How much does Gavlin Family Foundation give?

Gavlin Family Foundation reported 93 grants totaling $94,005 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 82 and 101 organizations a year over FY2020 to FY2024.

What does Gavlin Family Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2020 to FY2025, its largest causes are Health (18%), Arts & Culture (17%), Animals (9%).

Who are Gavlin Family Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2020 to FY2025: Queer Asterisk ($60k), Lincoln Park Zoological Society ($14k), Ada S McKinley Community Services Inc ($10k).

Does Gavlin Family Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 22% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Gavlin Family Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

Which funders back the same organizations as Gavlin Family Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation, Circle of Service Foundation, Field Foundation of Illinois.

Where is Gavlin Family Foundation based?

Gavlin Family Foundation is based in IL.

Gavlin Family Foundation

Gavlin Family Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

Gavlin Family Foundation

Its FY2025 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

$94k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$10k

Largest

01What it funds

0196% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2020 to 2025.

Health$90kArts & Culture$85kAnimals$45kHuman Services$38kFood & Nutrition$37kEducation$30kEnvironment$30kPhilanthropy$18kOther$0

02FY2025 · 93 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k92 grants · $84k
$10k–50k1 grant · $10k

$1,000

Median grant

States reached

$1.2M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
QUEER ASTERISK	$10,000
NATIONAL PARKS CONSERVATION ASSOC	$3,500
RELIGIOUS ACTION CENTER	$3,000
LAMBDA LEGAL	$3,000
COLORADO GIVES	$2,736
CHICAGOLAND EXOTIC ANIMAL RESCUE	$2,500
FOOD BANK OF THE ROCKIES	$2,500
WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN	$2,045
DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS	$2,000
LINCOLN PARK ZOO	$2,000
DENVER MUSEUM OF NATURE & SCIENCE	$1,534
WORLD WILDLIFE FUND	$1,505
CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA	$1,500
GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY	$1,500
ADA S MCKINLEY COMMUNITY SERVICES	$1,500

02The need

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Its human-services grants (FY20–25, $20k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

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

How this is measured

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.

Which US states its grants reach

How this is measured

US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

88%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$423k · 105 repeat orgs$58k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +28% since the first grant, against +16% for those funded once.

105 repeat relationships: 73 still active in FY2025, 32 since wound down; 19 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

105

Total granted

$423k

$44k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+28%

+16%

Still filing today

70%

42%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 86% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $13k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

Arts & CultureHealthEducationAnimalsHuman ServicesEnvironmentOther

How this is measured

First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

QA
QUEER ASTERISK
6× · 2020–2025 · $60k · revenue +174%
AS
ADA S MCKINLEY COMMUNITY SERVICES INC
5× · 2021–2025 · $10k · revenue +60%
CE
CHICAGOLAND EXOTIC ANIMAL RESCUE
4× · 2022–2025 · $10k · revenue +148%

Funded once

UO
U OF WISCONSIN FOUNDATION
one grant, 2020 · $3k
UO
UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN
one grant, 2021 · $3k
UO
U OF ILLINOIS FOUNDATION
one grant, 2020 · $2k

How this is measured

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

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

Columbia College Chicago

The organization's mission is to educate students for creative occupations in diverse fields of arts and media.

Education

American Association for the Advancement of Science

Advance science, engineering, and innovation throughout the world for the benefit of all. the world's largest multidisciplinary scientific society and a leading publisher of cutting-edge research through its science family of journals,…

Science & Tech

American Water Works Association

To promote public health, safety, and welfare through the improvement of the quality and quantity of drinking water and the development and furtherance of understanding of the problems relating thereto.

Public Benefit

American Gas Association

American gas association's (the association) mission is to develop and advocate for informed, innovative, and durable policy that fulfills our nation's energy needs, environmental aspirations and economic potential. we are committed to…

—

United States Naval Institute

Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.

—

National Opinion Research Center

See schedule onorc at the university of chicago conducts research and data science on critical societal issues to guide decision-making and the development of programs and public policy. our experts identify relationships and trends, and…

Social Science

Npr Foundation

The npr foundation ("foundation") is organized and operated exclusively for the benefit of its sole supported organization, national public radio, inc. ("npr inc."). the foundation supports npr inc. through various activities such as…

—

American Geophysical Union

Agu's mission is to advance and support an inclusive community of earth and space scientists and partners dedicated to discovery and solutions to societal challenges. agu seeks to catalyze discovery and solutions to scientific and societal…

Science & Tech

Internet Society Foundation

At the internet society foundation, we focus on funding initiatives that strengthen the internet in function and reach so that it can effectively serve all people. our work advances the vision of the internet society (isoc): the internet…

International

Central Indiana Corporate Partnership Inc

Central indiana corporate partnership (cicp) is an alliance of indiana's business and research university leaders coming together to foster long-term prosperity for the region. cicp's mission is to transform the economy of indiana in order…

Community Improvement

Uchicago Medicine Network Inc

Uchicago medicine network, inc. supports and encourages health and human service by providing support, directly or indirectly to ingalls memorial hospital, the university of chicago medical center, and other related tax-exempt…

Health

Museum of Arts and Design

To collect, display and interpret objects in craft art and design.

Arts & Culture

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Colorado Gives Foundation; the most unlike its peers is The Mojave Center Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

04the grantee network

127 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 127 of the 214 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

127/127

Grantees still filing

92/127

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$236,856Arts & Culture$74,638Health$72,010Animals$42,963Food & Nutrition$25,750Human Services$22,507Philanthropy$21,955

Showing the 200 largest grantees by grant value.

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

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.

John D and Catherine T Macarthur FoundationIL25.9× affinity12 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · Circle of Service Foundation · Field Foundation of Illinois · Colorado Gives Foundation · Lloyd a Fry Foundation · Polk Bros Foundation Inc · Arie and Ida Crown Memorial · United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc · The Denver Foundation · The Chicago Community Trust · The Howard S Dubin Family Foundation · Robert R McCormick Foundation

How this is measured

Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Gavlin Family Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Gavlin Family Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

3get no government money at all

25report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–50%

typical government reliance, FY20–25

How this is measured

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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

Play a game based on Gavlin Family’s filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions

grants reported with no recipient in the public record

The regranting layer

51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer

The DAF merry-go-round

$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds

The endowment market

who holds foundation money, and what just moved

The camps

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

By state

where grant money is based, and what stays home