· Public charity
Illinois Science and Energy Innovation Foundation
To support social welfare and economic development by providing financial and technical support for energy concepts and to provide consumer education regarding smart meters and related technologies and services.
What you funded, over time
Every grant clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2017–2023.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2023
- $10k–50k1 grant · $42k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $206k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ILLINOIS SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COA | $141,618 |
| THE KINDLING GROUP | $64,859 |
| CITY OF CHICAGO | $42,395 |
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.
Your human-services grants (FY17–22, $511k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 100% of those 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 +72% since the first grant, against +5% for the ones you funded once.
27 repeat relationships — 3 still active in FY2023, 24 since wound down.
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, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
- CCCUB CONSUMER EDUCATION AND RESEARCH FUND6× · 2017–2022 · $5.7M · revenue +78% · 49% of their budget
- EEElevate Energy6× · 2017–2022 · $5.7M · revenue +221%
- ISILLINOIS SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COALITION6× · 2017–2023 · $1.8M · revenue +360% · 75% of their budget
Funded once
- EIEastern Illinois Universitone grant, 2018 · $400k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2017 · $355k
- SISeniors Independent Living Collaborativeone grant, 2019 · $300k · revenue -75% · 100% of their budget
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.
The caucus provides a forum through which the chief elected officials of the region cooperatively develop consensus on common public policy issues and multi-jurisdictional challenges. with a foundation of collaboration and consensus-based…
To promote job growth and communicate important issues to the public through information campaigns.
Enhancing lives by promoting the safe & efficient use of electricity.
The Chicago Council on Science and Technology's (C2ST) mission is to inspire and engage all segments of society about science and technology and their contributions to society.
Strengthen United Way movement in Illinois
To educate the public about environmental issues.
To beautify chicagoland's expressway system, its gateways andneighborhoods surrounding the expressways.
The Clean Energy Jobs and Justice Funds (CEJJF) mission is to advance a fair and inclusive transition to clean energy across Illinois by expanding access to capital for clean energy businesses that face barriers to traditional financing,…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Midwest Energy Efficiency Alliance and the most unlike its peers is Green Chicago Restaurant Coalition. 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 22 years old; the field is 18. 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 — 5% lost their exemption, against 15% 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.
30 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. 30 of the 47 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 CUB CONSUMER EDUCATION AND RESEARCH FUND ↗
- Who funds Elevate Energy ↗
- Who funds THE KINDLING GROUP ↗
- Who funds ILLINOIS SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COALITION ↗
- Who funds FAITH IN PLACE ↗
- Who funds Chicago State Foundation ↗
- Who funds FRESH ENERGY ↗
- Who funds METROPOLITAN MAYORS CAUCUS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Seniors Independent Living Collaborative ↗
- Who funds Illinois Green Economy Network Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds US Green Building Council-Illinois ↗
- Who funds HELPANSWERS CHARITABLE FOUNDATION INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds SHEDD AQUARIUM SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds MIDWEST ENERGY EFFICIENCY ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds MATTOON AREA FAMILY YMCA CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds City Incite Inc ↗
- Who funds Garfield Park Community Council ↗
- Who funds SMART ENERGY CONSUMER COLLABORATIVE ↗
- Who funds THE CENTER OF CONCERN ↗
- Who funds CHINESE AMERICAN SERVICE LEAGUE INC ↗
- Who funds THE CHICAGO INNOVATION FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Sweet Water Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds LOYOLA UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds EMBARRAS RIVER BASIN AGENCY INC ↗
- Who funds THE RENAISSANCE COLLABORATIVE 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: The Chicago Community Trust · The Joyce Foundation · Arie and Ida Crown Memorial · Builders Vision Foundation · The Energy Foundation · United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc · United States Energy Foundation · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · Walder Foundation · Public Health Institute of Metropolitan Chicago · The Pierce Family Charitable Foundation · The Lumpkin Family 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 Science and Energy Innovation 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Illinois Science and Energy Innovation Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Illinois Science and Energy Innovation 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.