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Foundation Dossiers

Illinois · Private foundation

Donald a & Verna M Peterson Foundation

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.

$25k
Granted FY2024(still arriving)
1
Grants FY2024
3
Organizations funded FY2023
0%
First-time grantees FY2023
Read the full brief
Median grant, FY2024
$25,000
Largest grant, FY2024
$25,000
Organizations funded a year
2 to 4
FY2017 to FY2023
States reached, FY2024
1
Total assets, FY2024
$207k
Applications
Preselected organizations only
Per its most recent filing; check its own site

How open it is to new grantees

In FY2023, 0% of the organizations Donald a & Verna M Peterson Foundation funded were first-time grantees, receiving 0% of its grant dollars.

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2023, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.

50%100%’18’20’21’22’23
RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

’18’20’21’22’23
AnimalsEnvironmentEducationHealthArts & CultureOther
How this is measured
First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). The earliest year is left-censored: relationships that predate the data read as new. Theme is the grantee’s IRS cause.
The numbers by year
Fiscal yearOrganizations fundedTo those organizationsFirst-time grantees
FY2024still arriving1$25k100%
FY20233$24k0%
FY20223$25k33%
FY20214$31k75%
FY20202$12k50%
FY20182$10k100%
FY20173$17kn/a
89% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2024.

Environment$45kAnimals$44kEducation$33kReligion$5kHealth$2kInternational$1kArts & Culture$1kOther$0

Top grantees

Largest recipients by total granted, FY2017 to FY2024, and the share of each one’s budget the grants supplied at peak.

GranteeTotal grantedYearsShare of their budget
Chicago Zoological Society$30,00030%
Natural Land Institute$25,00011%
The Morton Arboretum$20,00020%
Benedictine University$20,00020%
Hinsdale Humane Society$14,00021%
Beloit College$12,50010%
Rest Haven Illiana Christian Convalescent Home$2,00010%
Samaritan's Purse$1,00010%
Wright in Kankakee$1,00011%

Plus 2 recipients with no EIN on record ($18k), not named here.

Where it is load-bearing

Each grantee by its size and the share of its budget Donald a & Verna M Peterson Foundation supplied at peak.

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetChicago Zoological Society: $30,000 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetNatural Land Institute: $25,000 over 1y, 0.9% of budgetThe Morton Arboretum: $20,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetBenedictine University: $20,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetHinsdale Humane Society: $14,000 over 2y, 0.5% of budgetBeloit College: $12,500 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetRest Haven Illiana Christian Convalescent Home: $2,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetSamaritan's Purse: $1,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetWright in Kankakee: $1,000 over 1y, 0.5% of budget

Tap a dot to name the grantee.

How this is measured
Share of budget is the funder’s grant in a year over the grantee’s total revenue that year, at its highest across the years we hold; revenue is from all sources. Only grantees confirmed against their own filings, whose grants do not exceed their revenue, are plotted: the largest 9.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Donor Advised Charita…Amazonsmile Foundation
Donor Advised Charitable Giving IncCO7.5× affinity5 shared granteesties to 1 of 1Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Amazonsmile Foundation

How this is measured
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

Compare Donald a & Verna M Peterson Foundation with peer funders

About Donald a & Verna M Peterson Foundation

How much does Donald a & Verna M Peterson Foundation give?
Donald a & Verna M Peterson Foundation reported 1 grants totaling $25,000 in its FY2024 IRS filing. It funded between 2 and 4 organizations a year over FY2017 to FY2023.
What does Donald a & Verna M Peterson Foundation fund?
By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2024, its largest causes are Environment (31%), Animals (31%), Education (23%).
Who are Donald a & Verna M Peterson Foundation's largest grantees?
By total granted over FY2017 to FY2024: Chicago Zoological Society ($30k), Natural Land Institute ($25k), The Morton Arboretum ($20k).
Does Donald a & Verna M Peterson Foundation fund new organizations?
In FY2023, 0% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.
Does Donald a & Verna M Peterson Foundation accept unsolicited applications?
Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Which funders back the same organizations as Donald a & Verna M Peterson Foundation?
Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc, Amazonsmile Foundation.
Where is Donald a & Verna M Peterson Foundation based?
Donald a & Verna M Peterson Foundation is based in IL.

On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 11 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

How this is measured
Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its 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.

Generated from the IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2024, released 2024. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Possibly out of date. A more recent filing (FY2025) is on record but names no grant recipient in the published copy, so the figures above are from FY2024, the most recent year this funder’s grantee list reached the public record.

Source object · view filing

Play a game based on Donald a & Verna M Peterson’s filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions
grants reported with no recipient in the public record
The regranting layer
51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer
The DAF merry-go-round
$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds
The endowment market
who holds foundation money, and what just moved
The camps
funders cluster by geography, not ideology
By state
where grant money is based, and what stays home