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· Public charity

Chicago Food Policy Action Council

The Organization facilitates and informs the development of and advocacy for responsible policies improving the food sovereignty of Chicago residents as they have power and control to determine culturally appropriate, nutritionally sound and affordable food grown using environmentally sustainable practices.

$736k
Granted FY2024still arriving
13
Grants FY2024still arriving
3
States reached
$168k
Largest
01What you fund
01100% classified

What you funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY20202024.

Food & Nutrition$2.4MPublic Benefit$337kCommunity Improvement$216kEmployment$179kHousing & Shelter$137kArts & Culture$56kPhilanthropy$42kHuman Services$38kOther$0
02FY2024 · 13 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

By grant size · FY2024

  • Under $10k2 grants · $16k
  • $10k–50k5 grants · $213k
  • $50k–250k6 grants · $497k
$45,000
Median grant
3
States reached
$1.2M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
ChiFresh Kitchen$168,450
North Lawndale Greening Committee$80,000
Food Hero L3C$67,540
Chicago Urban Farm Solutions$64,000
Southside Market Co-op$62,454
Zumwalt Acres Farm$54,625
Roots Eggs and Greens$45,000
Sunflower Soule Farm llc$44,000
Adelante Center for Entrepreneurship$42,000
Phoenix Bean LLC$42,000
Windy City Mushroom$40,000
West Michigan Sustainable Business$8,000
CultivateKC$8,000
02The need
03

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.

show:

Your human-services grants (FY21–23, $179k) 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.

area typical 12%Centro de Trabajadores Unidos: $145k → 14%Centro de Trabajadores Unidos: $34k → 14%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

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.

03Your edge
repeat funding

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.

71%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.
$2.5M · 5 repeat orgs$1.0M to everyone else

And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +433% since the first grant, against +65% for the ones you funded once.

5 repeat relationships — 3 still active in FY2024, 2 since wound down; 10 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

5
16

Total granted

$2.5M
$595k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+433%
+65%

Still filing today

40%
56%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 39% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $445k went to new ones.

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

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

’20’21’22’23’24
Food & NutritionEnvironmentPhilanthropyHuman ServicesArts & CultureCommunity ImprovementOther

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

  • CK
    ChiFresh Kitchen Cooperative
    5× · 2020–2024 · $1.8M
  • OPENCOLLECTIVE FOUNDATION
    3× · 2021–2023 · $337k · revenue -100%
  • CD
    CENTRO DE TRABAJADORES UNIDOS
    2× · 2021–2023 · $179k · revenue +433%

Funded once

  • UG
    URBAN GROWERS COLLECTIVE INC
    one grant, 2021 · $99k · revenue +6%
  • ES
    EIGHTEENTH STREET DEVELOPMENT CORP
    one grant, 2021 · $72k · revenue +69%
  • B1
    BYP 100 Chicago
    one grant, 2021 · $56k

Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Your field

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.

1
Green Chicago Restaurant Coalition

Green Chicago Restaurant Coalition's Guaranteed Green Sustainability Education Program educates foodservice operators about assessing the present state of their operation's environmental sustainability and helps them to develop a plan to…

2
Chicago's Green City Market Program

Green city market is securing the future of food by deepening support for sustainable farmers, educating our community, and expanding access to locally-grown food.

Food & Nutrition
3
South East Chicago Commission

SECC collaborates with other University of Chicago businesses and organizations to foster a spirit of community and to enhance ongoing quality of life across neighborhoods it serves

4
Growing Home Inc

Growing home is a nonprofit usda-certified organic farm and workforce development center, serving the greater englewood community of chicago through innovative paid employment training and nutritious, affordable produce. we believe…

Employment
5
Latino Union of Chicago

Latino Union works to defend the rights and dignity of contingent workers, including the right to immigrate, work, live free of oppression and violence, and provide for oneself and one's family.

Human Services
6
Co-Op Ed Center Nfp

The CO-OP ED Center NFP is an organization committed to building democratic worker-owned businesses in Chicagoland that contribute to a strong local economy and invest in community development. Its a purpose is to train, develop and…

Employment
7
Angelic Organics Learning Center Inc

At farmers rising, we lift up the people doing local and regenerative farming.

Food & Nutrition
8
Local Economic and Employment Development Council Inc

North Branch Works is a membership-supported nonprofit neighborhood organization that for more than three decades has promoted balanced, job-creating economic development along the North Branch of the Chicago River.

Employment
9
Chicago United for Equity

Connecting and amplifying the power of individuals to build a just, equitable, and inclusive city.

Civil Rights
10
Industrial Council of Nearwest Chicago

Strengthen companies in the kinzie industrial corridor and facilitate economic and community development by providing services and incubator space.

11
Greater Southwest Development Corp

The greater southwest development corporation is the catalyst for creating and maintaining a vital greater southwest chicago community. empowering, building, and sustaining development raises the quality of life for our neighborhood…

Community Improvement
12
Chicago Workers' Collaborative Nfp

Chicago Workers' Collaborative's mission is to promote full employment and equality for the lowest wage-earners, primarily temporary staffing workers, in the Chicago region through leadership and skills training, critical assistance and…

Education

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is American Indian Center and the most unlike its peers is West Michigan Sustainable Business Forum. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

04the grantee network

16 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 20172025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 16 of the 31 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.

1
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
6
Early backer (in before they grew)
14/16
Grantees still filing
9/16
Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

ChiFresh Kitchen Cooperative — $1,825,913 · OtherChiFresh Kitchen CooperativeFood Hero L3C — $101,540 · Other+19 more — $734,979 · Other+19 moreOPENCOLLECTIVE FOUNDATION — $336,500 · PhilanthropyOPENCOLLEC…URBAN GROWERS COLLECTIVE INC — $98,600 · Food & NutritionGROW GREATER ENGLEWOOD INC — $47,500 · Food & NutritionAdelante Center for Entrepreneurship — $42,000 · Food & NutritionCULTIVATE KANSAS CITY INC — $8,000 · Food & NutritionCENTRO DE TRABAJADORES UNIDOS — $179,000 · Human ServicesNORTH LAWNDALE GREENING COMMITTEE — $80,000 · EnvironmentBLACK OAKS CENTER FOR SUSTAINABLE RENEWABLE LIVING — $30,000 · EnvironmentAMERICAN INDIAN CENTER — $40,000 · Arts & CultureKenwood Oakland Community Organization — $38,400 · Community Improvement
Other$2,662,432Philanthropy$336,500Food & Nutrition$196,100Human Services$179,000Environment$110,000Arts & Culture$40,000Community Improvement$38,400

Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10Mgrantee revenue →↑ your share of their budgetOPENCOLLECTIVE FOUNDATION — $336,500 over 3y, 1.6% of budgetURBAN GROWERS COLLECTIVE INC — $98,600 over 1y, 2.2% of budgetNORTH LAWNDALE GREENING COMMITTEE — $80,000 over 1y, 50% of budgetGROW GREATER ENGLEWOOD INC — $47,500 over 1y, 1.9% of budgetSOUTHLAND DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY NFP — $40,000 over 1y, 1.2% of budgetKenwood Oakland Community Organization — $38,400 over 1y, 1.6% of budgetBLACK OAKS CENTER FOR SUSTAINABLE RENEWABLE LIVING — $30,000 over 1y, 2.4% of budgetLatin Center — $20,000 over 1y, 1.3% of budgetHOUSING HELPERS INC — $20,000 over 1y, 1.5% of budgetPUERTO RICAN CULTURAL CENTER — $16,000 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetWEST MICHIGAN SUSTAINABLE BUSINESS FORUM — $8,000 over 1y, 0.9% of budgetCULTIVATE KANSAS CITY INC — $8,000 over 1y, 0.4% of budget
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.

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.

ForefrontIL28.1× affinity11 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Forefront · The Chicago Community Trust · United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc · Greater Chicago Food Depository · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · Grand Victoria Foundation · Field Foundation of Illinois · Women's Business Development Center · Paypal Charitable Giving Fund · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation 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 Chicago Food Policy Action Council 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.

2024
202122232425
no gov · 00%4%15%34%60%your share of their income ↑0%25%50%75%100%share of the org’s income from government
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    8report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    typical government reliance, FY2025

    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.

    05Through Plinth

    Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

    How do I get to Chicago Food Policy Action Council?

    Find your warmest path to Chicago Food Policy Action Council 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.

    On method. Every financial figure here is read directly from IRS e-file XML — your own 990/990-PF and the multi-year returns of the 31 grantees we resolved across every year we hold, several hundred filings in all (a different count from the grant rows on the cover, which are one fiscal year)— each linked to its source. Grantee achievements and outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III); we read these as association with sustained funding — the foundation is one of several forces — suppress low-confidence name matches rather than guess, and say so where a figure rests on a single grant or filing. Not everything on this page is a filed figure, and the difference matters. Filed is what you reported on your 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. How we build these →

    Generated from your IRS Form 990 e-file return for fiscal year 2024, released 2024. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

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