· Public charity
Hfs Chicago Scholars
HFS CHICAGO SCHOLARS (hfs) was created for the express purpose of supporting the educational aspiration of economically disadvantaged, but academically motivated chicago inner-city youth.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2018–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 28 grants below total $399,701 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $442,010 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $42,309 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k15 grants · $97k
- $10k–50k13 grants · $303k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| FENWICK HIGH SCHOOL | $45,000 |
| CHICAGO HOPE ACADEMY | $41,076 |
| ST LAURENCE HIGH SCHOOL | $38,200 |
| DE LA SALLE INSTITUTE | $33,200 |
| ST IGNATIUS COLLEGE PREP | $32,250 |
| LOYOLA ACADEMY | $18,405 |
| CRISTO REY JESUIT HIGH SCHOOL | $16,850 |
| FRANCIS W PARKER SCHOOL | $16,400 |
| NAZARETH ACADEMY | $14,200 |
| UNIV OF CHICAGO LAB SCHOOL | $13,800 |
| MOTHER MCAULEY LIBERAL ARTS HIGH SC | $11,900 |
| TRINITY HS | $11,750 |
| DE PAUL COLLEGE PREP | $10,050 |
| HOLY TRINITY HIGH SCHOOL | $9,900 |
| IC CATHOLIC PREP | $8,650 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY18–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 97% of your 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.
39 repeat relationships — 24 still active in FY2024, 15 since wound down; 4 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2024, 94% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $22k went to new ones.
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
- FFFENWICK FOUNDATION INC7× · 2018–2024 · $298k · revenue +209%
- CHCHICAGO HOPE ACADEMY7× · 2018–2024 · $153k · revenue +21%
- TLTHE LATIN SCHOOL OF CHICAGO6× · 2019–2024 · $63k · revenue +22%
Funded once
- MHMARIST HIGH SCHOOLone grant, 2023 · $20k
- SIST IGNATIUS SUMMER SCHOOLone grant, 2020 · $10k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2022 · $8k
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.
We create confident learners who lead lives of intellectual curiosity, self-knowledge, and social responsibility.
Family, School, and Church united in the education and support of each child - this is the founding premise upon which Presbyterian School nurtures and challenges its students. The school provides an educational program of the highest…
The philadelphia school educates children for a future that is impossible to know but not impossible to shape. learn here. go anywhere.
The montgomery academy develops leaders committed to honor, scholarship, service and the pursuit of excellence.
Marin academy asks every individual to think, question, and create in an environment of encouragement and compassion, and challenges each person to accept the responsibilities posed by education in a democratic society.
Education - private school grades preschool through twelfth
Private school dedicated to education of children from pk4 through grade 12.
Hillbrook provides an extraordinary educational experience that fosters a love of learning in our students and helps them to develop the knowledge, skills and confidence to achieve their highest individual potential in school and in life.…
Harvard-westlake strives to be a diverse and inclusive community united by the joyful pursuit of educational excellence, living and learning with integrity, and purpose beyond ourselves.
In a community where every student is known and needed, millbrook prepares its students for college and lives of meaning and consequence by instilling the values of respect, integrity, service, stewardship, and curiosity.
We consider ourselves a miracle institution full of inspiration and absolute faith in Gods hands. We do so daily in teaching our students, interacting with our diverse parent body and our location in Chicago which makes us ever more…
Island pacific academy (ipa) is a k-12 independent, coed, college preparatory school
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Chicago Hope Academy and the most unlike its peers is Fenwick Foundation Inc. 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 80 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 16% 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.
10 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. 10 of the 50 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.
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: Irish Fellowship Educational & Cultural Foundation · LINK Unlimited Scholars · The Chicago Community Trust · The Cuneo Foundation · WP & HB White Foundation · Helen V Brach Foundation · Charities Aid Foundation America · Charles W & Patrica S Bidwill Foundati · Marquette Bank Education Foundation · Fred J Brunner Foundation · AbbVie Foundation · The John P Loftus Scholarship Fund
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 Hfs Chicago Scholars 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.
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.