· Private foundation
Blazer 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.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k9 grants · $46k
- $10k–50k10 grants · $175k
- $50k–250k3 grants · $230k
- $250k+2 grants · $971k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ROCKFORD PARK DISTRICT | $702,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $268,500 |
| GIGI'S PLAYHOUSE | $104,890 |
| LAURENT HOUSE | $75,500 |
| 205 DIRECT DENTAL SERVICES | $50,000 |
| BARBARA OLSON CENTER OF HOPE | $40,000 |
| MILESTONE INC | $28,500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $22,324 |
| GOLDEN APPLE FOUNDATION | $21,149 |
| SPECIAL OLYMPICS ILLINOIS | $12,300 |
| DISCOVERY CENTER MUSEUM | $11,000 |
| REGIONAL ACCESS & MOBILIZATION PROJECT | $10,000 |
| PEC PLAYHOUSE THEATRE | $10,000 |
| TOMMY CORRAL MEMORIAL FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| CHRISTIAN LIFE SCHOOLS | $10,000 |
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 (FY17–25, $780k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +40% since the first grant, against +5% for the ones you funded once.
40 repeat relationships — 15 still active in FY2025, 25 since wound down; 8 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (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 FY2025, 93% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $100k 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
- RPROCKFORD PARK DISTRICT FOUNDATION6× · 2017–2022 · $320k · revenue +55%
- RAREGIONAL ACCESS & MOBILIZATION PROJECT INC9× · 2017–2025 · $312k · revenue +104%
- MIMILESTONE INC8× · 2017–2025 · $300k · revenue +49%
Funded once
- RSRIVER SOUTH DEVELOPMENT FOUNDATIONone grant, 2019 · $75k
- BABOYS AND GIRLS CLUBone grant, 2024 · $63k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2022 · $55k
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 analysis and commentary on cultural, economic, political, and educational issues through a published monthly opinion magazine and to operate continuing adult educational conferences in american and european literature and…
It is the mission of this corporation to provide quality care for children between the ages of six weeks and twelve years whose parents are employed or in training.
The rockford area economic development council cultivates opportunities for primary job growth that increase the economic well-being of our region
Through free exhibitions, arts education and life-long learning for all ages, rac is an advocate for the vital role the arts play in nurturing community, amplifying diverse experiences, ideas, and backgrounds.
Provide community-based residential housing to adults with autism and/or severe developmental disabilities. also provide developmental training and other supports to this same population.
Residential rehabilitation for mentally and emotionally disabled adults.
The organization provides low income affordable housing under illinois housing development authority guidelines.
To challenge young people to know christ as lord, apply god's truth in all areas of life, love others sacrifically, and achieve the highest level of knowledge and skill in order to serve god and others
Bring recognition to the cultural arts and promote economic and cultural development in the downtown rockport area.
Advancement and preservation of the fine arts through exhibitions, lectures, demonstrations and educational programs.
We create opportunity for those impacted by addiction and mental illness through innovative, compassionate, and life change care.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Rockford Rescue Mission Ministries and the most unlike its peers is The Fatherhood Encouragement Project. 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 42 years old; the field is 23. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 19% startups (under 5 years old) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 2% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 2% lost their exemption, against 10% 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.
47 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. 47 of the 85 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 ROCKFORD PARK DISTRICT FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds REGIONAL ACCESS & MOBILIZATION PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds MILESTONE INC ↗
- Who funds HOOSIER CARE INC ↗
- Who funds LIFESCAPE COMMUNITY SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds GOLDIE B FLOBERG CENTER ↗
- Who funds BARBARA OLSON CENTER OF HOPE ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF THE CUMBERLANDS INC ↗
- Who funds DISCOVERY CENTER MUSEUM OF ROCKFORD INC ↗
- Who funds LAURENT HOUSE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE FISH-ABLED FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds HOPE REIGNS RANCH ↗
- Who funds YMCA OF ROCK RIVER VALLEY ↗
- Who funds GOLDEN APPLE FOUNDATION FOR EXCELLENCE IN TEACHING ↗
- Who funds ROCKFORD RESCUE MISSION MINISTRIES ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF ROCK RIVER VALLEY ↗
- Who funds RSM FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds ROSECRANCE FOUNDATION INC ↗
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: Community Foundation of Northern IL · The Kjellstrom Family Foundation · Bergstrom Inc Charitable Foundation Xxxxx2008 · United Way of Rock River Valley · Tracy E Anderson Charitable Foundation · The David & Colleen Anderson Charitable Foundation · Sjostrom & Sons Foundation · Jeffrey R Anderson Charitable Foundation · The Ben Harding Family Foundation · John & Linda Anderson Charitable Foundation · Woodward Governor Charitable Trust · Smith Charitable Foundation Xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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 Blazer 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.