· Private foundation
Bernard & Naomi L Podolsky Charitable Trust
Its FY2025 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 FY2021–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k2 grants · $15k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $73k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $75k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| FAIRFIELD COMMUNITY HIGH SCHOOL FOUNDATION | $75,000 |
| WSIU-FM NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO | $25,000 |
| PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF THE ST LOUIS REGION | $20,000 |
| POSHARD FOUNDATION FOR ABUSED CHILDREN | $17,500 |
| JOHN R & ELEANOR R MITCHELL FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| JEWISH FEDERATION OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS | $7,500 |
| JESUS NAME PENTECOSTAL CHURCH | $7,500 |
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 (FY21–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 99% 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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 34% of Bernard & Naomi L Podolsky Charitable Trust’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another. Read by recipient address, 82% of the giving stays in IL; read by stated purpose it is 51% — less of the work is directed home than the recipients' locations suggest.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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.
9 repeat relationships — 7 still active in FY2025, 2 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.
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
- FCFAIRFIELD COMMUNITY HIGH SCHOOL FOUNDATI4× · 2022–2025 · $252k · revenue +46% · 73% of their budget
- JRJOHN R AND ELEANOR R MITCHELL FOUNDATION5× · 2021–2025 · $95k · revenue +5%
- PFPOSHARD FOUNDATION FOR ABUSED CHILDREN INC5× · 2021–2025 · $89k · revenue +24%
Funded once
- NENATIONAL EAGLE SCOUT ASSOCIATIONone grant, 2021 · $500
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.
To provide funding and support services in relation to the research and development of historical information regarding the state of illinois history.
Openlands protects the natural and open spaces of northeastern illinois and the surrounding region to ensure cleaner air and water, protect natural habitats and wildlife, and help balance and enrich our lives.
To secure and manage private support to benefit northern illinois university.
To inspire conservation leadership by connecting people with wildlife and nature.
The illinois junior academy of science exists for the benefit of students in the state of illinois. the process students follow for the ijas gives these students some insight into the problems and methods of thinking that are particular to…
The fund supports strong public schools citywide by investing heavily in the talented educators who lead them. in 2024, our programs and partnerships supported 151 school leaders (principals), 193 aspiring principals (assistant principals,…
To prepare students for lives of significance and service through liberal arts & theological studies.
To elevate illinois state university through the power of philanthropy.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Planned Parenthood Great Rivers-Missouri and the most unlike its peers is The Nature Conservancy. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
7 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. 7 of the 11 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 FAIRFIELD COMMUNITY HIGH SCHOOL FOUNDATI ↗
- Who funds JOHN R AND ELEANOR R MITCHELL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds POSHARD FOUNDATION FOR ABUSED CHILDREN INC ↗
- Who funds JEWISH FEDERATION OF SOUTHERN ILLINOIS ↗
- Who funds WABASH AREA DEVELOPMENT INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL OUTDOOR LEADERSHIP SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
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 set of overlaps that mostly run through you, not between each other.
Open a dossier: 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 Bernard & Naomi L Podolsky Charitable Trust 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.