· Private foundation
Franklin Square 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 $10k2 grants · $13k
- $10k–50k12 grants · $210k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| YOUNG CENTER FOR IMMIGRANT | $35,000 |
| NORTHLIGHT THEATRE | $25,000 |
| MCGAW YMCA | $25,000 |
| JAMES B MORAN CTR YOUTH ADVOCACY | $20,000 |
| THE WILD CENTER | $20,000 |
| ETHS FOUNDATION | $15,000 |
| HEART TO HEART | $15,000 |
| WESTFIELD FRIENDS SCHOOL | $15,000 |
| RAILS TO TRAILS CONSERVANCY | $10,000 |
| WELLSPRING CENTER FOR PREVENTION | $10,000 |
| COOL LEARNING EXPERIENCE | $10,000 |
| AMY'S KISSES FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| RAINEY DAY COLLEGE FOUNDATION | $7,500 |
| SEEKHEALTING | $5,000 |
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 (FY17–24, $165k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 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.
Which US states your grants reach
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.
25 repeat relationships — 8 still active in FY2024, 17 since wound down; 6 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, 70% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $68k 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
- BABOOKS AND BREAKFAST6× · 2017–2023 · $130k · revenue +493%
- YMYoung Mens Christian Assoc McGaw Inc5× · 2018–2024 · $125k · revenue +1%
- NHNATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM OF THE ADIRONDACKS6× · 2018–2024 · $125k · revenue +43%
Funded once
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2017 · $40k
- YYOUone grant, 2017 · $25k
- MWMETRO WILMINGTON URBAN LEAGUEone grant, 2019 · $20k
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.
To expand equitable health care and healthy living in Cook County and champion solutions through funding, education and advocacy.
To support not for profit organizations in innovation, excellence and leadership in their communities.
North Branch Works is a membership-supported nonprofit neighborhood organization that for more than three decades has promoted balanced, job-creating economic development along the North Branch of the Chicago River.
To provide alternative programs for educating youth in communities located on the West side of Chicago.
To enhance the quality of life for children and families by inspiring hope and empowerment and growth within all whom we serve.
CEC works with diverse stakeholders across Detroit to develop critical resources and system-level solutions that address common challenges faced by Detroit families in accessing quality education.
Lawndale is a multidisciplinary contemporary art center that engages Houston communities with exhibitions and programs that explore the aesthetic, critical, and social issues of our time.See Schedule O for continuation.For over 40 years,…
Chicago childrens museum is a place where families and caregivers with infants and children are encouraged to create, explore, and discover together through play. the museum features three vibrant floors of exhibits and activities that…
A better chicago is changing how chicago fights poverty by investing in bold ideas that create opportunity for our youth.
Chicago Free School provides pre-kindergarten through 8th grade instruction and support activities. The faculty consists of qualified indiviuals with the appropriate education and experiende to provide students with the education that…
The Chicago Cultural Alliances mission is to connect, promote, and support centers of cultural heritage for a more inclusive Chicago. We are an active consortium of 50 cultural heritage museums, centers, and historical societies that…
Children's advocates for change was organized to improve the lives of children in illinois by bringing about significant changes public policies and programs for children through research, policy analysis and advocacy, public education and…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is North Shore Senior Center and the most unlike its peers is Cool Learning Experience. 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 27 years old; the field is 20. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 18% startups (under 5 years old) — 13% of your grantees by number, and just 12% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 12% 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.
20 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. 20 of the 45 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 BOOKS AND BREAKFAST ↗
- Who funds Young Mens Christian Assoc McGaw Inc ↗
- Who funds NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM OF THE ADIRONDACKS ↗
- Who funds STUDENT LOAN FUND INC ↗
- Who funds HOLY FAMILY MINISTRIES ↗
- Who funds NORTHLIGHT THEATRE INC ↗
- Who funds Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation ↗
- Who funds LIFELONG ACCESS ↗
- Who funds COOL LEARNING EXPERIENCE ↗
- Who funds LA CASA NORTE ↗
- Who funds FAITH IN PLACE ↗
- Who funds CAMP STARFISH INC ↗
- Who funds Ragdale Foundation ↗
- Who funds EVANSTON TOWNSHIP HIGH SCHOOL DISTRICT 202 ED FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds O LEAGUE ↗
- Who funds RAILS TO TRAILS CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL COUNCIL ON ALCOHOLISM AND DRUG DEPENDENCE OF MIDDLESEX COUNTY ↗
- Who funds NORTH SHORE SENIOR CENTER ↗
- Who funds CAMP OF DREAMS ↗
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: The Chicago Community Trust · Evanston Community Foundation · Lewis-Sebring Family Foundation · Northwestern University · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · American Endowment Foundation · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · National Philanthropic Trust · The Pfizer Foundation Inc · 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 organization Franklin Square 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.
- O League — 49% of income from government
- Camp Starfish Inc — 18% 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.