Skip to content

Illinois · Private foundation

Charles F & Lillian F Appel Charitable Trust

Its FY2026 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

$30k
Granted FY2026(still arriving)
9
Grants FY2026
10
Organizations funded FY2025
20%
First-time grantees FY2025
Read the full brief
Median grant, FY2026
$3,300
Largest grant, FY2026
$8,000
Organizations funded a year
3 to 12
FY2019 to FY2025
States reached, FY2026
3
Total assets, FY2026
$291k
Applications
Preselected organizations only
Per its most recent filing; check its own site

How open it is to new grantees

In FY2025, 20% of the organizations Charles F & Lillian F Appel Charitable Trust funded were first-time grantees, receiving 8% of its grant dollars.

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 92% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2k went to new ones.

50%100%’19’20’21’22’23’24’25
RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

’19’20’21’22’23’24’25
Recreation & SportsArts & CultureEnvironmentAnimalsHuman ServicesHealthOther
How this is measured
First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). The earliest year is left-censored: relationships that predate the data read as new. Theme is the grantee’s IRS cause.
The numbers by year
Fiscal yearOrganizations fundedTo those organizationsFirst-time grantees
FY2026still arriving9$30k0%
FY202510$25k20%
FY202412$25k50%
FY20235$30k0%
FY20224$28k25%
FY20219$25k89%
FY20204$25k25%
FY20193$25k33%
94% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.

Health$122kArts & Culture$36kReligion$30kRecreation & Sports$18kEnvironment$10kHuman Services$8kFood & Nutrition$3kAnimals$2kOther$0

Top grantees

Largest recipients by total granted, FY2017 to FY2026, and the share of each one’s budget the grants supplied at peak.

Plus 14 recipients with no EIN on record ($59k), not named here.

Where it is load-bearing

Each grantee by its size and the share of its budget Charles F & Lillian F Appel Charitable Trust supplied at peak.

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetEdward Foundation: $120,700 over 8y, 1.2% of budgetRavinia Festival Association: $43,100 over 6y, 0.0% of budgetCrystal Lake Soccer Federation: $14,245 over 3y, 0.2% of budgetChicago Horticultural Society: $13,000 over 5y, 0.0% of budgetMontour Trail Council: $6,000 over 6y, 0.1% of budgetKay's Animal Shelter: $5,525 over 3y, 0.4% of budgetNeighbors Who Care Inc: $1,500 over 1y, 0.3% of budgetBlood Cancer United Inc: $1,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budget

Tap a dot to name the grantee.

How this is measured
Share of budget is the funder’s grant in a year over the grantee’s total revenue that year, at its highest across the years we hold; revenue is from all sources. Only grantees confirmed against their own filings, whose grants do not exceed their revenue, are plotted: the largest 8.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a set of overlaps that mostly run through this funder rather than between each other.

Amazonsmile FoundationWA3.2× affinity5 shared granteesties to 0 of 0Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Amazonsmile Foundation

How this is measured
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

Compare Charles F & Lillian F Appel Charitable Trust with peer funders

About Charles F & Lillian F Appel Charitable Trust

How much does Charles F & Lillian F Appel Charitable Trust give?
Charles F & Lillian F Appel Charitable Trust reported 9 grants totaling $30,040 in its FY2026 IRS filing. It funded between 3 and 12 organizations a year over FY2019 to FY2025.
What does Charles F & Lillian F Appel Charitable Trust fund?
By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2026, its largest causes are Health (52%), Arts & Culture (15%), Religion (13%).
Who are Charles F & Lillian F Appel Charitable Trust's largest grantees?
By total granted over FY2017 to FY2026: Edward Foundation ($121k), Ravinia Festival Association ($43k), Crystal Lake Soccer Federation ($14k).
Does Charles F & Lillian F Appel Charitable Trust fund new organizations?
In FY2025, 20% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.
Does Charles F & Lillian F Appel Charitable Trust accept unsolicited applications?
Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Which funders back the same organizations as Charles F & Lillian F Appel Charitable Trust?
Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Amazonsmile Foundation.
Where is Charles F & Lillian F Appel Charitable Trust based?
Charles F & Lillian F Appel Charitable Trust is based in IL.

On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 22 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

How this is measured
Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears.

Generated from the IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2026, released 2026. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Source object · view filing

Play a game based on Charles F & Lillian F Appel’s filings →

More from the funding graph