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· Public charity

Illinois Opportunity Project

The ILLINOIS OPPORTUNITY PROJECT is an organization that participates in public policy by identifying policies driven by liberty and free enterprise and then educating the public about those policy choices and advocating for those policy choices.

$1.7M
Granted FY2020
3
Grants FY2020
2
States reached
$995k
Largest
01What it funds
01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2020.

Public Benefit$2.2MYouth Development$11kReligion$5kCivil Rights$2k
02FY2020 · 3 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

$350,000
Median grant
2
States reached
$175k
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
SAY NO TO MORE TAXES-COMMITTEE ID 36099$995,000
CITIZENS FOR JUDICIAL FAIRNESS-COMMITTEE ID 36189$350,000
COMMON SENSE FOR THE COMMON GOOD-COMMITTEE ID 36156$325,000
02The need
03

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:

Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY17–20) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 74% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 11%IN FIELD STRATEGIES: $60k → 11%CITIZENS FOR MICKEY STRAUB: $14k → 7%FRIENDS OF MARK BATNICK: $10k → 7%FRIENDS OF KEN IDSTEIN: $23k → 8%CITIZENS FOR KAY: $39k → 12%CITIZENS FOR BLAINE WILHOUR: $10k → 13%BAILEY FOR ILLINOIS: $5k → 14%FRIENDS OF JILLIAN BERNAS: $19k → 14%LASALLE COUNTY REPUBLICAN CENTRAL COMMITTEE: $5k → 15%CITIZENS FOR JOHN CABELLO: $5k → 15%CITIZENS FOR CHRIS MILLER: $10k → 18%COMMON SENSE FOR THE COMMON GOOD-COMMITTEE ID 36156: $325k → 6%FRIENDS OF PETER BREEN: $5k → 7%ILLINOIS FAMILY ACTION: $2k → 7%FRIENDS OF RICK LESSER: $11k → 8%ILLINOIS BUSINESS ALLIANCE: $15k → 14%IVES FOR ILLINOIS-GOVERNOR: $50k → 7%FRIENDS OF BARRET DAVIE: $5k → 8%FRIENDS OF ANNIE KESSEM: $5k → 14%CITIZENS FOR TONIA KHOURI: $10k → 7%FRIENDS OF KATIE MILLER: $21k → 14%KINZLER FOR ILLINOIS: $11k → 7%JEFFREY COLEMAN: $75k → 14%SAY NO TO MORE TAXES-COMMITTEE ID 36099: $995k → 14%FRIENDS OF JEFF LAPORTE: $11k → 14%CITIZENS TO ELECT WILLIE PRESTON: $11k → 14%FRIENDS OF MARILYN: $16k → 14%0%20%40%50%more need →
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 field
04the grantee network

2 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2023.

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 2023, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 2 of the 33 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.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
0
Early backer (in before they grew)
1/2
Grantees still filing
0/2
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

SAY NO TO MORE TAXES-COMMITTEE ID 36099: $995,000 · OtherSAY NO TO MORE TAXES-COMMITTEE ID 36099CITIZENS FOR JUDICIAL FAIRNESS-COMMITTEE ID 36189: $350,000 · OtherCITIZENS FOR JUDICIAL FAIRNESS-COMMITTEE ID 36189COMMON SENSE FOR THE COMMON GOOD-COMMITTEE ID 36156: $325,000 · OtherCOMMON SENSE FOR THE COMMON GOOD-COMMITTEE ID 36156Individual grant recipient: $75,000 · Other+28 more: $457,234 · Other+28 moreILLINOIS FAMILY ACTION INC: $2,000 · Civil Rights
Other$2,202,234Civil Rights$2,000

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$100kgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetILLINOIS BUSINESS ALLIANCE: $15,000 over 1y, 6.4% of budgetILLINOIS FAMILY ACTION INC: $2,000 over 1y, 2.8% of budget
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.

  • Who funds ILLINOIS BUSINESS ALLIANCE ↗
  • Who funds ILLINOIS FAMILY ACTION INC ↗

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Illinois Opportunity Project funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Illinois Opportunity Project. Bigger dots raise more.

2022
’20’21’22’23
no gov · 00%0%1%3%5%funder's share of their income ↑0%1%3%4%5%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–5%
    typical government reliance, FY20–23
    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.
    04Through Plinth

    Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

    How do I get to Illinois Opportunity Project?

    Find your warmest path to Illinois Opportunity Project 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.

    On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 33 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

    How this is measured
    Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears.

    Generated from the IRS Form 990 e-file return for fiscal year 2020, released 2020. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Possibly out of date. A more recent filing (FY2023) is on record and reports no grant expense, so the figures above are from FY2020, the most recent year this funder made grants.

    Source object · view filing

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