· Private foundation
James and Catherine Denny Foundation
Its FY2024 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 FY2018–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k12 grants · $57k
- $10k–50k23 grants · $499k
- $50k–250k4 grants · $580k
- $250k+1 grant · $250k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| DePaul College Prep | $250,000 |
| Catholic Extension | $247,848 |
| Chicago Jesuit Academy | $157,320 |
| Illinois Policy Institute | $125,000 |
| Adler Planetarium | $50,000 |
| Chicago Jesuit Academy | $30,097 |
| Chicago Jesuit Academy | $29,791 |
| Catholic Extension | $27,152 |
| Chicago Jesuit Academy | $26,350 |
| Saints Faith Hope & Charity | $25,500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $25,000 |
| Midtown Metro Achievement Centers | $25,000 |
| American Enterprise Institute | $25,000 |
| Shirley Ryan AbilityLab | $25,000 |
| Catholic Theological Union | $25,000 |
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 (FY19–24, $155k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 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.
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.
47 repeat relationships — 30 still active in FY2024, 17 since wound down; 4 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 93% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $95k 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
Teach for America Inc6× · 2018–2024 · $188k · revenue +1%- AEAMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC POLICY RESEARCH6× · 2018–2024 · $150k · revenue +22%
- IPILLINOIS POLICY INSTITUTE2× · 2019–2024 · $126k · revenue +2%
Funded once
- CBCATHOLIC BISHOP OF CHICAGOone grant, 2020 · $205k
- CCCATHOLIC CHARITIES INCone grant, 2018 · $148k
- LOlyric opera houseone grant, 2020 · $25k
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.
The organization's mission is to educate students for creative occupations in diverse fields of arts and media.
Saint xavier university, a catholic institution inspired by the heritage of the sisters of mercy, educates persons to search for truth, think critically, communicate effectively and serve wisely and compassionately in support of human…
The University of New Haven is a student-centered comprehensive university with an emphasis on excellence in liberal arts and professional education. Our mission is to prepare our students to lead purposeful and fulfilling lives in a…
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 bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
The chicago psychoanalytic institute transforms the lives of individuals, families and communities, using psychoanalytic knowledge to help them grow and thrive.
Undergraduate, graduate, and professional education and research across a broad array of academic domains.
The chicago public education fund (the fund) is a nonprofit organization that improves public schools in chicago by investing in the talented educators who lead them.
Illinois college is a co-educational institution of higher education learning providing a four-year educational program leading to the baccalaureate degree. illinois college is a community committed to the highest standards of scholarship…
The university's goal in the coming decade is to advance learning through the integration of teaching, research and service to others. the core of this goal is to prepare graduates to engage with the world and lead lives of meaning. to do…
Rooted in the liberal arts & sciences & lutheran expression of the christian faith, & is committed to offering a challenging education that develops qualities of mind, spirit, & body necessary for a rewarding life of leadership & service…
Provide post-secondary education leading to a baccalaureate degree. Program service expenditures are made in conjunction with the operation of a liberal arts college spread over 107 acres with approximately 63 educational and support…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Empower Illinois and the most unlike its peers is Rumsfeld Foundation. 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 74 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% 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.
50 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. 50 of the 106 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 Teach for America Inc ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC POLICY RESEARCH ↗
- Who funds ILLINOIS POLICY INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds THE ADLER PLANETARIUM ↗
- Who funds Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago ↗
- Who funds CLEARBROOK ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO INC ↗
- Who funds Lyric Opera of Chicago ↗
- Who funds DEPAUL UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds MARINE CORPS SCHOLARSHIP FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds NAVY SEAL FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds LOYOLA UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds THE CHICAGO COUNCIL ON GLOBAL AFFAIRS ↗
- Who funds Kenneth C Griffin Museum of Science and Industry ↗
- Who funds ACADEMY FOR URBAN SCHOOL LEADERSHIP ↗
- Who funds FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY ↗
- Who funds HOBE SOUND COMMUNITY CHEST INC ↗
- Who funds THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds COLLEGE OF SAINT BENEDICT ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO SHAKESPEARE THEATER ↗
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: Patrick G and Shirley W Ryan Foundation · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc · The Chicago Community Trust · The Canning Foundation · Charles H and Beverly E Shaw Foundation · Robert R McCormick Foundation · The Robert Thomas Bobins Foundation · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · Lavin Family Foundation · The Ayco Charitable Foundation · The King Family Foundation · Carol Bernick 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 James and Catherine Denny 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.
- United Way of Martin County Inc — 4% 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.