· Private foundation
Berry Family Charitable Trust
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 FY2021–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k24 grants · $53k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $62k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY | $20,000 |
| UNION LEAGUE BOYS & GIRLS CLUB | $20,000 |
| DUBUQUE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | $11,500 |
| SCALES MOUND COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| NATIONAL FFA FOUNDATION | $7,000 |
| KEMMERER VILLAGE | $5,000 |
| LUMINARTS CULTURAL FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| RIVER BEND FOOD BANK | $5,000 |
| IOWA BASEBALL CAMP FOR THE DEAF | $2,500 |
| MCHENRY COUNTY 4-H YOUTH FOUNDATION INC | $2,500 |
| CRYSTAL LAKE FOOD PANTRY INC | $2,500 |
| CASA KANE COUNTY | $2,000 |
| FARM WAY SANCTUARY INC | $2,000 |
| COMMUNITY CRISIS CENTER | $2,000 |
| DUNDEE TOWNSHIP ROTARY FOUNDATION | $2,000 |
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 (FY21–24, $29k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 82% 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.
Which US states your grants reach
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.
11 repeat relationships — 7 still active in FY2024, 4 since wound down; 20 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 65% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $39k 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
- DSDUBUQUE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA4× · 2021–2024 · $42k · revenue +186%
Northwestern University2× · 2023–2024 · $30k · revenue +26%- KVKEMMERER VILLAGE INC3× · 2022–2024 · $15k · revenue +116%
Funded once
- ASAMERICAN SIMMENTAL FOUNDATIONone grant, 2021 · $20k
- GEGRACE EPISCOPAL CHURCHone grant, 2021 · $10k
- JCJODAVIESS COUNTY 4Hone grant, 2023 · $6k
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 Starved Rock Country Community Foundation (SRCCF) is a grant-making public charity dedicated to improving the lives of people in LaSalle, Bureau and Putnam Counties. Our goal is to bring together the financial resources of individuals,…
Feeding illinois is a coalition of eight feeding america food banks that provide food to over 2,400 food pantries, soup kitchens, and shelters that feed nearly 1.4 million residents across the entire state of illinois.
To benefit the educatinal experiences of our farm bureau members and their dependents and to carry out charitable scientific literary and educational work for our will county farm bureau membership.
McHenry County Farm Bureau Serves as a clear and strong advocate in the community for agriculture and the family farmers.
FFA makes a positive difference in the lives of students by developing their potential for premier leadership, personal growth and career success, developing a competent and assertive agricultural leadership, increasing the awareness of…
To promote and represent agriculture through educational and informational programming, in order to enhance the quality of life for our members, while preserving our agricultural heritage.
Eastern illinois foodbank exists to alleviate hunger in eastern illinois by providing a reliable source of food for the hungry through cooperation with a network of food pantries and agencies.
llinois Valley Animal Rescue's mission is to rescue, provide care and comfort for abused, neglected and homeless animals in the Illinois Valley Area through a care center, foster homes and veterinarian sources. To promote responsible pet…
Chicago canine rescue foundation finds permanent homes for homeless dogs in our community with a specific emphasis on assisting the most vulnerable animals, who without our help, would have no other options. while in our care, they are…
To promote philanthropy in an impartial, unbiased, ethical way, with a commitment to inclusiveness, and to bring together people and resources to identify and address present and emerging community needs.
Conserve now, that the future may live!
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Lutheran Social Services of Illinois and the most unlike its peers is Samaritan's Purse. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 45 years old; the field is 20. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 18% 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 12% 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.
28 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. 28 of the 44 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 UNION LEAGUE BOYS AND GIRLS CLUBS ↗
- Who funds DUBUQUE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ↗
- Who funds LUMINARTS CULTURAL FOUNDATION THE UNION LEAGUE CLUB OF CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds Northwestern University ↗
- Who funds RIVER BEND FOOD RESERVOIR ↗
- Who funds KEMMERER VILLAGE INC ↗
- Who funds Culver Educational Foundation ↗
- Who funds Scales Mound Community Foundation ↗
- Who funds National FFA Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds Armed Forces Council of Chicago ↗
- Who funds EPISCOPAL RELIEF AND DEVELOPMENT ↗
- Who funds UNITED CHURCHES OF GALENA INC ↗
- Who funds McHenry County 4-H Youth Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds CRYSTAL LAKE FOOD PANTRY INC ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY CRISIS CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds FARM WAY SANCTUARY INC ↗
- Who funds LUTHERAN SOCIAL SERVICES OF ILLINOIS ↗
- Who funds DUNDEE TOWNSHIP ROTARY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CASA KANE COUNTY ↗
- Who funds BARRINGTON YOUTH & FAMILY SERVICES ↗
- Who funds BARRINGTON JUNIOR WOMENS CLUB INC ↗
- Who funds ELY AREA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds CITIZENS FOR CONSERVATION INC ↗
- Who funds English Springer Rescue America Inc ↗
- Who funds FISH FOOD PANTRY ↗
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 · Arthur J Gallagher Foundation · Community Foundation of the Fox River Valley · Northern Illinois Food Bank · Chubb Charitable Foundation · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · AbbVie Foundation · American Endowment Foundation · Enterprise Holdings Foundation · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · National Philanthropic Trust · Charities Aid Foundation America
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 Berry Family 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Berry Family Charitable Trust?
Find your warmest path to Berry Family Charitable Trust 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.