· Private foundation
Dr Petra and Owen Rissman 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.
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 $10k7 grants · $14k
- $10k–50k6 grants · $135k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $125k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY | $75,000 |
| NORTHWESTERN MEMORIAL FUND | $50,000 |
| DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS | $30,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO | $30,000 |
| UNICEF | $30,000 |
| LURIE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL | $25,000 |
| LYRIC OPERA | $10,000 |
| CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | $10,000 |
| HOLY SPIRIT MISSIONARY SISTERS | $2,500 |
| SWEETWATER SPECTRUM | $2,500 |
| MUSIC OF THE BAROQUE | $2,000 |
| SACRED HEART | $2,000 |
| HISTORIC PRESERVATION FOUNDATION | $2,000 |
| CHICAGO BOTANIC GARDEN | $1,500 |
| ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO | $1,100 |
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 (FY17–25, $13k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 40% 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.
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 +37% since the first grant, against +17% for the ones you funded once.
21 repeat relationships — 12 still active in FY2025, 9 since wound down; 3 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, 63% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $102k 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
MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC7× · 2017–2025 · $155k · revenue +98%
University of Chicago5× · 2020–2025 · $150k · revenue +52%- CSChicago Symphony Orchestra9× · 2017–2025 · $145k · revenue +58%
Funded once
- BRBRAIN RESEARCH FOUNDATIONgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $25k · revenue +32%
- MCMOTT CHILDRENS HOSPITALone grant, 2017 · $25k
- AFAMERICAN FRIENDS OF MAGEN DAVID ADOMone grant, 2023 · $15k · revenue -51%
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.
Our mission at the university of chicago medicine is to provide superior health care through rigorous research, innovative education, and comprehensive care and healing. in partnership with our colleagues, we pursue life-changing…
We are chicago's jesuit, catholic university - a diverse community seeking god in all things and working to expand knowledge in the service of humanity through learning, justice, and faith.
See Form 990, Part I, Line 1, Description of Organization Mission.
Ann & robert h. lurie children's hospital of chicago is dedicated to the health and well-being of all children. as the pediatric teaching facility for northwestern university feinberg school of medicine, this commitment drives us to be a…
The Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) is a world-renowned center for biological discovery and training that is notably affiliated with more than 60 Nobel Prize winners. Research is conducted by full-time faculty as well as hundreds of the…
Northwestern memorial healthcare is an integrated healthcare system, consisting of multiple hospitals (including northwestern memorial hospital, an academic medical center) and networks of physicians and healthcare professionals, where the…
The organization's mission is to educate students for creative occupations in diverse fields of arts and media.
The mission of mit is to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century.
Biu produces students who excel in the sciences, humanities, law, engineering, business & the arts.
Undergraduate, graduate, and professional education and research across a broad array of academic domains.
Education and Research
Uchicago medicine network, inc. supports and encourages health and human service by providing support, directly or indirectly to ingalls memorial hospital, the university of chicago medical center, and other related tax-exempt…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Chicago Horticultural Society and the most unlike its peers is Historic Pullman Foundation Dba Friends of Pullman. 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 67 years old; the field is 18. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 21% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% 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.
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 52 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 MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds University of Chicago ↗
- Who funds Chicago Symphony Orchestra ↗
- Who funds JEWISH UNITED FUND OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ↗
- Who funds Northwestern University ↗
- Who funds Endeavor Health Clinical Operations ↗
- Who funds JEWISH FEDERATION OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds TIDES FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds BRAIN RESEARCH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Lyric Opera of Chicago ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN FRIENDS OF MAGEN DAVID ADOM ↗
- Who funds UNITED STATES FUND FOR UNICEF ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds University of Michigan ↗
- Who funds Rush University Medical Center ↗
- Who funds SWEETWATER SPECTRUM INC ↗
- Who funds FAMILY SERVICE OF GLENCOE ↗
- Who funds BREAST CANCER PREVENTION PARTNERS ↗
- Who funds MUSIC OF THE BAROQUE ↗
- Who funds THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds HISTORIC PULLMAN FOUNDATION DBA FRIENDS OF PULLMAN ↗
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: Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · National Philanthropic Trust · 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 Dr Petra and Owen Rissman 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.