· Public charity
Chicago Foundation for Women
For forty years, cfw has been the only organization in the region to take a comprehensive approach to understand and address the challenges and needs women and girls face through every stage of their lives with a focus on it's four impact areas.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2018–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k47 grants · $171k
- $10k–50k133 grants · $2.4M
- $50k–250k4 grants · $248k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| TEAMWORK ENGLEWOOD | $82,500 |
| JANE ADDAMS RESOURCE CORPORATION | $60,000 |
| CHICAGO WOMEN IN TRADES | $55,000 |
| EVERTHRIVE ILLINOIS | $50,000 |
| LADIES OF VIRTUE | $45,000 |
| LOVE UNITY & VALUES (LUV) INSTITUTE | $45,000 |
| EQUAL HOPE | $43,000 |
| FAMILY RESCUE | $42,500 |
| ILLINOIS CAUCUS FOR ADOLESCENT HEALTH | $42,000 |
| HEARTLAND HUMAN CARE SERVICES | $40,000 |
| JANE ADDAMS RESOURCE CORPORATION | $37,500 |
| NATIONAL ASIAN PACIFIC AMERICAN WOMENS FORUM | $35,000 |
| GROW YOUR OWN TEACHERS | $35,000 |
| SOUTHSIDE CENTER OF HOPE | $34,300 |
| CHICAGO WOMEN IN TRADES | $32,500 |
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 (FY18–24, $4.5M) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 96% 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 +76% since the first grant, against +27% for the ones you funded once.
171 repeat relationships — 120 still active in FY2024, 51 since wound down; 27 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, 93% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $198k 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
- JAJANE ADDAMS RESOURCE CORPORATION9× · 2017–2025 · $646k · revenue +48%
- CWCHICAGO WOMEN IN TRADES9× · 2017–2025 · $589k · revenue +235%
- ACALL CHICAGO MAKING HOMELESSNESS HISTORY8× · 2017–2024 · $565k · revenue +639%
Funded once
- COCenter on Halstedgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $27k · revenue +46%
- NGNATURES GARDEN FOR VICTORY AND PEACE INC2× · 2023–2025 · $20k · revenue 0%
- MAMIDWEST ACCESS COALITIONgraduated2× · 2017–2023 · $20k · revenue ×47
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.
Seeks to address the traumas of police violence and institutionalized racism through access to healing and wellness services, trauma-informed resources, and community connection. The Center is a part of and supports a movement to end all…
The Chicago Refugee Coalition is a 501c3 non-profit organization dedicated ot the alleviation of human suffering through innovative partnerships, advocacy and community empowerment.
Injustice Watch is a Chicago-based nonprofit journalism organization that examines issues of equity and justice in the court system.
Serving recently arrived migrants and asylum seekers in the Chicagoland area and is committed to upholding the dignity and human rights of immigrants.
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,…
A better chicago is changing how chicago fights poverty by investing in bold ideas that create opportunity for our youth.
Chicago Coalition to End Homelessness (CCH) builds community power and advances racial equity through organizing, advocacy, legal assistance, and education to prevent and end homelessness because housing is a human right.
By engaging in cross-cultural exchange, community service, dialogue and friendship, IWA creates connections among people of diverse international backgrounds and works toward a more just and peaceful world.
Impact Grants Chicago connects, engages and inspires women to improve the community of Chicago by collectively funding $100,000 grants to Chicago nonprofits that are dedicated to addressing the challenges facing the city.
At legal aid chicago, we work together to provide high quality civil legal aid to people living in poverty and other vulnerable groups.through advocacy, education, collaboration, and litigation we empower individuals, protect fundamental…
In furtherance of its charitable and educational goals, the Network's activities consist primarily of providing educational opportunities for its members and the public on issues related to the advancement of women in the workplace. As the…
To strengthen communities through educational dialogue, leadership development, emotional resilience, and intercultural competence programs that help people bridge differences and build trust.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Chicago Women's Health Center and the most unlike its peers is The Roberti Community House. 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 26 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) — 7% of your grantees by number, and just 4% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 4% lost their exemption, against 16% 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.
307 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
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
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 JANE ADDAMS RESOURCE CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO WOMEN IN TRADES ↗
- Who funds ALL CHICAGO MAKING HOMELESSNESS HISTORY ↗
- Who funds FAMILY RESCUE INC ↗
- Who funds Teamwork Englewood Inc ↗
- Who funds Equal Hope ↗
- Who funds HEARTLAND HUMAN CARE SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds LADIES OF VIRTUE ↗
- Who funds ILLINOIS CAUCUS FOR ADOLESCENT HEALTH INC ↗
- Who funds EVERTHRIVE ILLINOIS ↗
- Who funds INDUSTRIAL COUNCIL OF NEARWEST CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds GROW YOUR OWN ILLINOIS ↗
- Who funds UPWARDLY GLOBAL ↗
- Who funds AFFINITY COMMUNITY SERVICES ↗
- Who funds LOVE UNITY & VALUES INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds KAN-WIN ↗
- Who funds CABRINI GREEN LEGAL AID ↗
- Who funds BETWEEN FRIENDS ↗
- Who funds THE ROGER BALDWIN FOUNDATION OF ACLU INC ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY ORGANIZING AND FAMILY ISSUES ↗
- Who funds APNA GHAR INC ↗
- Who funds SHRIVER CENTER ON POVERTY LAW ↗
- Who funds LIFE-SPAN ↗
- Who funds WOMEN EMPLOYED ↗
- Who funds LAKE COUNTY CRISIS CENTER ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL ABLE NETWORK INC ↗
- Who funds ALLIES FOR COMMUNITY BUSINESS INC ↗
- Who funds ARISE CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO FREEDOM SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds Jane Addams Senior Caucus ↗
- Who funds YWCA METROPOLITAN CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds YWCA EvanstonNorth Shore ↗
- Who funds Metropolitan Family Services ↗
- Who funds MUJERES LATINAS EN ACCION ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL ASIAN PACIFIC AMERICAN WOMEN'S FORUM ↗
- Who funds ASCEND JUSTICE ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO WOMEN'S HEALTH CENTER ↗
- Who funds RESILIENCE ↗
- Who funds SOUTHSIDE CENTER OF HOPE ↗
- Who funds Healing to Action ↗
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: United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc · Polk Bros Foundation Inc · Field Foundation of Illinois · Circle of Service Foundation · Forefront · Crossroads Fund Inc · Lloyd a Fry Foundation · Robert R McCormick Foundation · Michael Reese Health Trust · Arie and Ida Crown Memorial · Woods Fund of Chicago · Alphawood 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 Foundation for Women 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.