· Private foundation
James P and Brenda S Grusecki Family Foundation
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 $10k8 grants · $35k
- $10k–50k8 grants · $162k
- $50k–250k35 grants · $2.7M
- $250k+1 grant · $250k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF ILLINOIS | $250,000 |
| BARACK OBAMA FOUNDATION | $200,000 |
| TIMELINE THEATRE | $155,000 |
| SHATTERED GLOBE THEATRE | $150,000 |
| GOODMAN THEATRE | $130,000 |
| PORCHLIGHT MUSIC THEATRE | $100,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $100,000 |
| DEBORAH'S PLACE | $100,000 |
| LYRIC OPERA OF CHICAGO | $100,000 |
| THRESHOLDS | $85,000 |
| 826CHI | $85,000 |
| CHICAGO FOUNDATION FOR WOMEN | $80,000 |
| AMERICAN LIBRARY ASSOCIATION | $75,000 |
| GOLDEN APPLE FOUNDATION | $75,000 |
| WTTWWFMT | $75,000 |
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 (FY17–25, $605k) 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.
68 repeat relationships — 40 still active in FY2025, 28 since wound down; 11 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, 83% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $532k 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
- NMNEW MOMS INC9× · 2017–2025 · $590k · revenue +166%
- PPPlanned Parenthood of Illinois3× · 2023–2025 · $530k · revenue +1%
- TTTHE THRESHOLDS9× · 2017–2025 · $435k · revenue +48%
Funded once
- TRTHE READER INSTITUTE FOR COMMUNITYone grant, 2022 · $25k
- LCLUTHERN CHILD AND FAMILY SERVICESone grant, 2017 · $25k
- SSSTRATFORD SHAKESPEARE FEST OF AMERone grant, 2021 · $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 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.
A better chicago is changing how chicago fights poverty by investing in bold ideas that create opportunity for our youth.
The organization's mission is to educate students for creative occupations in diverse fields of arts and media.
The chicago psychoanalytic institute transforms the lives of individuals, families and communities, using psychoanalytic knowledge to help them grow and thrive.
Alternatives, inc.'s mission is to facilitate personal development,strengthen family relationships and enhance the community's well being. serving over 3,000 youth and families annually, the organization offers a range of counseling and…
Central indiana corporate partnership (cicp) is an alliance of indiana's business and research university leaders coming together to foster long-term prosperity for the region. cicp's mission is to transform the economy of indiana in order…
The chicagoland chamber of commerce combines the power of people, with our legacy of leadership and business advocacy, to drive a dynamic economy. we focus on delivering value for our members, making chicagoland a world-class place to live…
To inspire and prepare young people to succeed in a global economy
The Chicago School educates the next generation of change-makers in innovative theory and culturally competent practice to strengthen the integrated health of individuals, organizations, and communities.
See schedule onorc at the university of chicago conducts research and data science on critical societal issues to guide decision-making and the development of programs and public policy. our experts identify relationships and trends, and…
To spark curiosity and creativity in all young children through positive, play-based learning experiences.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is New Moms Inc and the most unlike its peers is Court Theatre Fund. 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 37 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 21% startups (under 5 years old) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 1% 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.
68 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. 68 of the 104 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 NEW MOMS INC ↗
- Who funds Planned Parenthood of Illinois ↗
- Who funds THE THRESHOLDS ↗
- Who funds START EARLY ↗
- Who funds Shattered Globe Theatre ↗
- Who funds THEATRE ASPEN ↗
- Who funds NEW TEACHER CENTER ↗
- Who funds GOLDEN APPLE FOUNDATION FOR EXCELLENCE IN TEACHING ↗
- Who funds DEBORAH'S PLACE ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO FOUNDATION FOR WOMEN ↗
- Who funds LA CASA NORTE ↗
- Who funds The Cara Program ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO SHAKESPEARE THEATER ↗
- Who funds LUTHERAN CHILD AND FAMILY SERVICES OF ILLINOIS ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO THEATRE GROUP INC ↗
- Who funds MIKVA CHALLENGE GRANT FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds 826CHI INC ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO PUBLIC MEDIA INC ↗
- Who funds MIDWEST ACCESS COALITION ↗
- Who funds Repro TLC ↗
- Who funds THE BARACK OBAMA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago ↗
- Who funds BREAKTHROUGH URBAN MINISTRIES INC ↗
- Who funds CROSSROADS FUND INC ↗
- Who funds Marwen Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN BLUES THEATER NFP ↗
- Who funds INGENUITY INCORPORATED 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: John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · The Chicago Community Trust · Lloyd a Fry Foundation · Polk Bros Foundation Inc · Arie and Ida Crown Memorial · Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago · Ncrc Community Development Fund Inc · Circle of Service Foundation · United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc · The Allstate Foundation · Field Foundation of Illinois · Robert R McCormick 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 P and Brenda S Grusecki Family 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.