Skip to content
Plinth

· Public charity

Chicago Learning Exchange

The Chicago Learning Exchange (CLX) is a nonprofit organization that connects and supports our city's array of out-of-school time youth-focused organizations in order to prepare youth, youth workers, and our city for the future.

$34k
Granted FY2023
1
Grants FY2023
1
States reached
$15k
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 FY20182023.

Arts & Culture$146kEducation$35kCommunity Improvement$25kPublic Benefit$20kYouth Development$15kEmployment$12k
02FY2023 · 1 grant

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

The 1 grants below total $15,000 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $33,500 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $18,500 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.

$15,000
Median grant
1
States reached
$349k
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
Project Exploration$15,000
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 (FY18–19, $27k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, 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.

area typical 11%ChickTech: $15k → 12%Hyde Park Neighborhood Club: $12k → 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 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
The Chicago High School for the Arts

The chicago high school for the arts (chiarts) develops the next generation of diverse, artistically promising scholar-artists through intensive pre-professional training in the arts, combined with a comprehensive college preparatory…

Education
2
Students Run Chicago
Health
3
Chicago Center for Arts and Technology Inc

At chicat, we educate and inspire youth through no-cost arts and technology programs. we empower adults through no-cost job training programs that help them find sustainable employment. we elevate the talents of the community through…

Employment
4
Chicago Council on Science & Technology

The Chicago Council on Science and Technology's (C2ST) mission is to inspire and engage all segments of society about science and technology and their contributions to society.

Science & Tech
5
Chicago Votes

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,…

Civil Rights
6
Chicago City Theatre Company dba Joel Hall Dancers & Center

To enrich the lives of our community through dance education and performance while developing Chicago's native talent pool in a welcoming environment that celebrates multiculturalism & ethnic diversity.

Arts & Culture
7
Chicago Center for Urban Life and Culture

The chicago center for urban life and culture equips college students and other participants to learn from diverse urban communities through innovative programs, seminars, and internships. the chicago center expands the traditional…

Education
8
Chicago Children's Museum

Chicago childrens museum is a place where families and caregivers with infants and children are encouraged to create, explore, and discover together through play. the museum features three vibrant floors of exhibits and activities that…

Arts & Culture
9
Chicago Youth Programs Inc

Tutoring and mentoring programs for inner city youth.

10
Chicago Cultural Performing Arts and Media Allianc

To provide outreach services and resources

Arts & Culture
11
A Better Chicago

A better chicago is changing how chicago fights poverty by investing in bold ideas that create opportunity for our youth.

Human Services
12
Chicago United

To achieve parity in economic opportunity for people of color by advancing multiracial leadership in corporate governance, expanding the talent pipline for executive-level management, and growing minority businesses.

Philanthropy

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Mikva Challenge Grant Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Project Exploration. 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

10 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. 10 of the 12 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.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
4
Early backer (in before they grew)
10/10
Grantees still filing
7/10
Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

COMMUNITY TELEVISION NETWORK INC — $70,000 · Arts & CultureCOMMUNITY TELEVISION NETWORK INCNATIONAL MUSEUM OF MEXICAN ART FKA MEXICAN FINE ARTS CENTER MUSEUM — $46,490 · Arts & CultureNATIONAL MUSEUM OF MEXICAN ART FKA MEXICAN FINE ARTS CENTER MUSEUMURBAN GATEWAYS — $20,000 · Arts & CultureURBAN GATEWAYSPROJECT EXPLORATION — $15,000 · Arts & CulturePROJECT EXPLORATIONNERDY MEDIA1 — $15,000 · OtherNERDY MEDIA1Chicago Architecture Foundation — $12,500 · OtherChicago Archite…Latin Center — $7,500 · OtherLatin CenterColumbia College Chicago — $15,000 · EducationColumbia Col…MIKVA CHALLENGE GRANT FOUNDATION — $12,500 · EducationMIKVA CHALLE…ChickTech — $15,000 · Human ServicesChickTechHYDE PARK NEIGHBORHOOD CLUB — $12,300 · Human ServicesHYDE PARK NE…Resilience Partners NFP — $12,500 · Community Improvement
Arts & Culture$151,490Other$35,000Education$27,500Human Services$27,300Community Improvement$12,500

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

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ your share of their budgetCOMMUNITY TELEVISION NETWORK INC — $70,000 over 4y, 7.8% of budgetNATIONAL MUSEUM OF MEXICAN ART FKA MEXICAN FINE ARTS CENTER MUSEUM — $46,490 over 3y, 0.4% of budgetURBAN GATEWAYS — $20,000 over 1y, 0.9% of budgetPROJECT EXPLORATION — $15,000 over 1y, 1.2% of budgetColumbia College Chicago — $15,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetChickTech — $15,000 over 1y, 1.6% of budgetMIKVA CHALLENGE GRANT FOUNDATION — $12,500 over 1y, 0.3% of budgetHYDE PARK NEIGHBORHOOD CLUB — $12,300 over 1y, 1.3% of budgetLatin Center — $7,500 over 1y, 0.7% 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.

The Chicago Community TrustIL19.3× affinity8 shared granteesties to 8 of 8Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: The Chicago Community Trust · United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving 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 Learning Exchange 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 · 10%1%3%6%10%your share of their income ↑0%4%8%11%15%share of the org’s income from government
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    1get no government money at all
    6report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–15%
    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.

    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 12 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 2023, released 2023. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Possibly out of date. A more recent filing (FY2025) is on record and reports $15k of grant expense, but none of it to a named recipient. On a Form 990 that can mean grants abroad, filed by region only (Schedule F), grants under $5,000, which are not itemized, or a schedule referenced as an attachment the e-file does not carry. The figures above are therefore from FY2023, the most recent year this funder named its grantees.

    Source object · view filing

    More from the funding graph