· Private foundation
Flowers for Dreams Foundation
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2021–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k16 grants · $62k
- $10k–50k8 grants · $129k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Individual grant recipient | $25,000 |
| COALITION TO SAVE OUR MENTAL HEALTH CENTERS | $18,708 |
| HOPE FOR THE DAY | $18,708 |
| CENTRO SANAR | $16,692 |
| THE NIGHT MINISTRY | $13,053 |
| GARDENEERS DBA CHICAGO GROWTH FOOD | $12,324 |
| GROWING HOME | $12,324 |
| GLOBAL GARDENS CHICAGO | $12,324 |
| Individual grant recipient | $9,550 |
| GRAND AVE CLUB | $7,951 |
| KEEP GROWING DETROIT | $6,472 |
| GOT GRIEF HOUSE | $6,411 |
| ILLINOIS COALITION FOR IMMIGRANT & REFUGEE RIGHTS | $5,400 |
| MICELLANEOUS ORGANIZED CHARITIES | $5,285 |
| COVENANT HOUSE ILLINOIS INC | $3,852 |
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 (FY22–25, $74k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 92% 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +49% since the first grant, against +7% for the ones you funded once.
10 repeat relationships — 5 still active in FY2025, 5 since wound down; 18 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, 14% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $165k 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
- GHGROWING HOME INC2× · 2021–2025 · $30k · revenue +47%
- CHCOVENANT HOUSE ILLINOIS INC2× · 2023–2025 · $16k · revenue +58%
KEEP GROWING DETROIT2× · 2022–2025 · $12k · revenue +81%
Funded once
- NNNAMI Nationalgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $71k · revenue +211%
A LONG WALK HOME INCgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $47k · revenue +118%- EFEVERYONE FOR GUN SAFETY SUPPORT FUNDone grant, 2023 · $42k
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.
Connecting and amplifying the power of individuals to build a just, equitable, and inclusive city.
Live Free Illinois is a statewide organization partnering with over 120 congregations and directly impacted individuals to build safer more equitable communities across Illinois. Operating at the intersection of criminal justice reform and…
The Chicago Refugee Coalition is a 501c3 non-profit organization dedicated ot the alleviation of human suffering through innovative partnerships, advocacy and community empowerment.
A better chicago is changing how chicago fights poverty by investing in bold ideas that create opportunity for our youth.
The Network is a group of 40+ member organizations dedicated to improving the lives of those impacted by gender-based violence through education, public policy and advocacy, and connecting community members with direct service providers.…
Chicago Coalition to End Homelessness (CCH) builds community power and advances racial equity through organizing, advocacy, legal assistance, and education to prevent and end homelessness because housing is a human right.
Latino Union works to defend the rights and dignity of contingent workers, including the right to immigrate, work, live free of oppression and violence, and provide for oneself and one's family.
Chicago Votes is a non-partisan, non-profit organization building a more inclusive democracy by putting power in the hands of young Chicagoans. We're engaging and developing a new generation of leaders by opening the doors of government,…
Chicago Workers' Collaborative's mission is to promote full employment and equality for the lowest wage-earners, primarily temporary staffing workers, in the Chicago region through leadership and skills training, critical assistance and…
Erie neighborhood house provides the most comprehensive support to immigrant and low-income families in chicago. our mission is to empower our communitylatinx immigrants alongside individuals and families of all backgroundsthrough…
Alternatives, inc.'s mission is to facilitate personal development,strengthen family relationships and enhance the community's well being. serving over 3,000 youth and families annually, the organization offers a range of counseling and…
Providing academic support to children experiencing homelessness in Chicago and providing resources and services to families experiencing homelessness in Chicago.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Alternatives for Girls and the most unlike its peers is Sharp Literacy Inc. 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 22 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 21% startups (under 5 years old) — 5% of your grantees by number, and just 4% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% lost their exemption, against 16% 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.
67 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. 67 of the 90 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 NAMI National ↗
- Who funds A LONG WALK HOME INC ↗
- Who funds Role Model Movement Inc (NFP) ↗
- Who funds Healing to Action ↗
- Who funds DIGS WITH DIGNITY CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds EMBARC INC ↗
- Who funds GROWING HOME INC ↗
- Who funds RAISE YOUR HAND FOR ILLINOIS PUBLIC EDUCATION ↗
- Who funds TFK Chicago Voyagers ↗
- Who funds Little Village Environmental Justice Org ↗
- Who funds PEOPLE FOR COMMUNITY RECOVERY ↗
- Who funds HOPE FOR THE DAY ↗
- Who funds By The Hand Club For Kids ↗
- Who funds URBAN GROWERS COLLECTIVE INC ↗
- Who funds CENTRO SANAR ↗
- Who funds COVENANT HOUSE ILLINOIS INC ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO WOMEN'S HEALTH CENTER ↗
- Who funds Chicago Learning Exchange ↗
- Who funds THE NIGHT MINISTRY ↗
- Who funds Gyrls In The HOOD Foundation ↗
- Who funds THE FREE ROOT OPERATION INC ↗
- Who funds KEEP GROWING DETROIT ↗
- Who funds FARMWORKER AND LANDSCAPER ADVOCACY PROJECT ↗
- Who funds BRAVE SPACE ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FIRST INC ↗
- Who funds VICTORY GARDEN INITIATIVE INC ↗
- Who funds ILLINOIS COALITION FOR IMMIGRANT AND REFUGEE RIGHTS ↗
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: Greater Milwaukee Foundation Inc · Polk Bros Foundation Inc · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · The Chicago Community Trust · United Way of Greater Milwaukee & Waukesha County Inc · Reva and David Logan Foundation · Chicago Foundation for Women · Circle of Service Foundation · Herbert H Kohl Charities Inc · Julian Grace Foundation · Crossroads Fund Inc · The Skillman 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 Flowers for Dreams 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.
- Cradles to Crayons Inc — 2% 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Flowers for Dreams Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Flowers for Dreams 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.