· Public charity
Bls Family Foundation
The foundation was organized to foster, promote, support, develop, encourage and maintain charitable activities and vital human and educational services as authorized in its by-laws and the charter of the jewish federation of metropolitan chicago.
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
- $10k–50k5 grants · $110k
- $50k–250k5 grants · $475k
- $250k+1 grant · $300k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Friends Of The Children - Chicago | $300,000 |
| United Way of Metropolitan Chicago | $115,000 |
| American Friends of NATAL-Israel Trauma Center | $100,000 |
| The Ark | $100,000 |
| JEWISH FEDERATION OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO | $100,000 |
| JEWISH UNITED FUND OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO | $60,000 |
| Metropolitan Family Services | $25,000 |
| New Israel Fund | $25,000 |
| Lawndale Christian Legal Center | $25,000 |
| Stop Stalking Us Inc | $25,000 |
| Project Unloaded | $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 (FY18–25, $1.1M) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 5% of Bls Family Foundation’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, 84% of the giving stays in IL; read by stated purpose it is 79% — 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +18% since the first grant, against -4% for the ones you funded once.
14 repeat relationships — 6 still active in FY2025, 8 since wound down; 3 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, 80% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $150k 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
- TATHE ARK8× · 2018–2025 · $490k · revenue +83%
- JUJEWISH UNITED FUND OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO9× · 2017–2025 · $455k · revenue +13%
- FOFRIENDS OF THE CHILDREN - CHICAGO4× · 2022–2025 · $455k · revenue +21%
Funded once
- JWJewish Women Internationalone grant, 2019 · $20k · revenue -4%
- CFCOUNCIL FOR JEWISH ELDERLYone grant, 2021 · $12k · revenue -12%
- BCBLOCK CLUB CHICAGO NFPone grant, 2022 · $8k · revenue -3%
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 strengthen communities through educational dialogue, leadership development, emotional resilience, and intercultural competence programs that help people bridge differences and build trust.
JCFS Chicago services and programs support wellbeing for children, teens, adults and families regardless of race, culture, religion, disability, age, marital status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, or…
The mission of the greater miami jewish federation is to mobilize human and financial resources to care for those in need, strengthen jewish life and advance the unity, values and shared purpose of the jewish people in miami, in israel and…
Jewish family services of greenwich (jfs) is a nonprofit social service agency dedicated to strengthening individuals and families in fairfield and new london counties. jfs provides behavioral health counseling, food security programs,…
Since 1884, Jewish Vocational Services (JVS) Chicago has been committed to improving life through employment and productivity, recognizing that personal development is a lifetime endeavor. JVS Chicago serves more than 2,300 employees,…
Strengthen United Way movement in Illinois
Live Free Illinois is a statewide organization partnering with over 120 congregations and directly impacted individuals to build safer more equitable communities across Illinois. Operating at the intersection of criminal justice reform and…
The jewish federation of greater atlanta cares for, connects and strengthens our jewish community throughout greater atlanta, israel and the world.
Jcrc-ny builds relationships to advance the values, interests and security of the new york jewish community and to create a more interconnected new york for all.
The ywca is dedicated to eliminating racism, empowering women, and promoting peace, justice, freedom, and dignity for all.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc and the most unlike its peers is Stop Stalking Us Inc. 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 39 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) — 10% of your grantees by number, and just 2% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 4% 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.
23 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. 23 of the 24 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 ARK ↗
- Who funds JEWISH UNITED FUND OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE CHILDREN - CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds University of Chicago Medical Center ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN FRIENDS OF NATAL INC ↗
- Who funds NEW ISRAEL FUND ↗
- Who funds Institute for Nonviolence Chicago ↗
- Who funds I Grow Chicago NFP ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO INC ↗
- Who funds JEWISH FEDERATION OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds Heartland Alliance for Human Needs and Rights ↗
- Who funds SINAI HEALTH SYSTEM ↗
- Who funds STOP STALKING US INC ↗
- Who funds Metropolitan Family Services ↗
- Who funds OROT THE CENTER FOR NEW JEWISH LEARNING ↗
- Who funds The Chicago Community Trust ↗
- Who funds THE JEWISH FEDERATIONS OF NORTH AMERICA INC ↗
- Who funds LAWNDALE CHRISTIAN LEGAL CENTER ↗
- Who funds Jewish Women International ↗
- Who funds YOGACARE ↗
- Who funds COUNCIL FOR JEWISH ELDERLY ↗
- Who funds PROJECT UNLOADED INC ↗
- Who funds BLOCK CLUB CHICAGO NFP ↗
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 · Circle of Service Foundation · Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago · Arie and Ida Crown Memorial · United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · Polk Bros Foundation Inc · AbbVie Foundation · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · American Endowment Foundation · American Online Giving Foundation Inc
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 Bls Family 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Bls Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Bls Family 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.