· Private foundation
Backstop Foundation
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
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 |
|---|---|
| BERNIE'S BOOK BANK | $11,963 |
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 (FY17–20, $45k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 100% of those 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.
5 repeat relationships — 1 still active in FY2025, 4 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 FY2025, 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
- BBBERNIE'S BOOK BANK9× · 2017–2025 · $102k · revenue +27%
- IFInvest for Kids Inc4× · 2017–2020 · $40k · revenue +39%
RAVINIA FESTIVAL ASSOCIATION2× · 2018–2019 · $8k · revenue +51%
Funded once
- PCPAWS CHICAGOgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $5k · revenue +84%
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2017 · $3k
- MNMETROSQUASH NFPone grant, 2017 · $3k · revenue -30%
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.
The greater chicago food depository is the nonprofit food bank serving cook county. our mission - is to end hunger. we believe food is a basic human right. to achieve our mission, we work in partnership with a network of community-based…
Alternatives, inc.'s mission is to facilitate personal development,strengthen family relationships and enhance the community's well being. serving over 3,000 youth and families annually, the organization offers a range of counseling and…
Food bank for nyc has been the city's major hunger-relief organization driven by our mission to empower every new yorker to achieve food security for good. we harness the collective power of our network of food providers, partners, and…
To nourish the world's hungry through uniting and advancing food banks.
Nourishing hope provides food, mental health support, and social services to help all our neighbors thrive.
We are chicago's jesuit, catholic university - a diverse community seeking god in all things and working to expand knowledge in the service of humanity through learning, justice, and faith.
The chicago children's advocacy center unites public, private, and community partners to ensure the safety, health, and well-being of abused children.
The mission of the university of chicago has been to sustain at the highest level of excellence, the communication of knowledge, the creation of knowledge and the fostering of a dynamic community of scholars and students.
Green city market is securing the future of food by deepening support for sustainable farmers, educating our community, and expanding access to locally-grown food.
With the support of our community, we provide over 90 million meals annually through our network of over 900 member food pantries and programs across thirteen counties, currently reaching over a half million individuals each month with…
Lincoln park zoo is dedicated to connecting people with nature by providing a free, family-oriented wildlife experience in the heart of chicago and by advancing the highest quality of animal care, horticulture, education, science and…
We cultivate the power of plants to sustain and enrich life
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Harlem Grown Inc and the most unlike its peers is Invest for Kids Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
20 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.
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 2017–2026, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 20 of the 26 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 BERNIE'S BOOK BANK ↗
- Who funds Invest for Kids Inc ↗
- Who funds RAVINIA FESTIVAL ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds PAWS CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds METROSQUASH NFP ↗
- Who funds HUDSON HIGHLANDS NATURE CENTER ↗
- Who funds YWCA METROPOLITAN CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds United Help Ukraine Inc ↗
- Who funds THE LUNCHBOX FUND ↗
- Who funds GIRLS 4 SCIENCE ↗
- Who funds HARLEM GROWN INC ↗
- Who funds 100 WOMEN IN FINANCE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Center on Halsted ↗
- Who funds NORTH VALLEY ANIMAL DISASTER GROUP ↗
- Who funds SARAH'S CIRCLE ↗
- Who funds NEWROOT LEARNING INSTITUTE F/K/A UMOJA STUDENT DEVELOPMENT CORP ↗
- Who funds THE ADMINISTRATORS OF THE TULANE EDUCATIONAL FUND ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR NEIGHBORHOOD TECHNOLOGY ↗
- Who funds L'ARCHE CHICAGO INC ↗
- Who funds BUCK HILL COMMUNITY SERVICES COMMITTEE ↗
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 · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · Polk Bros Foundation Inc · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · National Philanthropic Trust · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift 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 Backstop 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 Backstop Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Backstop 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.