· Private foundation
Carol Oppenheim and Jerome S Lamet Charitable Fund
Its FY2024 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 clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2022–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k9 grants · $30k
- $10k–50k15 grants · $245k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $160k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| LOCAL INDEPENDENT ONLINE NEWS PUBLISHERS INC | $100,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN | $60,000 |
| THE DIGS CHICAGO | $33,530 |
| ANDERSON RANCH ARTS CENTER | $25,560 |
| READER INSTITUTE FOR COMMUNITY JOURNALISM | $25,000 |
| CHICAGO DEFENDER CHARITIES | $22,000 |
| ONE HOPE UNITED | $20,000 |
| BLOCK CLUB CHICAGO | $20,000 |
| THE CHICAGO CENTER | $15,000 |
| NOBLE NETWORK OF SCHOOLS | $13,610 |
| IDLE MUSE THEATRE | $10,000 |
| LIFELINE THEATRE | $10,000 |
| KMAC MUSEUM INC | $10,000 |
| CABINET OF CURIOSITY | $10,000 |
| CARE FOR REAL | $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 (FY23–24, $31k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 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.
Which US states your grants reach
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 +39% since the first grant, against -12% for the ones you funded once.
15 repeat relationships — 14 still active in FY2024, 1 since wound down; 12 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 80% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $86k 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
- LILocal Independent Online News Publishers Inc3× · 2022–2024 · $170k · revenue +199%
- UOUniversity of Michigan2× · 2022–2024 · $90k · revenue +92%
- RIREADER INSTITUTE FOR COMMUNITY JOURNALISM INC3× · 2022–2024 · $60k · revenue +61%
Funded once
- AALLIANCECHICAGOgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $20k · revenue +44%
- CCChicago Cred Incone grant, 2022 · $14k · revenue -12%
- NSNORTH SHORE ART LEAGUEone grant, 2023 · $11k · revenue -24%
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.
Cinema/Chicago, the non-profit 501(c)(3) presenting organization of the Chicago International Film Festival, enriches the community through year-round programming devoted to international and independent cinema. We strengthen communication…
To impact society through the powerful tools of media and film. we are a resource for uniting individuals interested in media and developing a core group of informed citizens.
Threewalls is dedicated to fostering contemporary art practices that respond to lived experiences, encouraging connections beyond art through performance, live exhibits, publications, all while connected segregated communities throughout…
Cultivates new and emerging Chicago artists, and aims to benefit artists by exploring art and learning. Through exhibitions, artist residencies, classes/workshops and community building, we are dedicated to cultivating new voices, ideas,…
Operation of studio space and facilities for community radio station. The station is intended to benefit thousands of listeners and various music and arts appreciation groups throughout the chicago area.
Chicago public art group brings artists and communities together to produce high-quality public art, extending and transforming the tradition of collaborative, community-involved public artwork.
To promote public appreciation, understanding and support of the humanities through festivals and educational programs.
To serve independent film and digital video artists by supporting the creation and dissemination of new media arts works, and to serve Chicago audiences by screening artistically innovative, socially relevant, and diverse films and videos.
Definition Theatre celebrates stories created with, inspired by, and intended for the people and communities of color. Through the act of making, Definition expands perspectives, stewards resources, and bridges the immense possibility…
Floating Museum is an arts collective that creates new models exploring relationships between art, community, architecture, and public institutions.
At Spudnik Press, artists create and use printed materials to further culture and engage with their community. Through sharing materials, equipment, and studio space, artists are also sharing technical skills, practical knowledge, and…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Care for Real and the most unlike its peers is Chicago Cred Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 13 years old; the field is 20. You back the younger end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 18% startups (under 5 years old) — 14% of your grantees by number, and just 7% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% lost their exemption, against 12% 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.
30 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. 30 of the 43 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 Local Independent Online News Publishers Inc ↗
- Who funds University of Michigan ↗
- Who funds READER INSTITUTE FOR COMMUNITY JOURNALISM INC ↗
- Who funds ANDERSON RANCH ARTS CENTER ↗
- Who funds The Digs Chicago ↗
- Who funds BLOCK CLUB CHICAGO NFP ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO DEFENDER CHARITIES INC ↗
- Who funds Cabinet of Curiosity Inc NFP ↗
- Who funds CARE FOR REAL ↗
- Who funds ALLIANCECHICAGO ↗
- Who funds KMAC MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds Chicago Cred Inc ↗
- Who funds GARDENEERS ↗
- Who funds NORTH SHORE ART LEAGUE ↗
- Who funds THE HEPH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF BLACK JOURNALISTS ↗
- Who funds ITS US FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds PROJECT ONWARD ↗
- Who funds South Side Community Art Center ↗
- Who funds IDLE MUSE THEATRE NFP ↗
- Who funds ROCKFORD FAMILY PLANNING FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Lifeline Productions Inc ↗
- Who funds SAN FRANCISCO STUDY CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds TRILOGY INC ↗
- Who funds Pilsen Arts & Community House ↗
- Who funds Brothers for Life ↗
- Who funds OUTLIER MEDIA ↗
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 · Democracy Fund Inc · Builders Vision Foundation · Robert R McCormick Foundation · Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation · John S and James L Knight Foundation · The Miami Foundation Inc · Katten Muchin Rosenman Foundation Inc · Lloyd a Fry Foundation · Field Foundation of Illinois
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 Carol Oppenheim and Jerome S Lamet Charitable Fund 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.