· Public charity
Illinois Environmental Council General Fund
To be a steadfast force throughout illinois fighting to limit pollution and protect the states natural heritage.
What you funded, over time
By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).
A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 56% of ILLINOIS ENVIRONMENTAL COUNCIL GENERAL FUND’s grantee dollars fall outside its nine largest cause areas, whether because the recipient carries no IRS cause code or because its cause sits in the long tail. A chart would be mostly one residual band and misrepresent the portfolio.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 5 grants below total $148,000 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $198,000 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $50,000 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 · FY2023
- $10k–50k4 grants · $98k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $50k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ILLINOIS PUBLIC INTEREST RESEARCH GROUP INC | $50,000 |
| FAITH IN PLACE ACTION FUND | $26,000 |
| CITIZEN'S UTILITY BOARD | $26,000 |
| SIERRA CLUB | $26,000 |
| BUILDING DECARBONIZATION COALITION | $20,000 |
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 (FY18–23) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 95% 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 +156% since the first grant, against +59% for the ones you funded once.
3 repeat relationships — 1 still active in FY2023, 2 since wound down; 4 grantees were first funded in FY2023 (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 FY2023, 18% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $122k 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
- IGIndividual grant recipient3× · 2019–2021 · $108k
- SCSIERRA CLUB2× · 2018–2021 · $80k
- FIFAITH IN PLACE ACTION FUND2× · 2021–2023 · $41k · revenue +156%
Funded once
- UWUNITED WORKING FAMILIESone grant, 2022 · $86k · revenue -26%
- UCUNITED CONGREGATIONS OF METRO EASTone grant, 2021 · $73k · revenue +20%
- IPILLINOIS PEOPLES ACTIONgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $55k · revenue +141%
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.
Connecting and amplifying the power of individuals to build a just, equitable, and inclusive city.
To be a steadfast force throughout illinois fighting to limit pollution and protect the states natural heritage.
United for Clean Power is focused on public policies that build a 21st century energy future.
Public education on current public policy issues
Grassroots Collaborative unites eight membership-based organizations in order to create policy change on local and statewide levels. The organization's multi-racial coalition spans a variety of organizing networks; including low-wage…
To educate the public about environmental issues.
Plant Chicago's mission is to cultivate local circular economies. We envision a paradigm shift in production, consumption, and waste driven at the local level, generating equity and economic opportunity for all residents.
Advocacy for social justice, common good, and housing opportunity.
Enhancing lives by promoting the safe & efficient use of electricity.
To advance buildings and communities that are sustainable, prosperous and health through education, advocacy and collaboration
To educate and advocate for a pro-climate agenda that prioritizes policies in support of current and future illinois workers.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Illinois State Public Interest Research Group Inc and the most unlike its peers is Sierra Club. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
15 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. 15 of the 18 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 UNITED WORKING FAMILIES ↗
- Who funds UNITED CONGREGATIONS OF METRO EAST ↗
- Who funds ILLINOIS PEOPLES ACTION ↗
- Who funds ILLINOIS STATE PUBLIC INTEREST RESEARCH GROUP INC ↗
- Who funds BIG NFP DBA Blacks in Green ↗
- Who funds SOUTHEAST ENVIRONMENTAL TASK FORCE ↗
- Who funds FAITH IN PLACE ACTION FUND ↗
- Who funds CITIZENS UTILITY BOARD ↗
- Who funds SIERRA CLUB ↗
- Who funds BUILDING DECARBONIZATION COALITION ↗
- Who funds Elevate Energy ↗
- Who funds SAMUEL DEWITT PROCTOR CONFERENCE INC ↗
- Who funds THE PEOPLE'S LOBBY ↗
- Who funds Chicago Jobs Council ↗
- Who funds Vote Solar ↗
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: United States Energy Foundation · Illinois Environmental Council Education · Builders Vision Foundation · The Energy Foundation · Arie and Ida Crown Memorial · The Chicago Community Trust · Energy Action Fund · Natural Resources Defense Council Inc · The McKnight Foundation · National Philanthropic Trust · 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 Illinois Environmental Council General Fund 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.