· Private foundation
Janis Morris 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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k14 grants · $9k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $10k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | $10,000 |
| COUDERT INSTITUTE | $2,000 |
| FLAGLER THEATRE | $1,500 |
| GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY | $1,500 |
| JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER OF CHICAGO | $1,000 |
| NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY | $500 |
| AUDITORIUM THEATRE | $500 |
| CHICAGO LIGHTHOUSE FOR THE BLIND | $500 |
| MAKE A WISH | $400 |
| INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY FOR HUMAN RIGHTS | $300 |
| MORTON ARBORETUM | $250 |
| REMY BUMPPO THEATER | $200 |
| AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY | $200 |
| SHRINERS HOSPTITAL FOR CHILDREN | $200 |
| ITALIAN AMERICAN HUMAN RELATIONS FOUNDATION | $200 |
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 (FY17–24, $9k) 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +33% since the first grant, against +5% for the ones you funded once.
48 repeat relationships — 10 still active in FY2024, 38 since wound down; 5 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, 86% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $3k 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
- CSChicago Symphony Orchestra8× · 2017–2024 · $67k · revenue +58%
- JUJEWISH UNITED FUND OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO5× · 2017–2022 · $39k · revenue +13%
- GPGRANT PARK ORCHESTRAL ASSOCIATION7× · 2017–2023 · $31k · revenue +127%
Funded once
- CHChicago Humanities Festivalone grant, 2018 · $3k · revenue -3%
- STSINAI TEMPLEone grant, 2017 · $1k
- CTCHICAGO TRIBUNE CHARITIESone grant, 2018 · $500
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.
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…
Chicago opera theater expands the tradition of opera as a living art form by engaging lovers of music and storytelling through innovative experiences, predominantly of new and rarely performed works.
The Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University ("The Auditorium"), an Illinois not-for-profit corporation, is committed to presenting the finest in international, cultural, community and educational programming to Chicago and to the…
The Chicago History Museum strives to be a destination for learning, inspiration, and civic engagement. Through dynamic exhibitions, tours, programs, digital resources, and special events, the Museum connects people to Chicago's history…
The organization's mission is to educate students for creative occupations in diverse fields of arts and media.
The music institute of chicago ("music institute") leads people toward a lifelong engagement with music, by providing widely accessible resources for high quality music teaching, performing, and service activities.
To spark curiosity and creativity in all young children through positive, play-based learning experiences.
Chicago sun-times serves the public interest by strengthening the well-being of our local communities and our democracy through independent local journalism.
Navy pier is the "people's pier and aims to fulfill visionary daniel burnham's edict that chicago's magnificent lakefront remain open and available to the people. through 50 acres of parks and unmatched views of the city skyline touching…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Chicago Theatre Group Inc and the most unlike its peers is Paralyzed Veterans of America Vaughan Chapter. 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 51 years old; the field is 17. 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 — 2% lost their exemption, against 16% 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.
44 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. 44 of the 76 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 Chicago Symphony Orchestra ↗
- Who funds JEWISH UNITED FUND OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds GRANT PARK ORCHESTRAL ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds THE JOFFREY BALLET ↗
- Who funds THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART ↗
- Who funds GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY ↗
- Who funds RAVINIA FESTIVAL ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY ↗
- Who funds Jewish Community Centers of Chicago ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO THEATRE GROUP INC ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO SHAKESPEARE THEATER ↗
- Who funds LINCOLN PARK CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds LINCOLN PARK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds FOUNDATION FOR HEARING AND SPEECH RESOURCES ↗
- Who funds WINDOW TO THE WORLD COMMUNICATIONS INC ↗
- Who funds THE NIGHT MINISTRY ↗
- Who funds Chicago Humanities Festival ↗
- Who funds Northwestern University ↗
- Who funds TIMELINE THEATRE COMPANY ↗
- Who funds URBAN GATEWAYS ↗
- Who funds THE RESOURCE FOUNDATION 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: John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · Ncrc Community Development Fund Inc · The Chicago Community Trust · Lloyd a Fry Foundation · Polk Bros Foundation Inc · Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago · Bayless Family Foundation · Elizabeth F Cheney Foundation · The Service Club of Chicago · Dr Scholl Foundation · The Shubert Foundation Inc · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management 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 Janis Morris 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.
- The Shriners' Hospital for Children — 6% 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.