· Private foundation
Holson 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.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k12 grants · $61k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $10k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| RAGSDALE | $10,000 |
| LYRIC OPERA OF CHICAGO | $7,500 |
| CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | $7,500 |
| NORTHWESTERN MEMORIAL FOUNDATION | $7,500 |
| TAKE THE LEAD | $7,500 |
| FIRST TEE TIME OF GREATER CHICAGO | $5,000 |
| PULMONARY FIBROSIS FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| DANCE WORKS CHICAGO | $5,000 |
| CHICAGO SHAKESPEARE THEATER | $5,000 |
| CHRIST CHURCH OF LAKE FOREST | $3,000 |
| RIVERSIDE PREPARATORY ACADEMY | $2,500 |
| TUNNELS TO TOWERS | $2,500 |
| SANTA FE OPERA | $2,500 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY20–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 86% 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +43% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
14 repeat relationships — 8 still active in FY2025, 6 since wound down; 5 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (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 FY2025, 61% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $28k 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
- LOLyric Opera of Chicago6× · 2020–2025 · $45k · revenue +34%
- TTTAKE THE LEAD INC6× · 2020–2025 · $38k · revenue +58%
- CSCHICAGO SHAKESPEARE THEATER6× · 2020–2025 · $30k · revenue +8%
Funded once
- PDPILGRIM DOBERMAN PINSCHER CLUB INCone grant, 2020 · $5k
- RFRagdale Foundationone grant, 2022 · $5k · revenue -26%
NAVY SEAL FOUNDATION INCgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $2k · revenue +59%
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.
Chicago opera theater expands the tradition of opera as a living art form by engaging lovers of music and storytelling through innovative experiences, predominantly of new and rarely performed works.
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.
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.
Opera theatre's mission is to shape a vibrant future for opera by connecting, inspiring, and entertaining our communities through the power and beauty of the art form; to foster the next generation by empowering a diverse group of artists,…
Mission: the mission of san diego opera is to deliver exceptional performances and exciting, accessible programs to diverse audiences, focusing on community partnerships, and the transformative and expressive power of the human voice. as…
Chicago Sinfonietta is a professional orchestra dedicated to modeling and promoting diversity, inclusion, and both racial and cultural equity in the arts through the universal language of symphonic music. Our core values are built around…
The florentine opera company is driven to produce the full range of operatic works reflecting the highest musical and theatrical standards, and to support community and education programs that foster the current and next generation of…
To be north carolina's state orchestra, an orchestra achieving the highest level of artistic quality and performance standards, and embracing its dual legacies of statewide service and music education.
Cedille Chicago, NFP is devoted to the activity of producing and marketing recordings of classical music by Chicago-area musicians and composers.
The mission of the st. louis symphony orchestra (slso) is to enrich lives through the power of music. the slso provides orchestra concerts, community programs, and educational resources for the st. louis community and beyond.
As the artist-training branch of Lyric Opera of Chicago, the Ryan Opera Center offers year-round education and performance opportunities to some of the nation's most talented young singers and pianists, facilitating their transition from…
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…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Santa Fe Opera and the most unlike its peers is Pilgrim Doberman Pinscher Club Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
13 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. 13 of the 22 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 Lyric Opera of Chicago ↗
- Who funds TAKE THE LEAD INC ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO SHAKESPEARE THEATER ↗
- Who funds THE FIRST TEE OF CHICAGO FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE SANTA FE OPERA ↗
- Who funds RIVERSIDE MILITARY ACADEMY INC ↗
- Who funds STEPHEN SILLER TUNNEL TO TOWERS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Chicago Symphony Orchestra ↗
- Who funds STAR of Coastal Georgia Inc ↗
- Who funds PILGRIM DOBERMAN PINSCHER CLUB INC ↗
- Who funds PULMONARY FIBROSIS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Ragdale Foundation ↗
- Who funds NAVY SEAL FOUNDATION INC ↗
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: National Philanthropic Trust · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile 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 Holson 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.
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.