· Private foundation
Barnardfain Foundation
Its FY2019 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 FY2017–2019.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2019
- Under $10k14 grants · $27k
- $10k–50k8 grants · $157k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Aspen Science Center | $40,000 |
| Timeline Theatre Company | $25,000 |
| Chicago Shakespere Theater | $25,000 |
| Court Theatre | $17,000 |
| Lyric Opera of Chicago | $15,000 |
| KAJX | $15,000 |
| University of Chicago | $10,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $10,000 |
| Aspen Institute | $5,000 |
| National Public Radio | $5,000 |
| Aspen Institute | $3,500 |
| Anderson Ranch Arts Center | $2,500 |
| Chicago Symphony Orchestra | $2,000 |
| Center for Reproductive Rights | $1,000 |
| Chicago Public Media | $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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–19) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 66% 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +41% since the first grant, against +5% for the ones you funded once.
20 repeat relationships — 19 still active in FY2019, 1 since wound down; 2 grantees were first funded in FY2019 (too recent to call).
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 FY2019, 97% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $6k 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
- ASASPEN SCIENCE CENTER3× · 2017–2019 · $65k · revenue +112%
- LOLyric Opera of Chicago3× · 2017–2019 · $45k · revenue +33%
- TTTIMELINE THEATRE COMPANY3× · 2017–2019 · $40k · revenue +149%
Funded once
- NFNPR FOUNDATIONone grant, 2017 · $3k · revenue +5%
- MOMUSIC OF THE BAROQUEgraduatedone grant, 2018 · $1k · revenue +80%
- TMTheater Mastersone grant, 2017 · $1k
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 chicago theatre group is committed to producing both classic and contemporary works giving full voice to a wide range of artists and visions. by dedicating itself to three guiding principles - quality, equity, and community - the…
The Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University ("The Auditorium"), an Illinois not-for-profit corporation, is committed to presenting the finest in international, cultural, community and educational programming to Chicago and to the…
The organization's mission is to educate students for creative occupations in diverse fields of arts and media.
Chicago sun-times serves the public interest by strengthening the well-being of our local communities and our democracy through independent local journalism.
The minnesota orchestra mission is to enrich, inspire and serve our community as an enduring symphony orchestra internationally recognized for its artistic excellence.
See schedule onorc at the university of chicago conducts research and data science on critical societal issues to guide decision-making and the development of programs and public policy. our experts identify relationships and trends, and…
To serve the public by producing world-class opera that preserves, promotes and advances the art form while embodying the diversity, spirit and artistic sensibility unique to los angeles. we envision an engaged and enlightened community in…
Writers Theatre (WT) is a literary organization that operates not-for-profit theatres in Glencoe, Illinois. The Writers Theatre mission is to create intimate connections through astonishing performances and innovative programs; activating…
Arizona opera elevates the transformative power of storytelling through music - cultivating community and strengthening a state and people as adventurous and diverse as the place they call home.
Npr international operations, inc. ("nprio") supports the international newsgathering activities of national public radio, inc. through bureaus and offices established locally in foreign countries.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Chicago Shakespeare Theater and the most unlike its peers is Court Theatre Fund. 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 43 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 13% 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.
20 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. 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 CHICAGO SHAKESPEARE THEATER ↗
- Who funds ASPEN SCIENCE CENTER ↗
- Who funds Lyric Opera of Chicago ↗
- Who funds TIMELINE THEATRE COMPANY ↗
- Who funds University of Chicago ↗
- Who funds THE ASPEN INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds ANDERSON RANCH ARTS CENTER ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO INC ↗
- Who funds Chicago Symphony Orchestra ↗
- Who funds NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL INC ↗
- Who funds THE CENTER FOR REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS INC ↗
- Who funds OPEN BOOKS LTD ↗
- Who funds PLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION OF AMERICA INC ↗
- Who funds NPR FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds READING BETWEEN THE LINES NFP ↗
- Who funds Oak Park Festival Theatre ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO PUBLIC MEDIA INC ↗
- Who funds MUSIC OF THE BAROQUE ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO OPERA THEATER ↗
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: John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · The Chicago Community Trust · Polk Bros Foundation Inc · Ncrc Community Development Fund Inc · The Irving Harris Foundation · Fulk Family Foundation Inc · Lloyd a Fry Foundation · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc
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 Barnardfain 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 Barnardfain Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Barnardfain 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.