· Private foundation
Best Portion Foundation
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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k1 grant · $5k
- $10k–50k8 grants · $220k
- $50k–250k5 grants · $382k
- $250k+1 grant · $540k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| THE CHICAGO SCHOLARS FOUNDATION | $539,663 |
| RANDOLPH COLLEGE | $100,732 |
| A BETTER CHICAGO | $100,472 |
| TEACH FOR AMERICA | $75,416 |
| KIDS FIRST CHICAGO | $54,910 |
| SCHOOL YEAR ABROAD | $50,000 |
| PARTNERSHIP FOR COLLEGE COMPLETION | $49,871 |
| EVERGREEN CLIMATE INNOVATIONS | $35,000 |
| STRYV 365 | $25,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $25,000 |
| MANNY & PAT PULIDO SANCHEZ FOUNDATION | $25,000 |
| INVEST FOR KIDS | $25,000 |
| BULAMU HEALTHCARE INTERNATIONAL | $20,248 |
| CHIARTS | $14,836 |
| MIKVA CHALLENGE | $5,000 |
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 (FY17–24, $2.2M) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 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.
28 repeat relationships — 13 still active in FY2024, 15 since wound down; 2 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, 96% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $50k 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
- TCTHE CHICAGO SCHOLARS FOUNDATION7× · 2017–2024 · $2.7M · revenue +4%
- ABA Better Chicago6× · 2017–2024 · $990k · revenue +76%
RANDOLPH COLLEGE INC7× · 2017–2024 · $902k · revenue +0%
Funded once
- ESEVANS SCHOLAR FOUNDATIONone grant, 2020 · $100k
- CSCHICAGO SHAKESPEARE THEATERone grant, 2018 · $50k · revenue -33%
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2022 · $50k
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 psychoanalytic institute transforms the lives of individuals, families and communities, using psychoanalytic knowledge to help them grow and thrive.
Tutoring chicago delivers the power of education through one-to-one tutoring.
Academy for global citizenship charter school (agc) develops mindful leaders who take action both now and in the future to positively impact their communities and the world beyond.
To Prepare Students for Success in Four-Year Colleges.
The common application is a not-for-profit membership organization of over 1,100 colleges and universities across the globe committed to access, equity, and integrity in the college admission process. every year, over 1.5 million students…
To inspire and prepare young people to succeed in a global economy
Chicago Votes is a non-partisan, non-profit organization building a more inclusive democracy by putting power in the hands of young Chicagoans. We're engaging and developing a new generation of leaders by opening the doors of government,…
To create a school that dramatically transforms the lives of k-8 students and prepares them for success in college and in life through: the delivery of a rigorous and personalized academic program, a focus on holistic education, and the…
The Chicago School educates the next generation of change-makers in innovative theory and culturally competent practice to strengthen the integrated health of individuals, organizations, and communities.
The organization's mission is to educate students for creative occupations in diverse fields of arts and media.
To achieve parity in economic opportunity for people of color by advancing multiracial leadership in corporate governance, expanding the talent pipline for executive-level management, and growing minority businesses.
Illinois college is a co-educational institution of higher education learning providing a four-year educational program leading to the baccalaureate degree. illinois college is a community committed to the highest standards of scholarship…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Kids First Chicago for Education and the most unlike its peers is Manny and Pat Pulido Sanchez Foundation. 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 22 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) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 1% 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.
34 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. 34 of the 49 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 THE CHICAGO SCHOLARS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds A Better Chicago ↗
- Who funds RANDOLPH COLLEGE INC ↗
- Who funds LEAP Innovations ↗
- Who funds Teach for America Inc ↗
- Who funds The Partnership for College Completion ↗
- Who funds THRIVE CHICAGO NFP ↗
- Who funds SGA YOUTH & FAMILY SERVICES NFP ↗
- Who funds SCHOOL YEAR ABROAD INC ↗
- Who funds KIDS FIRST CHICAGO FOR EDUCATION ↗
- Who funds Invest for Kids Inc ↗
- Who funds EDUCATORS FOR EXCELLENCE INC ↗
- Who funds ONEGOAL ↗
- Who funds THE BRIDGESPAN GROUP INC ↗
- Who funds EVERGREEN CLIMATE INNOVATIONS ↗
- Who funds THE CHICAGO HIGH SCHOOL FOR THE ARTS ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO PUBLIC EDUCATION FUND ↗
- Who funds URBAN GATEWAYS ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO MEDIA PROJECT ↗
- Who funds BULAMU INTERNATIONAL ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO SHAKESPEARE THEATER ↗
- Who funds GENUNITY INC ↗
- Who funds University of Chicago ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO COLLEGIATE INC ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO FOUNDATION FOR WOMEN ↗
- Who funds STRYV365 INC ↗
- Who funds KIPP CHICAGO SCHOOLS ↗
- Who funds MANNY AND PAT PULIDO SANCHEZ FOUNDATION ↗
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: Arie and Ida Crown Memorial · The Chicago Community Trust · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · Polk Bros Foundation Inc · The Joyce Foundation · Finnegan Family Foundation · Vivo Foundation · Lloyd a Fry Foundation · Robert R McCormick Foundation · Circle of Service Foundation · Gates Foundation · The Lefkofsky Family 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 Best Portion 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.
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Find your warmest path to Best Portion 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.