· Private foundation
Jane and Michael Strauss Family Foundation Inc
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 $10k31 grants · $56k
- $10k–50k3 grants · $43k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $50k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MUSC | $50,000 |
| MAYO CLINIC | $20,000 |
| CANCER AWARENESS THROUGH RESEARCH | $12,500 |
| JEWISH UNITED FUND OF CHICAGO | $10,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $7,200 |
| THE BE KIND PEOPLE PROJECT | $6,000 |
| RAVINIA FESTIVAL ASSOCIATION | $5,000 |
| BRIARWOOD SCHOLARSHIP FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| ARIZONA COMMUNITY FDN-DESERT MTN FDN | $5,000 |
| A SAFE PLACE | $3,100 |
| NATIONAL COUNCIL OF JEWISH WOMEN | $2,500 |
| BOTTOM LINE | $2,000 |
| CANCER WELLNESS CENTER | $1,000 |
| TOURETTE ASSOCIATION OF AMERICA | $1,000 |
| ST JUDE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL | $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 (FY20–25, $20k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, 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.
41 repeat relationships — 24 still active in FY2025, 17 since wound down; 9 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, 90% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $13k 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
- JUJEWISH UNITED FUND OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO7× · 2018–2025 · $130k · revenue +34%
- JCJewish Child and Family Services8× · 2017–2025 · $106k · revenue +43%
RAVINIA FESTIVAL ASSOCIATION9× · 2017–2025 · $67k · revenue +54%
Funded once
- JTJOYCE THEATER FOUNDATION INCone grant, 2021 · $20k · revenue +19%
- ILINTERNATIONAL LYME AND ASSOCIATED DISEASES EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION INgraduatedone grant, 2018 · $5k · revenue +144%
- IFINSTITUTE FOR INTEGRATIVE CANCER RESEARCH AND EDUCATION INCgraduatedone grant, 2018 · $3k · revenue +147%
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.
Engage actively and continuously in medical research, education and training in the practice of medicine in conjunction with the department of family medicine of the indiana university school of medicine and indiana university…
Mjhs health system is a charitable not-for-profit established to support the activities of affiliated organizations. mjhs is built on the core values of compassion, dignity and respect, first established by the four brooklyn ladies in…
Based on jewish values, the jewish federation of greater los angeles convenes and leads the community and leverages its resources to assure the continuity of the jewish people, support a secure state of israel, care for jews in need here…
Jewish family and children's service of minneapolis provides essential services to people of all ages and backgrounds to sustain healthy relationships, ease suffering and offer support in times of need.
We believe in the life-changing, transformational, revelatory power of great art and opera. Lyric Opera of Chicago exists to provide a broad, deep, and relevant cultural service to the Chicago region and the nation, and to advance the…
To inspire and prepare young people to succeed in a global economy
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…
The mission of the jewish museum is to collect, preserve, exhibit and interpret art and jewish culture. see schedule o for more information.
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…
The chicago theatre group is committed to producing both classic and contemporary works giving full voice to a wide range of artists and visions. by dedicating itself to three guiding principles - quality, equity, and community - the…
Committed to exceptional healthcare quality for all and actively engaged with our community, einstein drives scientific discovery and educates compassionate leaders in health and science.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Jewish Family and Children's Service Inc and the most unlike its peers is Helping Hands Network Inc. 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 41 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) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 2% 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.
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 77 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 JEWISH UNITED FUND OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds Jewish Child and Family Services ↗
- Who funds MAYO CLINIC ↗
- Who funds RAVINIA FESTIVAL ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL COUNCIL OF JEWISH WOMEN INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds BRIARWOOD SCHOLARSHIP FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds JOYCE THEATER FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds GLOBAL LYME ALLIANCE INC ↗
- Who funds LAKE COUNTY CRISIS CENTER ↗
- Who funds BALLET ARIZONA ↗
- Who funds HUBBARD STREET DANCE CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds CANCER WELLNESS CENTER ↗
- Who funds The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum ↗
- Who funds BERNIE'S BOOK BANK ↗
- Who funds HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL FOUNDATION OF ILLINOIS INC ↗
- Who funds ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL INC ↗
- Who funds Highland Park Community Foundation ↗
- Who funds INTERNATIONAL LYME AND ASSOCIATED DISEASES EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION IN ↗
- Who funds ARIZONA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds HONORHEALTH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE ↗
- Who funds MINNEAPOLIS JEWISH FEDERATION ↗
- Who funds DESERT BOTANICAL GARDEN INC ↗
- Who funds Storycatchers ↗
- Who funds NORTHERN ILLINOIS FOOD BANK ↗
- Who funds INSTITUTE FOR INTEGRATIVE CANCER RESEARCH AND EDUCATION INC ↗
- Who funds JEWISH FAMILY AND CHILDREN'S SERVICE 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: Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · Ncrc Community Development Fund Inc · The Chicago Community Trust · National Philanthropic Trust · American Endowment Foundation · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Network for Good
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 Jane and Michael Strauss Family Foundation Inc 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.
- Feed the Children Inc — 1% 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 Jane and Michael Strauss Family Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to Jane and Michael Strauss Family Foundation Inc 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.