How much does Gendell Family Foundation give?

Gendell Family Foundation reported 21 grants totaling $55,469 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 9 and 33 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does Gendell Family Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are International (27%), Religion (11%), Arts & Culture (11%).

Who are Gendell Family Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago ($50k), Holocaust Memorial Foundation of Illinois Inc ($36k), North Shore Congregation Israel ($31k).

Does Gendell Family Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 52% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Gendell 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 Gendell Family Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, The Chicago Community Trust, Circle of Service Foundation.

Where is Gendell Family Foundation based?

Gendell Family Foundation is based in IL.

Gendell Family Foundation

Gendell Family Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

Gendell 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.

$55k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$12k

Largest

01What it funds

0194% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.

International$133kReligion$56kArts & Culture$56kPhilanthropy$54kHealth$53kEducation$49kCrime & Legal$26kCivil Rights$22kOther$0

02FY2025 · 21 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k18 grants · $21k
$10k–50k3 grants · $34k

$1,000

Median grant

States reached

$43k

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
JEWISH UNITED FUND	$12,120
ILLINOIS HOLOCAUST MUSEUM & EDUCATION CTR	$12,000
FRIENDS OF THE IDF	$10,000
NORTH SHORE CONGREGATION ISRAEL	$4,264
NORTHSHORE CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS	$3,600
AMERICAN FRIENDS OF THE HEBREW UNIVERSITY	$1,800
STANDWITHUS	$1,800
SHALVA	$1,360
ISRAEL CANCER RESEARCH FUND	$1,294
SHOMRIM SOCIETY OF IL ENDOWMENT FUND	$1,050
FRIENDS OF UNITED HATZALAH	$1,000
THE 100 THOUSAND FOUNDATION	$1,000
Individual grant recipient	$1,000
ISRAEL PARASPORT CENTER	$536
THE ARK	$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 (FY17–25, $3k) 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 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.

83%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$303k · 40 repeat orgs$63k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +49% since the first grant, against +23% for those funded once.

40 repeat relationships: 16 still active in FY2025, 24 since wound down; 3 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$303k

$50k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+49%

+23%

Still filing today

63%

40%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 77% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $12k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

Arts & CultureInternationalHealthPhilanthropyEducationCrime & LegalOther

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

JU
JEWISH UNITED FUND OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO
5× · 2017–2025 · $50k · revenue +13%
HM
HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL FOUNDATION OF ILLINOIS INC
8× · 2017–2025 · $36k · revenue +14%
EM
Elyssas Mission NFP
7× · 2017–2023 · $26k · revenue +89%

Funded once

UO
UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS
one grant, 2023 · $10k
IG
Individual grant recipient
one grant, 2022 · $4k
BS
BRIGHT STAR COMMUNITY OUTREACH CORP
one grant, 2018 · $3k · revenue +4%

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.

University of Judaism Foundation

—

The Jewish Museum

The mission of the jewish museum is to collect, preserve, exhibit and interpret art and jewish culture. see schedule o for more information.

Arts & Culture

The Steinhardt Foundation for Jewish Life Inc

Religion

Us Middle East Project Inc

The organization's mission is to engage in non partisan analysis of u.s. foreign policy in the middle east, with special emphasis on the middle east peace process, and to present policymakers in the united states, in the region and in the…

International

National Center for Jewish Filminc

The national center for jewish film is a unique, independent nonprofit motion picture archive, distributor, resource center and exhibitor. ncjf's ongoing mission is the collection, preservation and exhibition of films with artistic and…

Arts & Culture

Museum of Jewish Heritage a Living Memorial to the Holocaust

The museum of jewish heritage - a living memorial to the holocaust is new york's contribution to the global responsibility to never forget. see schedule o for additional information.

Arts & Culture

The Jewish Agency for Israel

The jewish agency binds jews across ideologies and civilizations together in a worldwide jewish family with israel at its center. it provides the global framework for aliyah, ensures global jewish safety, strengthens jewish identity and…

—

The Shalem Foundation

To promote and foster the creation of a zionist intellectual infrastructure for the state of israel, the development of a jewish national culture, and the establishment and promotion of intellectual and economic liberty.

Crime & Legal

The Israel Innovation Fund Inc

Our vision is to reignite the zionist spirit and meet the needs of jewish civilization in the twenty-first century by connecting people around the world through the vibrancy and creativity of contemporary israeli culture.

Arts & Culture

Jewish Federation Council of Greater La

Based on jewish values, the jewish federation of greater los angeles convenes and leads the community and leverages its resources to assure the continuity of the jewish people, support a secure state of israel, care for jews in need here…

Philanthropy

American Friends of Bar-Ilan University

We fundraise in the u.s. to support, and raise awareness of, bar-ilan university in israel.

Education

The Lieber Institute Inc

The mission of the institute is to translate basic genetic and molecular mechanisms of schizophrenia and related developmental brain disorders into clinical advances that change the lives of affected individuals. it is catalyzing a new…

Health

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is American Friends of Hebrew University Inc; the most unlike its peers is The Robert H Levine Foundation. 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

51 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. 51 of the 102 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)

51/51

Grantees still filing

36/51

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$177,748International$146,730Arts & Culture$55,864Philanthropy$55,706Crime & Legal$26,305Health$19,291Education$10,600

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.

Jewish Federation of Metropolitan ChicagoIL32.8× affinity14 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago · The Chicago Community Trust · Circle of Service Foundation · Jarvis Foundation · The Bill Bass Foundation · Crain-Maling Foundation · Lachman Foundation · The Bluhm Family Foundation · Hochberg Family Foundation · Dr Scholl Foundation · Arie and Ida Crown Memorial · Jpmorgan Chase 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 Gendell Family Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Gendell Family Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

5get no government money at all

10report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

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.

05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to Gendell Family Foundation?

Find your warmest path to Gendell 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.

Play a game based on Gendell 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