· Private foundation
Hanson Family 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 $10k16 grants · $24k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $25k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $58k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| GRANT PARK ORCHESTRA ASSOC | $58,136 |
| NATURE CONSERVANCY IN IL | $25,000 |
| GULFSHORE PLAYHOUSE | $3,000 |
| ENTERTAINMENT COUNCIL FOUNDATION | $2,500 |
| ALL CHICAGO | $2,500 |
| THE BOULEVARD | $2,500 |
| LA CASA NORTE | $2,000 |
| NPCA | $2,000 |
| CONNECTION FOR HOMELESS | $2,000 |
| CHILD CARE NETWORK | $1,000 |
| CHICAGO PUBLIC MEDIA | $1,000 |
| THE INSTITUTE FOR CLINICAL SOCIAL W | $1,000 |
| ENVIRONMENTAL LAW AND POLICY CENTER | $1,000 |
| IMPACT BEHAVIOR HEALTH | $1,000 |
| YOUTH JOBS CENTER | $500 |
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, $17k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 70% 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 +51% since the first grant, against +6% for the ones you funded once.
32 repeat relationships — 17 still active in FY2024, 15 since wound down; 1 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, 98% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2k 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
- CPCHICAGO PUBLIC MEDIA INC8× · 2017–2024 · $111k · revenue +38%
- GPGRANT PARK ORCHESTRAL ASSOCIATION8× · 2017–2024 · $101k · revenue +127%
University of Illinois Foundation3× · 2018–2021 · $24k · revenue +49%
Funded once
- UOUNIVERSITY OF IOWA CENTER FOR ADVANone grant, 2023 · $61k
- HHHINSDALE HUMANE SOCIETYone grant, 2021 · $5k · revenue +3%
- WHWellness Housegraduatedone grant, 2017 · $5k · revenue +63%
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.
A better chicago is changing how chicago fights poverty by investing in bold ideas that create opportunity for our youth.
Chh honors every person's right to a home and health care, by bridging the housing and health care systems, to improve the lives of chicagoans experiencing homelessness.
The Chicago School educates the next generation of change-makers in innovative theory and culturally competent practice to strengthen the integrated health of individuals, organizations, and communities.
Providing academic support to children experiencing homelessness in Chicago and providing resources and services to families experiencing homelessness in Chicago.
The chicago psychoanalytic institute transforms the lives of individuals, families and communities, using psychoanalytic knowledge to help them grow and thrive.
At legal aid chicago, we work together to provide high quality civil legal aid to people living in poverty and other vulnerable groups.through advocacy, education, collaboration, and litigation we empower individuals, protect fundamental…
Connecting and amplifying the power of individuals to build a just, equitable, and inclusive city.
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.…
Executive Service Corps is the premier nonprofit consultancy that engages highly skilled professionals who use their experience and expertise to provide nonprofits with the consulting services they need to be successful. Our vision is to…
To Prepare Students for Success in Four-Year Colleges.
Child Link provides foster care, family counseling, and therapy services to Chicago area adolescents who are at risk of homelessness. Child Link also refers adolescents to other agencies that are able to provide additional resources 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…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Connections for the Homeless Inc and the most unlike its peers is The Boxcar Tour Foundation. 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 42 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) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 15% 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.
28 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. 28 of the 52 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 CHICAGO PUBLIC MEDIA INC ↗
- Who funds GRANT PARK ORCHESTRAL ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds University of Illinois Foundation ↗
- Who funds GULFSHORE PLAYHOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds CONNECTIONS FOR THE HOMELESS INC ↗
- Who funds ALL CHICAGO MAKING HOMELESSNESS HISTORY ↗
- Who funds LA CASA NORTE ↗
- Who funds HINSDALE HUMANE SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds Wellness House ↗
- Who funds THE COMMUNITY HOUSE ↗
- Who funds Child Care Network ↗
- Who funds GlobeMed NFP ↗
- Who funds YOUTH JOB CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds PEER SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds ENVIRONMENTAL LAW AND POLICY CENTER OF THE MIDWEST ↗
- Who funds FAMILY FOCUS LEGACY ↗
- Who funds Childcare Network of Evanston ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO FURNITURE BANK ↗
- Who funds WOMENS GLOBAL EDUCATION PROJECT ↗
- Who funds THE ACTORS' FUND OF AMERICA ↗
- Who funds YEAR UP INC ↗
- Who funds THE BOXCAR TOUR FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE INSTITUTE FOR CLINICAL SOCIAL WORK ↗
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 · United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · Robert R McCormick Foundation · Evanston Community Foundation · Fifth Third Chicagoland Foundation · Polk Bros Foundation Inc · Arie and Ida Crown Memorial · Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago · AbbVie Foundation · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Jpmorgan Chase 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 Hanson Family 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.
- Year Up Inc — 0% of income from government
- Gulfshore Playhouse Inc — 0% 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 Hanson Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Hanson 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.