· Private foundation
Ira and Janina Marks Charitable Trust
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 FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k79 grants · $51k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $20k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CNPA FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| CNPA | $10,000 |
| BOUNCE CHILDRENS FOUNDATION | $7,500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $4,070 |
| EVANSTON WILMETTE GOLF COURSE ASSOC | $4,000 |
| FIELD MUSEUM WOMENS BOARD | $2,250 |
| MCCORMICK FOUNDATION COMMUNITIES MATCH | $2,000 |
| EVANSTON ART CENTER | $2,000 |
| TREES THAT FEED FOUNDATION | $2,000 |
| NATIONAL JEWISH HEALTH | $2,000 |
| LIGHTHOUSE PRESERVATION FUND | $2,000 |
| HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | $1,000 |
| YOUTH JOB CENTER | $1,000 |
| EARTHWATCH INSTITUTE | $1,000 |
| MICHAEL J FOX FOUNDATION | $1,000 |
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.
Your human-services grants (FY19–25, $10k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 93% 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.
Which US states your grants reach
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.
109 repeat relationships — 59 still active in FY2025, 50 since wound down; 20 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, 67% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $23k 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
- CFCNPA FOUNDATION4× · 2022–2025 · $45k · revenue +225% · 100% of their budget
- FMFIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY5× · 2019–2024 · $15k · revenue +28%
- YJYOUTH JOB CENTER INC7× · 2019–2025 · $14k · revenue +12%
Funded once
- TJTHE JOHN W O'BRIEN FAMILY FOUNDATIONone grant, 2024 · $6k · revenue 0%
- RFROARING FORK CONSERVANCYgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $4k · revenue +66%
- BWBig Waters Land Trust Incgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $3k · revenue +84%
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.
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.
Advance science, engineering, and innovation throughout the world for the benefit of all. the world's largest multidisciplinary scientific society and a leading publisher of cutting-edge research through its science family of journals,…
The purpose of the water research foundation (wrf) is a definitive research organization to advance the science of all things water to better meet the evolving needs of its subscribers and the water sector. to engage exclusively in…
To promote public health, safety, and welfare through the improvement of the quality and quantity of drinking water and the development and furtherance of understanding of the problems relating thereto.
To establish and promote programs to protect the global climate, forests, wildlife and the natural environment, through research, advocacy, and investigation.
Eastern national promotes the public's understanding and support of america's national parks and other public trust partners by providing quality educational experiences, products and services.
Agu's mission is to advance and support an inclusive community of earth and space scientists and partners dedicated to discovery and solutions to societal challenges. agu seeks to catalyze discovery and solutions to scientific and societal…
American gas association's (the association) mission is to develop and advocate for informed, innovative, and durable policy that fulfills our nation's energy needs, environmental aspirations and economic potential. we are committed to…
Rainforest trust saves endangered wildlife and protects our planet by creating rainforest reserves through partnerships, community engagement, and donor support.
At the internet society foundation, we focus on funding initiatives that strengthen the internet in function and reach so that it can effectively serve all people. our work advances the vision of the internet society (isoc): the internet…
The npr foundation ("foundation") is organized and operated exclusively for the benefit of its sole supported organization, national public radio, inc. ("npr inc."). the foundation supports npr inc. through various activities such as…
To engage the united states and its citizens in the work of african parks and to promote access to american experience and expertise in the african parks actiities by 1) raising funds for specific projects, activities, training, equipment…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Aspen Institute Inc and the most unlike its peers is The John W O'brien Family Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 42 years old; the field is 20. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 18% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 9% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.6% lost their exemption, against 12% 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.
151 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. 151 of the 254 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
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
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 JANINA MARKS CHARITABLE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CNPA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds BOUNCE CHILDREN'S FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY ↗
- Who funds YOUTH JOB CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds HYDE PARK ART CENTER ↗
- Who funds EVANSTON ART CENTER ↗
- Who funds ROBERT R MCCORMICK FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE MICHAEL J FOX FOUNDATION FOR PARKINSON'S RESEARCH ↗
- Who funds THE ASPEN INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds THE JOHN W O'BRIEN FAMILY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds OCCIDENTAL COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds EARTHWATCH INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds JEWELERS FOR CHILDREN ↗
- Who funds EVANSTON WILMETTE GOLF COURSE ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE RESEARCH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Elea Institute ↗
- Who funds ROARING FORK CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds PARKINSON'S FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Big Waters Land Trust Inc ↗
- Who funds United Help Ukraine Inc ↗
- Who funds ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE & RELATED DISORDERS ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN'S HOME & AID SOCIETY OF ILL ↗
- Who funds YOSEMITE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ASPEN FILM ↗
- Who funds JEWISH UNITED FUND OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO ↗
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 · Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · Helen V Brach Foundation · Lloyd a Fry Foundation · Field Foundation of Illinois · Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation · AbbVie Foundation · Circle of Service Foundation · Dr Scholl Foundation · Polk Bros Foundation Inc · Arie and Ida Crown Memorial
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 Ira and Janina Marks Charitable Trust 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.
- Guitars Over Guns Organization Inc — 1% of income from government
- Sandy Hook Promise Foundation — 0% of income from government
- Wounded Warrior Project Inc — 0% of income from government
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 Ira and Janina Marks Charitable Trust?
Find your warmest path to Ira and Janina Marks Charitable Trust 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.