college is a seventh-day adventist community of higher education, inspired by jesus christ, and dedicated to empowering students to learn, serve, and lead.
Through innovative learning opportunities, individual student attention, and an unwavering commitment to inclusive educational access, simpson college cultivates a diverse community of learners to lead lives of meaning and purpose.
Trinity university is an independent co-educational university whose mission is excellence in the interrelated areas of teaching, research and services.
Hilbert college is an independent institution of higher learning that embraces its catholic franciscan heritage and values. students from diverse backgrounds are educated in liberal arts and professional programs to become informed…
Loyola University New Orleans, a Jesuit and Catholic institution of higher education, welcomes students of diverse backgrounds and prepares them to lead meaningful lives with and for others; to pursue truth, wisdom, and virtue; and to work…
The organization's mission is to educate students for creative occupations in diverse fields of arts and media.
The university's goal in the coming decade is to advance learning through the integration of teaching, research and service to others. the core of this goal is to prepare graduates to engage with the world and lead lives of meaning. to do…
Wilson college empowers students to be confident and critical thinkers, creative visionaries, effective communicators, honorable leaders, and agents of justice.
Excelsior University provides educational opportunity to adult learners with an emphasis on those historically underrepresented in higher education. The University meets students where they are - academically and geographically, offering…
John brown university (jbu) provides christ-centered education that prepares students to honor god and serve others by developing their intellectual, spiritual, and professional lives. (continued on schedule o)jbu serves traditional…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Illinois Wesleyan University and the most unlike its peers is The Principia Corporation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 82 years old; the field is 18. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 14% of the field you don’t fund.
Age = years since IRS exemption (a founding proxy). “Closed” = auto-revocation for 3 years of non-filing — a floor on closure, not proof, and bigger established orgs lapse least. Association, not causation.
27 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. 27 of the 28 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 North Central College ↗
- Who funds KNOX COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF ST FRANCIS ↗
- Who funds Lewis University ↗
- Who funds McKendree University ↗
- Who funds ELMHURST UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds TRINITY CHRISTIAN COLLEGE ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds OLIVET NAZARENE UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds QUINCY UNIVERSITY CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds ILLINOIS COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds ROCKFORD UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds MILLIKIN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds JUDSON UNIVERSITY A BAPTIST INSTITUTION ↗
- Who funds MONMOUTH COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds AUGUSTANA COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds DOMINICAN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds NORTH PARK UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds The Principia Corporation ↗
- Who funds Benedictine University ↗
- Who funds Wheaton College ↗
- Who funds SAINT XAVIER UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds BLACKBURN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds ILLINOIS WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds AURORA UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds Greenville College ↗
- Who funds ST AUGUSTINE COLLEGE ↗
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: Council of Independent Colleges · Marquette Bank Education Foundation · Ibm International Foundation · Culver's Foundation Inc · Ge Aerospace Foundation · R D Cundiff Scholarship Trust Dtd 10121 · Brent Taylor Perpetual Char Trust Mercantile Bank Trustee · AbbVie Foundation · Enterprise Holdings Foundation · Nick Carter Scholarship Fund · Pittsfield High School Class of 1954 Scholarship Fund Inc · Lord Educational Fund
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 Associated Colleges of Illinois Inc 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.