· Private foundation
Custom Cares Charities
Its FY2025 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 FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k30 grants · $22k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $65k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ISSA CHARITIES | $36,679 |
| INDIVIDUALS-DETAILS UPON REQUEST | $28,150 |
| OUR LADY OF PERPETUAL HELP | $5,500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $1,500 |
| THE VINEYARD CHURCH OF AURORA | $1,000 |
| VINEYARD AURORA LITTLE FOOD PANTRY | $1,000 |
| JUVINILE JUSTICE INITIATIVE | $750 |
| MOTHERS AGAINST DRUNK DRIVERS | $500 |
| AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY | $500 |
| AMERICAN RED CROSS | $500 |
| GIFT SCOUTS OF GREATER CHICAGO AND NORTHWEST INDIANA | $500 |
| AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION | $500 |
| RONALD MCDONALD HOUSE | $500 |
| NATIONAL MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS SOCIETY | $500 |
| STEP UP FOR KIDS | $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 (FY20–25, $67k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 100% 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 +54% since the first grant, against -17% for the ones you funded once.
12 repeat relationships — 5 still active in FY2025, 7 since wound down; 27 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (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 FY2025, 42% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $51k 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
- IGIndividual grant recipient7× · 2017–2023 · $147k
- SRST RITA OF CASCIA HIGH SCHOOL CORPORATION2× · 2019–2020 · $71k
- ENERIE NEIGHBORHOOD HOUSE2× · 2020–2025 · $66k · revenue +54%
Funded once
- AIADOG INCone grant, 2021 · $10k
- ASA SAFE HAVEN FOUNDATIONone grant, 2020 · $8k · revenue +7%
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2020 · $6k
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 GI Research Foundation works to treat, prevent, and cure digestive diseases. In collaboration with the physicians and scientists at the University of Chicago Digestive Diseases Center, we fund innovative clinical and laboratory…
Founded by Augie Nieto, Augies Quest to Cure ALS is the unwavering force driving breakthroughs in ALS research, defying limitations, and empowering hope for a future without this devastating disease.
The aids foundation of chicago mobilizes communities to create equity and justice for people living with and vulnerable to hiv and related chronic disease.
To provide initial research funding to brilliant, investigative scientists with new ideas to cure arthritis and related autoimmune diseases.
The organization's mission is to accelerate research efforts to improve diagnosis, to optimize treatment, and to cure multiple sclerosis.
To fund cystic fibrosis research, provide educational and personal support, and to spread awareness of cystic fibrosis, a life-threatening genetic disease.
The foundation for sarcoidosis research (fsr) is the leading international organization dedicated to finding a cure for sarcoidosis and improving care for sarcoidosis patients through research, education, and support. since its…
A better chicago is changing how chicago fights poverty by investing in bold ideas that create opportunity for our youth.
Cures Within Reach leverages the speed, safety and cost-effectiveness of testing approved therapies for new indications/diseases without effective treatment driving more treatments quicker to more patients.
The organization is a partnership of world leaders in als research and care focused on expediting breakthrough treatments and ultimately a cure for als while providing resources and equipment to those living with the disease now. the team…
To inspire and prepare young people to succeed in a global economy
Curesearch's mission is to fund & support targeted & innovative cancer research with measurable results, & to be the authoritative source of information & resources for all those affected by children's cancer. see schedule o for…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Make-a-Wish Foundation of Illinois Inc and the most unlike its peers is Radcliffe's Youth Sports Organization. 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 24 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 15% 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.
22 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. 22 of the 58 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 ERIE NEIGHBORHOOD HOUSE ↗
- Who funds ISSA Charities ↗
- Who funds A SAFE HAVEN FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds IN SEARCH OF A CURE ↗
- Who funds OLD IRVING PARK COMMUNITY CLINIC ↗
- Who funds RORY DAVID DEUTSCH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds WALTER & CONNIE PAYTON FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds RADCLIFFE'S YOUTH SPORTS ORGANIZATION ↗
- Who funds CROSS-LINES COMMUNITY OUTREACH INC ↗
- Who funds The Juvenile Justice Initiative Attn Elizabeth Clarke ↗
- Who funds JESSE WHITE FOUNDATION LTD ↗
- Who funds WOUNDED WARRIOR PROJECT INC ↗
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: AbbVie Foundation · Imc Chicago Charitable Foundation · The Chicago Community Trust · United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc · Motorola Solutions Foundation · Greater Horizons · Arthur J Gallagher Foundation · Charities Aid Foundation America · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · The Pfizer Foundation Inc
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 Custom Cares Charities 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.
- Wounded Warrior Project Inc — 0% 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Custom Cares Charities?
Find your warmest path to Custom Cares Charities 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.