· Public charity
Chicago Media Project
To impact society through the powerful tools of media and film.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 2 grants below total $40,000 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $90,586 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $50,586 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.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| THE STRIKE SVFF FILM | $30,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 16%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 82% of your 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.
9 repeat relationships — 0 still active in FY2024, 9 since wound down; 2 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, 0% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $40k 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
- CFCatapult Film Fund4× · 2019–2023 · $35k · revenue +46%
- SGSHINE GLOBAL INC2× · 2019–2020 · $20k · revenue +103%
- PNPoints North Institute2× · 2018–2019 · $12k · revenue +153%
Funded once
- KDKNOCK DOWN THE HOUSE LLCone grant, 2019 · $100k
- UFUTAH FILM CENTERgraduatedone grant, 2018 · $66k · revenue +128%
- OSONE STORY UPone grant, 2022 · $62k
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.
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For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Center for Independent Documentary Inc and the most unlike its peers is Lower Depth Theatre Ensemble. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
19 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. 19 of the 42 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 Sundance Institute ↗
- Who funds UTAH FILM CENTER ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN DOCUMENTARY INC ↗
- Who funds HOT DOCS FOUNDATION USA INC ↗
- Who funds Catapult Film Fund ↗
- Who funds WOMEN MAKE MOVIES INC ↗
- Who funds STORYLINE INC ↗
- Who funds Mezcla Media Collective LTD ↗
- Who funds PRINCIPE PRODUCTIONS INC ↗
- Who funds SHINE GLOBAL INC ↗
- Who funds FILM INDEPENDENT ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO PUBLIC MEDIA INC ↗
- Who funds Points North Institute ↗
- Who funds WESTCHESTER INSTITUTE FOR HUMAN DEVELOPMENT ↗
- Who funds THE CENTER FOR INDEPENDENT DOCUMENTARY INC ↗
- Who funds ELTON JOHN AIDS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds KARTEMQUIN EDUCATIONAL FILMS ↗
- Who funds TALLGRASS EDUCATIONAL FILMS CO JOSEPH WINSTON ↗
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: Sundance Institute · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · Catapult Film Fund · Perspective Media Initiatives Inc · The Ford Foundation · Silicon Valley Community Foundation · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · 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 Media Project 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.
- The Center for Independent Documentary Inc — 6% of income from government
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.