· Private foundation
Comer Science & Education Foundation
Its FY2024 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
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.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k4 grants · $12k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $15k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $215k
- $250k+2 grants · $600k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| GARY COMER YOUTH CENTER | $300,000 |
| NETWORK FOR YOUNG ADULT SUCCESS | $300,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF MAINE SYSTEM | $147,879 |
| SOUTH SHORE DRILL TEAM | $66,667 |
| CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL FOUNDATION | $15,000 |
| CHAMPS MALE MENTORING | $5,000 |
| OPERATION NEIGHBORHOOD SAFETY | $5,000 |
| DO FOR SELF COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION | $1,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT CHICAGO | $1,000 |
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.
Your human-services grants (FY17–21, $159k) land where the poverty rate runs at 8%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 5% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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.
24 repeat relationships — 7 still active in FY2024, 17 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, 82% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $149k 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
- GCGARY COMER YOUTH CENTER INC7× · 2017–2024 · $13M · revenue +88% · 52% of their budget
- NFNetwork For Young Adult Success6× · 2019–2024 · $2.3M · revenue +75% · 65% of their budget
- NNNOBLE NETWORK OF CHARTER SCHOOLS3× · 2017–2019 · $367k · revenue +47%
Funded once
- BIBITWISE INDUSTRIES INCone grant, 2023 · $2.4M
- HFHABITAT FOR HUMANITYone grant, 2022 · $646k
- EAEMBRACE AND SHIFT INCone grant, 2021 · $150k · revenue -85% · 45% of their budget
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.
The Chicago School educates the next generation of change-makers in innovative theory and culturally competent practice to strengthen the integrated health of individuals, organizations, and communities.
Chicago scholars is transforming the leadership landscape of our city by resolving the fundamental barriers to success for academically driven, first generation college students from under-resourced communities.
To inspire and prepare young people to succeed in a global economy
Thrive chicago's mission is to prepare chicago's youth for a vibrant future by aligning efforts and outcomes from cradle to career.
To provide high-quality early learning and out-of-school time enrichment in under-resourced neighborhoods to holistically support children of all ages, their families, and their communities.
To Prepare Students for Success in Four-Year Colleges.
A better chicago is changing how chicago fights poverty by investing in bold ideas that create opportunity for our youth.
The chicagoland chamber of commerce combines the power of people, with our legacy of leadership and business advocacy, to drive a dynamic economy. we focus on delivering value for our members, making chicagoland a world-class place to live…
To equip all students in grades six through twelve with the academic skills, intellectual habits and character traits to succeed in the college of their choice, strenghten their communities and change the world.
The team at kipp chicago schools is guided by a simple, yet powerful mission: to create a network of excellent schools in chicago that teach our students the character and academic skills necessary to succeed in college and beyond, and to…
The Chicago School educates the next generation of change-makers in innovative theory and culturally competent practice to strengthen the integrated health of individuals, organizations, and communities.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Gary Comer Youth Center Inc and the most unlike its peers is Embrace and Shift Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 27 years old; the field is 20. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 18% startups (under 5 years old) — 13% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 12% 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.
28 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. 28 of the 56 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 GARY COMER YOUTH CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds Network For Young Adult Success ↗
- Who funds THE TRUSTEES OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK ↗
- Who funds NOBLE NETWORK OF CHARTER SCHOOLS ↗
- Who funds EMBRACE AND SHIFT INC ↗
- Who funds BERKELEY GEOCHRONOLOGY CENTER ↗
- Who funds HABITAT FOR HUMANITY CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds Northwestern University ↗
- Who funds THE CENTRAL HIGH SCHOOL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds TEENS TAKE ON CLIMATE INC ↗
- Who funds CHAMPS MALE MENTORING PROGRAM - CHIRISE ↗
- Who funds The YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO COOK WORKFORCE PARTNERSHIP ↗
- Who funds LADDER UP (F/K/A CITY-WIDE TAX ASSISTANCE PROGRAM) ↗
- Who funds LEADERSHIP GREATER CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds The Cara Program ↗
- Who funds XCHANGE CHICAGO INC ↗
- Who funds THE MORGRIDGE INSTITUTE FOR RESEARCH INC ↗
- Who funds Teach for America Inc ↗
- Who funds THE CHICAGO COUNCIL ON GLOBAL AFFAIRS ↗
- Who funds La Rabida Children's Hospital ↗
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: The Chicago Community Trust · Robert R McCormick Foundation · Motorola Solutions Foundation · Fifth Third Chicagoland Foundation · Polk Bros Foundation Inc · Circle of Service Foundation · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · Silicon Valley Community Foundation · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Charities Aid Foundation America · National Philanthropic Trust
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 Comer Science & Education Foundation 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Comer Science & Education Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Comer Science & Education Foundation 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.