· Private foundation
Ernest C & Marion R Karras Family 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 $10k9 grants · $23k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $28k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ST IAKOUOS RETREAT CENTER | $18,300 |
| BENET ACADEMY | $10,000 |
| HOLY APOSTLE CHURCH | $5,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS | $5,000 |
| ASSUMPTION CHURCH | $5,000 |
| NATIONAL HELLENIC MUSEUM | $2,500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $1,300 |
| IOCC | $1,250 |
| ST JOHN OF THE CROSS | $1,000 |
| ST JUDES | $1,000 |
| HOLY APOSTLES CHURCH | $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 (FY20–20, $1k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 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.
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.
16 repeat relationships — 9 still active in FY2024, 7 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, 88% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $6k 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
- TCTIMOTHY CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS6× · 2017–2023 · $22k · revenue +43%
Northwestern University4× · 2017–2021 · $4k · revenue +41%
ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INC5× · 2017–2024 · $3k · revenue +145%
Funded once
University of Illinois Foundationgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $5k · revenue +70%- UIUNIVERSITY IF ILLINOISone grant, 2023 · $5k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2018 · $3k
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 broad mission of the ASCSA has remained constant over its distinguished history: teaching research archaeological exploration publication and dissemination of research. Founded in 1881 the ASCSA provides graduate students and scholars…
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.
The organization's mission is to educate students for creative occupations in diverse fields of arts and media.
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…
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.
Provider of pediatric healthcare, education, research & community service
Achieving international impact through world-class research and education in fundamental computer science and information technology.
To deliver preeminent medical care and service to our patients and communities through outstanding and innovative medical leadership and practice, while participating in and supporting excellence in education and research. We achieve this…
College of the holy cross is a private, jesuit, catholic, liberal arts college (see schedule o).
The music institute of chicago ("music institute") leads people toward a lifelong engagement with music, by providing widely accessible resources for high quality music teaching, performing, and service activities.
We, loyola university health system and trinity health, serve together in the spirit of the gospel as a compassionate and transforming healing presence within our communities.lumc is a member of loyola university health system and trinity…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Art Institute of Chicago and the most unlike its peers is National Hellenic Museum. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
10 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. 10 of the 39 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 TIMOTHY CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS ↗
- Who funds National Hellenic Museum ↗
- Who funds University of Illinois Foundation ↗
- Who funds Northwestern University ↗
- Who funds ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INC ↗
- Who funds INT'L ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN CHARITIES INC ↗
- Who funds Chicago Symphony Orchestra ↗
- Who funds Hellenic Foundation ↗
- Who funds SHRINERS HOSPITALS FOR CHILDREN ↗
- Who funds THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO ↗
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 set of overlaps that mostly run through you, not between each other.
Open a dossier: Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund
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 Ernest C & Marion R Karras Family 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, a single department, or state — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Int'l Orthodox Christian Charities Inc — 7% of income from government
- Shriners Hospitals for Children — 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.
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How do I get to Ernest C & Marion R Karras Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Ernest C & Marion R Karras Family 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.