How much does Helen and Curtis Pinnell Foundation give?

Helen and Curtis Pinnell Foundation reported 64 grants totaling $647,500 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 41 and 62 organizations a year over FY2020 to FY2024.

What does Helen and Curtis Pinnell Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2020 to FY2025, its largest causes are Arts & Culture (44%), Food & Nutrition (17%), Human Services (9%).

Who are Helen and Curtis Pinnell Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2020 to FY2025: Lyric Opera of Chicago ($335k), Handel Week Incorporated ($138k), Greater Chicago Food Depository ($130k).

Does Helen and Curtis Pinnell Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 27% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Helen and Curtis Pinnell 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 Helen and Curtis Pinnell Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include The Chicago Community Trust, John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation, Robert R McCormick Foundation.

Where is Helen and Curtis Pinnell Foundation based?

Helen and Curtis Pinnell Foundation is based in IL.

Helen and Curtis Pinnell Foundation

Helen and Curtis Pinnell Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

Helen and Curtis Pinnell 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.

$648k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$100k

Largest

01What it funds

0199% classified

What it funded, over time

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

Arts & Culture$1.2MFood & Nutrition$458kHuman Services$228kHousing & Shelter$196kEducation$160kAnimals$151kReligion$84kEnvironment$61kOther$0

02FY2025 · 64 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k40 grants · $178k
$10k–50k23 grants · $371k
$50k–250k1 grant · $100k

$7,000

Median grant

States reached

$6.0M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
Lyric Opera of Chicago	$100,000
Greater Chicago Food Depository	$30,000
Big Shoulders Fund	$25,000
Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum	$25,000
Handel Week Incorporated	$25,000
Pacific Garden Mission	$20,000
Loaves Fishes of Rio Grande Valley	$20,000
Chicago Symphony Orchestra	$20,000
Evangelical Child and Family Agency	$18,000
Facing Forward to End Homelessness	$18,000
Housing Forward	$18,000
Beyond Hunger	$15,000
Misericordia Foundation	$15,000
Window to the World Communications	$15,000
Haymarket Opera Company	$15,000

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, $282k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 67% 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.

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.

97%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$2.6M · 75 repeat orgs$67k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +22% since the first grant, against 0% for those funded once.

75 repeat relationships: 54 still active in FY2025, 21 since wound down; 10 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$2.6M

$21k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+22%

Still filing today

64%

14%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 93% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $46k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

Arts & CultureHuman ServicesEducationFood & NutritionAnimalsEnvironmentOther

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

LO
Lyric Opera of Chicago
4× · 2022–2025 · $335k · revenue +3%
HW
Handel Week Incorporated
6× · 2020–2025 · $138k · revenue +126% · 81% of their budget
GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY
6× · 2020–2025 · $130k · revenue +17%

Funded once

CA
CHICAGO ARTS AND MUSIC PROJECT
one grant, 2024 · $7k · revenue 0%
GE
Grace Episcopal Church - Childrens
one grant, 2020 · $5k
IF
Institute for Study of Ancient Cult
one grant, 2024 · $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.

Classical Music Chicago

Presenting free high-quality classical music performances and music education experiences in the Chicago metropolitan area for people of all ages and degrees of musical awareness so they can experience how music enriches life.

Arts & Culture

Music Institute of Chicago

The music institute of chicago ("music institute") leads people toward a lifelong engagement with music, by providing widely accessible resources for high quality music teaching, performing, and service activities.

Arts & Culture

Chamber Opera of Chicago

—

Music and Dance Theater Chicago Inc

Arts & Culture

Chicago Theatre Group Inc

The chicago theatre group is committed to producing both classic and contemporary works giving full voice to a wide range of artists and visions. by dedicating itself to three guiding principles - quality, equity, and community - the…

Arts & Culture

Chicago Humanities Festival

To promote public appreciation, understanding and support of the humanities through festivals and educational programs.

Arts & Culture

The Chicago Philharmonic Society

To excite, engage, and transform diverse audiences with the beauty and power of music.

Arts & Culture

Chicago Sun-Times Media Inc

Chicago sun-times serves the public interest by strengthening the well-being of our local communities and our democracy through independent local journalism.

—

Children's Museum of Oak Park

To spark curiosity and creativity in all young children through positive, play-based learning experiences.

Arts & Culture

Columbia College Chicago

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

Education

Chicago Maritime Museum

Operation of a nautical history museum.

—

Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra

Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra's mission as a professional orchestra is to utilize the universal expression of music to create profound, inspiring, and personal connections between the people and communities of Chicagos Southland.

Arts & Culture

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Chicago Horticultural Society; the most unlike its peers is Handel Week Incorporated. 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

53 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. 53 of the 92 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)

53/53

Grantees still filing

39/53

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Arts & Culture$934,000Other$916,500Human Services$282,000Food & Nutrition$210,000Education$165,500Housing & Shelter$85,000Animals$79,500

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.

The Chicago Community TrustIL25.3× affinity15 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: The Chicago Community Trust · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · Robert R McCormick Foundation · Helen V Brach Foundation · Healthy Communities Foundation · The Ayco Charitable Foundation · Polk Bros Foundation Inc · Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation · Circle of Service Foundation · Ncrc Community Development Fund Inc · United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc · Motorola Solutions 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 Helen and Curtis Pinnell Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Helen and Curtis Pinnell Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

0get no government money at all

13report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

1rely 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 Helen and Curtis Pinnell Foundation?

Find your warmest path to Helen and Curtis Pinnell 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 Helen and Curtis Pinnell’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