Illinois · Private foundation
Ernest Wentcher Educational Fund
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
- $3.0M
- Granted FY2025(still arriving)
- 96
- Grants FY2025
- 99
- Organizations funded FY2024
- 9%
- First-time grantees FY2024
- Median grant, FY2025
- $10,000
- Largest grant, FY2025
- $473,652
- Organizations funded a year
- 68 to 109
- FY2018 to FY2024
- States reached, FY2025
- 28
- Total assets, FY2025
- $69M
- Applications
- Takes unsolicited applications
- Per its most recent filing; check its own site
How open it is to new grantees
In FY2024, 9% of the organizations Ernest Wentcher Educational Fund funded were first-time grantees, receiving 2% of its grant dollars.
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2024, 98% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $62k went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
How this is measured
The numbers by year
| Fiscal year | Organizations funded | To those organizations | First-time grantees |
|---|---|---|---|
| FY2025still arriving | 87 | $2.8M | 10% |
| FY2024 | 99 | $2.9M | 9% |
| FY2023 | 109 | $2.8M | 14% |
| FY2022 | 107 | $2.7M | 26% |
| FY2021 | 99 | $2.5M | 18% |
| FY2020 | 89 | $2.5M | 25% |
| FY2019 | 80 | $2.2M | 33% |
| FY2018 | 68 | $1.8M | 21% |
What it funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.
Where its grants go
Grant dollars by states, across the years we hold.
Which US states its grants reach
Top grantees
Largest recipients by total granted, FY2017 to FY2025, and the share of each one’s budget the grants supplied at peak.
| Grantee | Total granted | Years | Share of their budget |
|---|---|---|---|
| University of Michigan | $1,285,012 | 9 | 58% |
| Depaul University | $1,083,296 | 9 | 0% |
| Loyola University of Chicago | $649,836 | 9 | 0% |
| The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois | $529,413 | 3 | n/a |
| Northwestern University | $506,016 | 8 | 0% |
| Cornell University | $498,337 | 7 | 0% |
| The Howard University | $492,409 | 9 | 0% |
| Illinois Institute of Technology | $347,187 | 5 | 0% |
| Emory University | $333,165 | 9 | 0% |
| University of Chicago | $301,513 | 9 | 0% |
Show all 128 grantees
What it could do for these grantees
Plus 85 recipients with no EIN on record ($9.1M), not named here.
Where it is load-bearing
Ernest Wentcher Educational Fund supplied at least a quarter of the budget for 1 of its grantees at some point. The chart plots its 115 largest grantees; load-bearing ones sit top left.
Tap a dot to name the grantee.
How this is measured
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.
Open a dossier: Marquette Bank Education Foundation · Enterprise Holdings Foundation · AbbVie Foundation · The Chicago Community Trust · Dr Scholl Foundation · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · Sam & Mary Palumbo Family Foundation · Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Verizon Foundation · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Ibm International Foundation
How this is measured
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Ernest Wentcher Educational Fund?
Find your warmest path to Ernest Wentcher Educational Fund 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.
About Ernest Wentcher Educational Fund
- How much does Ernest Wentcher Educational Fund give?
- Ernest Wentcher Educational Fund reported 96 grants totaling $2,967,198 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 68 and 109 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.
- What does Ernest Wentcher Educational Fund fund?
- By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Education (91%), Health (6%), Recreation & Sports (2%).
- Who are Ernest Wentcher Educational Fund's largest grantees?
- By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: University of Michigan ($1.3M), Depaul University ($1.1M), Loyola University of Chicago ($650k).
- Does Ernest Wentcher Educational Fund fund new organizations?
- In FY2024, 9% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.
- Does Ernest Wentcher Educational Fund accept unsolicited applications?
- Its most recent filing reports that it accepts unsolicited grant applications.
- Which funders back the same organizations as Ernest Wentcher Educational Fund?
- Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Marquette Bank Education Foundation, Enterprise Holdings Foundation, AbbVie Foundation.
- Where is Ernest Wentcher Educational Fund based?
- Ernest Wentcher Educational Fund is based in IL.
Play a game based on Ernest Wentcher Educational’s filings →