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Foundation Dossiers

Illinois · Private foundation

Big Cat Foundation

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.

$62k
Granted FY2024(still arriving)
12
Itemized grants FY2024
11
Organizations funded FY2023
0%
First-time grantees FY2023
Read the full brief
Itemized, FY2024
$50k
The rest is grants the schedule does not break out
Median grant, FY2024
$1,500
Largest grant, FY2024
$12,500
Organizations funded a year
11 to 12
FY2021 to FY2023
States reached, FY2024
5
Total assets, FY2024
$105k
Applications
Preselected organizations only
Per its most recent filing; check its own site

How open it is to new grantees

In FY2023, 0% of the organizations Big Cat Foundation funded were first-time grantees, receiving 0% of its grant dollars.

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2023, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.

50%100%’22’23
RenewedFirst-time
How this is measured
First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). The earliest year is left-censored: relationships that predate the data read as new. Theme is the grantee’s IRS cause.
The numbers by year
Fiscal yearOrganizations fundedTo those organizationsFirst-time grantees
FY2024still arriving11$50k0%
FY202311$50k0%
FY202212$55k17%
FY202112$54kn/a
89% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2020 to 2025.

Environment$147kCommunity Improvement$54kArts & Culture$4kHealth$4kInternational$500Other$0

Top grantees

Largest recipients by total granted, FY2021 to FY2024, and the share of each one’s budget the grants supplied at peak.

GranteeTotal grantedYearsShare of their budget
The Land Conservancy of McHenry County$50,00042%
Woodstock Institute$50,00041%
Infact DBA Corporate Accountability$50,00040%
The Alliance for Climate Protection$10,00020%
Voyageur Outward Bound School$4,50030%
Planned Parenthood Federation of America Inc$4,00040%
Center for Neighborhood Technology$4,00040%
Openlands$4,00040%
Environmental Law and Policy Center of the Midwest$4,00040%
ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENDERS OF McHENRY COUNTY$3,00031%

What it could do for these grantees

Plus 4 recipients with no EIN on record ($26k), not named here.

Where it is load-bearing

Each grantee by its size and the share of its budget Big Cat Foundation supplied at peak.

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetThe Land Conservancy of McHenry County: $50,000 over 4y, 1.7% of budgetWoodstock Institute: $50,000 over 4y, 1.3% of budgetInfact DBA Corporate Accountability: $50,000 over 4y, 0.2% of budgetThe Alliance for Climate Protection: $10,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetVoyageur Outward Bound School: $4,500 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetPlanned Parenthood Federation of America Inc: $4,000 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetCenter for Neighborhood Technology: $4,000 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetOpenlands: $4,000 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetEnvironmental Law and Policy Center of the Midwest: $4,000 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetENVIRONMENTAL DEFENDERS OF McHENRY COUNTY: $3,000 over 3y, 0.5% of budget

Tap a dot to name the grantee.

How this is measured
Share of budget is the funder’s grant in a year over the grantee’s total revenue that year, at its highest across the years we hold; revenue is from all sources. Only grantees confirmed against their own filings, whose grants do not exceed their revenue, are plotted: the largest 10.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Fidelity Investments …Amazonsmile Foundation
Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift FundMA5.3× affinity4 shared granteesties to 1 of 1Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile Foundation

How this is measured
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

Compare Big Cat Foundation with peer funders

About Big Cat Foundation

How much does Big Cat Foundation give?
Big Cat Foundation reported 12 itemized grants totaling $50,000, out of $62,000 in total grant expense reported on the return in its FY2024 IRS filing. It funded between 11 and 12 organizations a year over FY2021 to FY2023.
What does Big Cat Foundation fund?
By grant dollars over FY2021 to FY2024, its largest causes are Environment (41%), Community Improvement (15%), Arts & Culture (1%).
Who are Big Cat Foundation's largest grantees?
By total granted over FY2021 to FY2024: The Land Conservancy of McHenry County ($50k), Woodstock Institute ($50k), Infact DBA Corporate Accountability ($50k).
Does Big Cat Foundation fund new organizations?
In FY2023, 0% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.
Does Big Cat Foundation accept unsolicited applications?
Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Which funders back the same organizations as Big Cat Foundation?
Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund, Amazonsmile Foundation.
Where is Big Cat Foundation based?
Big Cat Foundation is based in IL.

On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 14 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

How this is measured
Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears.

Generated from the IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2024, released 2024. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Possibly out of date. A more recent filing (FY2025) is on record and reports $65k of grant expense with no grantee named in the published copy. A private foundation itemizes every grant it makes, so a return carrying none has filed its list as an attachment that the public copy does not include. The figures above are therefore from FY2024, the most recent year this funder’s grantee list reached the public record.

Source object · view filing

Play a game based on Big Cat’s filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions
grants reported with no recipient in the public record
The regranting layer
51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer
The DAF merry-go-round
$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds
The endowment market
who holds foundation money, and what just moved
The camps
funders cluster by geography, not ideology
By state
where grant money is based, and what stays home