· Private foundation
Blue Waters 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 FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k7 grants · $18k
- $10k–50k7 grants · $132k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MUNSON HEALTHCARE REGIONAL FOUNDATION | $30,000 |
| THE GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY | $25,000 |
| SHEDD AQUARIUM | $22,000 |
| FOLDS OF HONOR FOUNDATION | $15,000 |
| TUNNEL TO TOWERS FOUNDATION | $15,000 |
| THE SALVATION ARMY OF TRAVERSE CITY | $15,000 |
| MOFFITT CANCER CENTER FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| BLESSINGS IN A BACKPACK | $5,000 |
| THE WALLACE R BOSTWICK MEMORIAL FUND | $3,000 |
| HISTORIC ELK RAPIDS TOWN HALL ASSOCIATION | $2,500 |
| THE CHICAGO BOTANIC GARDEN | $2,500 |
| CHADTOUGH DEFEAT DIPG FOUNDATION | $2,500 |
| BOCA GRANDE HEALTH CLINIC FOUNDATION | $1,000 |
| SOUTH TORCH AREA ASSOCIATION | $1,000 |
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 (FY20–25, $40k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, 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.
24 repeat relationships — 13 still active in FY2025, 11 since wound down; 1 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, 98% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $3k 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
GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY6× · 2020–2025 · $160k · revenue +17%- MHMUNSON HEALTHCARE FOUNDATIONS6× · 2020–2025 · $120k · revenue +57%
- FOFOLDS OF HONOR FOUNDATION6× · 2020–2025 · $100k · revenue +75%
Funded once
- TSTHE SALVATION ARMYone grant, 2020 · $35k
- SASALVATION ARMYone grant, 2020 · $20k
- TCTHE COMMUNITY HOUSEgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $2k · revenue +46%
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 museum's mission statement is: "to discover, interpret, and disseminate - through scientific research and education - knowledge about human cultures, the natural world, and the universe."
To inspire conservation leadership by connecting people with wildlife and nature.
To enrich life by perpetuating tropical plants, ecosystems and cultural heritage through discovery, scientific research, conservation, and education.
The Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) is a world-renowned center for biological discovery and training that is notably affiliated with more than 60 Nobel Prize winners. Research is conducted by full-time faculty as well as hundreds of the…
The new york botanical garden is a museum of plants and a scientific research center devoted to the study of plants and their uses. it is the garden's mission to improve public understanding of the natural world, horticulture, and the…
We harness the power of plants for humankind and share the joy and beauty of tropical gardening with everyone. fairchild tropical botanic garden is a museum of tropical plants within a world famous, 83-acre designed landscape. it was…
Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
To collect, display and interpret objects in craft art and design.
The Chicago History Museum strives to be a destination for learning, inspiration, and civic engagement. Through dynamic exhibitions, tours, programs, digital resources, and special events, the Museum connects people to Chicago's history…
Naples zoo is accredited by the american zoo & aquarium association (aza) and has numerous animal exhibits placed on its 45-acre site. (continued on schedule o)each exhibit is unique and designed to simulate typical conditions for the…
The witte museum inspires people to shape the future of texas through transformative and relevant experiences in nature, science and culture.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Chicago Horticultural Society and the most unlike its peers is Wallace R Bostwick Memorial Fund. 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 49 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 21% startups (under 5 years old) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 15% 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.
24 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. 24 of the 33 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 GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY ↗
- Who funds MUNSON HEALTHCARE FOUNDATIONS ↗
- Who funds FOLDS OF HONOR FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SHEDD AQUARIUM SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds STEPHEN SILLER TUNNEL TO TOWERS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds BOCA GRANDE HEALTH CLINIC FNDTN INC ↗
- Who funds Ronald McDonald House Global ↗
- Who funds LINCOLN PARK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds BLESSINGS IN A BACKPACK INC ↗
- Who funds BOCA GRANDE WOMAN'S CLUB INC ↗
- Who funds Wallace R Bostwick Memorial Fund ↗
- Who funds CHADTOUGH DEFEAT DIPG FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SUNCOAST HUMANE SOCIETYINC ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds NOURISHING HOPE ↗
- Who funds THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds Kenneth C Griffin Museum of Science and Industry ↗
- Who funds FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY ↗
- Who funds THE ADLER PLANETARIUM ↗
- Who funds HISTORIC ELK RAPIDS TOWN HALL ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds THE COMMUNITY HOUSE ↗
- Who funds Chicago Architecture Foundation ↗
- Who funds FETCHING TAILS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE CHICAGO ACADEMY OF SCIENCES ↗
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: American Endowment Foundation · National Philanthropic Trust · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile 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 Blue Waters 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 Blue Waters Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Blue Waters 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.