· Private foundation
James T and Michelle a Ryan 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 $10k5 grants · $6k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $40k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $200k
- $250k+3 grants · $1.6M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MIAMI UNIVERSITY | $650,000 |
| CHICAGO JESUIT ACADEMY | $532,944 |
| BALL STATE UNIVERSITY | $373,500 |
| DEPAUL UNIVERSITY | $200,000 |
| GREENLIGHT FUND CHICAGO | $40,000 |
| LINCOLN PARK COMMUNITY SHELTER | $3,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF IOWA FOUNDATION | $1,000 |
| JEFFREY PRIDE FOUNDATION | $500 |
| LAKOTA FRIENDS CIRCLE | $500 |
| BILTMOREDOUGLAS HUDSON SR SCHOLARSHIP FOUNDATION | $500 |
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 (FY18–25, $12k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 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.
17 repeat relationships — 9 still active in FY2025, 8 since wound down; 1 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, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $500 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
- DUDEPAUL UNIVERSITY8× · 2017–2025 · $1.9M · revenue +25%
- MUMiami University Foundation3× · 2020–2022 · $200k · revenue +14%
- SISALUTE INC2× · 2023–2024 · $10k · revenue +11%
Funded once
- SMST MICHAELS CHURCHone grant, 2021 · $5k
- WWWOUNDED WARRIORSone grant, 2021 · $5k
- DCDEPAUL COLLEGE PREPone grant, 2018 · $1k
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 mission of dfci is to provide expert, compassionate, and equitable care to children, adults, and their families, while advancing the understanding, diagnosis, treatment, cure, and prevention of cancer and related diseases. we train new…
Fred hutch cancer center ("fred hutch") unites innovative research and compassionate care to prevent and eliminate cancer and infectious disease. continued on schedule o
The mission of Rush is to improve the health of the individuals and diverse communities we serve through the integration of outstanding patient care, education, research and community partnerships.
See Form 990, Part I, Line 1, Description of Organization Mission.
Ann & robert h. lurie children's hospital of chicago is dedicated to the health and well-being of all children. as the pediatric teaching facility for northwestern university feinberg school of medicine, this commitment drives us to be a…
SRAlab is dedicated to providing the best patient outcomes through the highest-quality clinical care, translational research, scientific discovery and education.
We champion the health needs of children and families. we are committed to improving children's health by providing the highest-quality, family centered care, advanced through research and education.
The lustgarten foundation is the largest private funder of pancreatic cancer research in the world. see schedule o.the lustgarten foundation is boldly leading the way through hope and innovation, turning fear into action through education…
Stanley manne children's research institute strives to generate new knowledge and advance the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of pediatric diseases.
Provides housing and support services to individuals and families impacted by hiv/aids
The mission of the lung cancer research foundation is to improve lung cancer outcomes by funding research for the prevention, diagnosis, treatment and cure of lung cancer.
Our mission at the university of chicago medicine is to provide superior health care through rigorous research, innovative education, and comprehensive care and healing. in partnership with our colleagues, we pursue life-changing…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is St Jude Children's Research Hospital Inc and the most unlike its peers is American Diabetes Association. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
14 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. 14 of the 32 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 DEPAUL UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds Miami University Foundation ↗
- Who funds SALUTE INC ↗
- Who funds LINCOLN PARK COMMUNITY SERVICES ↗
- Who funds PARK CITY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds JEFFREY PRIDE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Working Bikes ↗
- Who funds BARRINGTON YOUTH & FAMILY SERVICES ↗
- Who funds Lakota Friends Circle ↗
- Who funds House of the Good Shepherd ↗
- Who funds The Hap Foundation Inc (F/K/A Journeycare Foundation) ↗
- Who funds HOUSING FORWARD ↗
- Who funds ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INC ↗
- Who funds American Diabetes Association ↗
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 · United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · Arthur J Gallagher Foundation · National Philanthropic Trust · Baird Foundation Inc · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · American Endowment Foundation · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc
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 T and Michelle a Ryan 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 James T and Michelle a Ryan Foundation?
Find your warmest path to James T and Michelle a Ryan 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.