· Public charity
Bright Star Community Outreach Corp
Our mission is to empower residents to share in the responsibility ofbuilding community through pooling resources and forming partnerships.we will accomplish our mission by developing innovative performancebased projects and programs to address issues of community engagement,economic development, education, children/youth and family.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2023.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CHAMP | $45,000 |
| BIG BROTHERS BIG SISTERS OF METRO | $45,000 |
| YOUTH GUIDANCE | $31,800 |
| ALTERNATIVES INC | $30,000 |
| LADIES OF VIRTUE NFP | $20,143 |
| NEW COMMUNITY OUTREACH | $18,000 |
| CHICAGO YOUTH PROGRAMS INC | $10,855 |
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 (FY20–20, $21k) 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.
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 +55% since the first grant, against -50% for the ones you funded once.
11 repeat relationships — 7 still active in FY2023, 4 since wound down.
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 FY2023, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
- BBBIG BROTHERS-BIG SISTERS OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO4× · 2020–2023 · $125k · revenue +25%
- CMCHAMPS MALE MENTORING PROGRAM - CHIRISE2× · 2022–2023 · $75k · revenue +44%
- LOLADIES OF VIRTUE4× · 2020–2023 · $67k · revenue +205%
Funded once
- YMYWCA METROPOLITAN CHICAGOgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $15k · revenue +76%
- SESOUTH EAST CHICAGO COMMISSIONone grant, 2020 · $11k · revenue -50%
- SPSPARK PROGRAM INCone grant, 2022 · $8k · revenue -92%
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.
A better chicago is changing how chicago fights poverty by investing in bold ideas that create opportunity for our youth.
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,…
Midtown-Metro Achievement Centers, through its Midtown Center for boys and Metro Achievement Center for girls, helps close the achievement gap for Chicago's urban youth ages eight through eighteen.
Thrive chicago's mission is to prepare chicago's youth for a vibrant future by aligning efforts and outcomes from cradle to career.
To provide high-quality early learning and out-of-school time enrichment in under-resourced neighborhoods to holistically support children of all ages, their families, and their communities.
Connecting and amplifying the power of individuals to build a just, equitable, and inclusive city.
Community Youth Development Institute (CYDI) provides alternative schooling for at-risk teenagers through grants and contracts with Youth Connection Charter School, Alternative School Network, the City of Chicago Department of Family and…
To promote the health and wellness of Chicago children through innovative, engaging, and sustainable youth running programs.
Provide at-risk youth with after school/summer programs for training and life skills.
The organization is a nonprofit after school program that uses the power of running to teach girls, 3rd-8th grade, critical social emotional learning skills.
Tutoring chicago delivers the power of education through one-to-one tutoring.
To provide academic & social support to inner-city chicago high school students. program provides scholarships, mentors & tutors to enable students to succeed in the high school of their choice.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Chicago Youth Programs Inc and the most unlike its peers is New Community Outreach. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
15 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.
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 BIG BROTHERS-BIG SISTERS OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds CHAMPS MALE MENTORING PROGRAM - CHIRISE ↗
- Who funds LADIES OF VIRTUE ↗
- Who funds LIFT INC ↗
- Who funds ALTERNATIVES INC ↗
- Who funds Youth Guidance ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO YOUTH PROGRAMS INC ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO URBAN LEAGUE ↗
- Who funds NEW COMMUNITY OUTREACH ↗
- Who funds REFLECTION FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SkyArt NFP ↗
- Who funds YWCA METROPOLITAN CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds SOUTH EAST CHICAGO COMMISSION ↗
- Who funds SPARK PROGRAM INC ↗
- Who funds CENTER OF HIGHER DEVELOPMENT 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: The Chicago Community Trust · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · Polk Bros Foundation Inc · Robert R McCormick Foundation · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · Northwestern Memorial HealthCare · United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc · AbbVie Foundation · Charities Aid Foundation America · National Philanthropic Trust · The Bank of America Charitable 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 Bright Star Community Outreach Corp 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.