How much did EDWARD S SPRAGUE FOUNDATION grant in FY2025?

A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 53% of EDWARD S SPRAGUE FOUNDATION’s grantee dollars go to organizations outside the IRS cause taxonomy (common for large international and research funders), so a chart would be mostly “unclassified” and misrepresent the portfolio.

02beneath the categories

Past the labels — and the year it shifted

Beneath the NTEE codes, this is what the grant descriptions actually say.

…and in their own words, year by year

2019

homlesseducation disabledchildrensdisease researchresearch advocacyshelter

2020

homlesseducation disabledresearchenvironmental protectionchildrensshelter

2021

homlesseducation disabledchildrensresearchenvironmental protectionshelter

2022

—

2023

childrenseducation disabledenvironmental protectionchicagohomelessresearchshelter

2024

—

2025

healthenvironmental

Words distinctive to each year’s grant purposes (TF-IDF) · event-driven terms in cyan.

03FY2025 · 11 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k2 grants · $6k
$10k–50k9 grants · $93k

$10,000

Median grant

States reached

$4.9M

Total assets

Largest grants

ALPHONSUS ACADEMY & CENTER FOR THE ARTS$13,042
BERNIES BOOK BANK$10,000
WORLD WILDLIFE FUND$10,000
SIERRA CLUB$10,000
FOUNDATION FOR THE NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH$10,000
ASSOCIATION HOUSE$10,000
DEBORAH'S PLACE$10,000
BOUNCE CHILDREN'S FOUNDATION$10,000
MIDTOWN EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION$10,000
NOURSHING HOPE$5,000
DEPAUL COLLEGE PREP$1,200

02The need

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.

show:

Your human-services grants (FY19–23, $80k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14% — the area typically sits at 10%. 100% of those dollars reach neighborhoods with above-average need. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in 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, United Way ALICE — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.

03Your edge

repeat funding

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.

85%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.

$576k · 22 repeat orgs$100k to everyone else

22 repeat relationships — 7 still active in FY2025, 15 since wound down; 4 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$576k

$65k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+46%

+306%

Still filing today

41%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 65% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $35k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

EducationHousing & ShelterHuman ServicesHealthYouth DevelopmentEmploymentOther

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

LH
LYDIA HOME ASSOCIATION
4× · 2019–2023 · $40k · revenue +231%
AH
ASSOCIATION HOUSE OF CHICAGO
4× · 2019–2023 · $40k · revenue +59%
FO
FRIENDS OF BURLEY
3× · 2018–2020 · $30k · revenue +17%

Funded once

RA
ROBERT A REUMOND FOUNDATION
one grant, 2019 · $10k
TH
THE HADELY SCHOOL FOR THE BLIND
one grant, 2023 · $10k
FO
FRIENDS OF BURELY
one grant, 2022 · $10k

Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Your field

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.

Cunningham Childrens Home of Urbana Il

Provide therapeutic services to youth in educational, community, & residential care settings.

Human Services

Children's Home & Aid Society of Ill

We advance the well-being of children by investing in families to disrupt the systemic and multi-generational cycle of racial, social, and economic inequity.

Human Services

Homeward Bound Inc

Provide innovative, life- enriching services for individuals with disabilities.

Human Services

Children's Bureau Inc

Empowering individuals to build stronger families and communities.

Human Services

Arbor Research Collaborative for

To improve patient care through research that shapes medical policies and practice.

Health

Global Fund for Children

To advance the rights and opportunities of children and youth worldwide.

Arts & Culture

A Better Chicago

A better chicago is changing how chicago fights poverty by investing in bold ideas that create opportunity for our youth

Human Services

Children's Home and Aid Society Foundati

To provide financial and other support to the children's home and aid society of illinois, doing business as (dba): brightpoint.

Human Services

School Boards for Academic Excellence

To restore academic excellence and parental rights in the american education system by building a national network of state-based organizations and school board members dedicated to reforming policies and practices that improve student…

Civil Rights

The Berkeley School

A preschool-8th grade independent school whose mission is to ignite curious minds, awaken generous hearts, and engage a changing world.

—

Big Brothers-Big Sisters of Metropolitan

Create and support one-to-one mentoring relationships that ignite and empower the promise of youth.

—

Massachusetts Affordable Housing

Massachusetts affordable housing alliance, inc. (maha) breaks down barriers facing first-time and first-generation home buyers and owners through education, counseling, advocacy, and grassroots organizing.

Housing & Shelter

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Connections for the Homeless Inc and the most unlike its peers is Foundation for the National Institutes of Health Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

05the grantee network

12 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2017–2025.

Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

11/12

Grantees still filing

10/12

Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

Other$359,636Human Services$80,000Education$77,621Housing & Shelter$46,200Youth Development$40,230Employment$29,000Health$28,000Environment$15,000

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.

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.

The Chicago Community TrustIL16× affinity6 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: The Chicago Community Trust · AbbVie Foundation · Wp & Hb White Foundation · Polk Bros Foundation Inc · Circle of Service Foundation · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Donor Advised Charitable Giving 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 organisation EDWARD S SPRAGUE 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.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

1get no government money at all

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–75%

typical government reliance, FY20–24

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. 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.

05Through Plinth

Through Plinth

Your grantmaking, live and operational

This dossier was generated cold from public filings. In Plinth it’s a working system — every applicant assessed and every grant monitored. Here’s a taste, run on one of your grantees: FRIENDS OF BURLEY.

Agentic due diligence · confidence × risk

Financial management

low risk

~17 months of operating runway; revenue grew over 7 filed years.

Track record & reputation

low risk

7 years of Form 990 filings, still active.

Legal standing

low risk

US 501(c)(3); EIN 030539914 on file with current IRS Form 990 filings.

Governance

Live in Plinth

Board composition & governance documents — verified live in Plinth from the applicant.

Compliance & sanctions

Live in Plinth

OFAC / UN sanctions screening — run live in Plinth at assessment.

Program capacity

Live in Plinth

Staffing, M&E and activity alignment — assessed live in Plinth from submitted proposals.

Live · Plinth’s real DD engine

Run the actual assessment on FRIENDS OF BURLEY, cold from public data.

Generated live from public IRS filings + open web sources by Plinth’s agentic engine. Shown as an illustration of the product, not a formal assessment.

Post-award monitoring · continuous checks

On trackFinancial stability— Roughly 17 months of cash on hand.
On trackSustained operations— Filing through 2024; revenue grew over the period.
On trackReliance on your funding— Your grants peaked at 6% of their budget — diversified.
Awaiting reportEvidence of delivery— Plinth collects the grantee's own monitoring reports post-award.

What you see here is static and public. In Plinth it’s operational — the full six-pillar framework on every applicant (with their own documents + live registry and sanctions checks), monitoring dashboards on every award, custom board reports, and eligibility routing for intake.

Agentic due diligenceMonitoring dashboardsCustom board reportsEligibility routing

Preview generated from this grantee’s public IRS filings and independent reporting. Pillars marked “live in Plinth” require the applicant’s submitted documents. Shown as illustration, not a formal assessment.

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPro

How do I get to Edward S Sprague Foundation?

Find your warmest path to Edward S Sprague Foundation through people who sit on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the introduction across shared trustees and officers.

Every link is a documented governance overlap in public IRS 990 filings — not a personal network — and each hop carries its own confidence tier. Low-confidence or distant paths are held back rather than guessed.

EDWARD S SPRAGUE FOUNDATION

What you funded, over time

Past the labels — and the year it shifted

Where the money goes

Do your dollars go where the need is?

Who you back again

Backed again, and grew

Funded once

12 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2017–2025.

Government reliance of your grantees

Your grantmaking, live and operational

How do I get to Edward S Sprague Foundation?

More from the funding graph

EDWARD S SPRAGUE FOUNDATION

What you funded, over time

Past the labels — and the year it shifted

Where the money goes

Do your dollars go where the need is?

Who you back again

Backed again, and grew

Funded once

12 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2017–2025.

Government reliance of your grantees

Your grantmaking, live and operational

How do I get to Edward S Sprague Foundation?

More from the funding graph