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John & Nancy Hughes Charitable Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

John & Nancy Hughes Charitable 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.

$525k
Granted FY2025still arriving
7
Grants FY2025still arriving
1
States reached
$250k
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its granteesRead
04Its fieldRead
01What it funds
01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2022 to 2025.

Health$813kFood & Nutrition$150kRecreation & Sports$150kHuman Services$150kPhilanthropy$150kEmployment$50kEducation$38kArts & Culture$13kOther$0
02FY2025 · 7 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

  • $10k–50k2 grants · $50k
  • $50k–250k4 grants · $225k
  • $250k+1 grant · $250k
$50,000
Median grant
1
States reached
$10M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
ANN AND ROBERT H LURIE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL$250,000
NORTHWESTERN MEMORIAL FOUNDATION$75,000
FAMILY FIRST CENTER OF LAKE COUNTY$50,000
AMERICAN HEARING IMPAIRED HOCKEY ASSOCIATION$50,000
NOURISHING HOPE$50,000
THE GRACE NETWORK$25,000
GORTON CENTER$25,000
02The need
03

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Its human-services grants (FY24–25, $100k) land where the poverty rate runs at 8%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 0% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.

area typical 11%GORTON CENTER: $75k → 8%GORTON CENTER: $25k → 8%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount
How this is measured
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.
How this is measured
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.
03Its grantees
repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

89%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$1.4M · 5 repeat orgs$163k to everyone else

5 repeat relationships: 5 still active in FY2025, 0 since wound down; 2 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

5
4

Total granted

$1.4M
$88k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+24%
+34%

Still filing today

60%
100%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 86% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $75k went to new ones.

50%100%’22’23’24’25
RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

’22’23’24’25
Arts & CultureCommunity ImprovementHuman ServicesEmploymentEducationOther
How this is measured
First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

  • NH
    NOURISHING HOPE
    3× · 2023–2025 · $150k · revenue +24%
  • AH
    AMERICAN HEARING IMPAIRED HOCKEY ASSN INC
    3× · 2023–2025 · $150k · revenue +46%
  • GC
    Gorton Community Center
    2× · 2024–2025 · $100k · revenue +4%

Funded once

  • CC
    Chicago Cred Inc
    one grant, 2023 · $50k · revenue -54%
  • WH
    WILLOW HOUSEgraduated
    one grant, 2022 · $13k · revenue +34%
  • TM
    The Musical Arts Institute
    one grant, 2022 · $13k · revenue +9%
How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

1
True Chicago
Arts & Culture
2
Chicago Harp Quartet
—
3
Covenant House Chicago
—
4
Illinois Children's Healthcare Foundation
Human Services
5
Students Run Chicago
Health
6
Illinois Institute for Children

Providing Social Services to Families including Child Care

Human Services
7
Firehouse Community Arts Center of Chicago

Center in chicago for arts community purpose

Arts & Culture
8
Fame Center

Fame center is a 501c3 non-profit for childrean and adults. fame center provides equitable access to arts educaiton so that the next generation has creative tools to uncover their potential and imagine their futures.

Arts & Culture
9
Classical Music Chicago

Presenting free high-quality classical music performances and music education experiences in the Chicago metropolitan area for people of all ages and degrees of musical awareness so they can experience how music enriches life.

Arts & Culture
10
Chicago City Theatre Company dba Joel Hall Dancers & Center

To enrich the lives of our community through dance education and performance while developing Chicago's native talent pool in a welcoming environment that celebrates multiculturalism & ethnic diversity.

Arts & Culture
11
Pitch in

Established in 2011 by retired Chicago Cubs pitcher Kerry Wood, and his wife Sarah, Pitch In (fka Wood Family Foundation) seeks to improve the lives of children in four high-need neighborhoods in Chicago: North Lawndale, Humboldt Park,…

Philanthropy
12
Heal Chicago

To strengthen communities through educational dialogue, leadership development, emotional resilience, and intercultural competence programs that help people bridge differences and build trust.

Public Benefit
How this is measured
The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Willow House; the most unlike its peers is Chicago Cred Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
04the grantee network

9 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2026, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 9 of the 11 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
1
Early backer (in before they grew)
9/9
Grantees still filing
8/9
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

ANN & ROBERT H LURIE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL: $812,500 · OtherANN & ROBERT H LURIE CHILDREN'S HOSPITALNORTHWESTERN MEMORIAL FOUNDATION: $150,000 · OtherNORTHWESTERN MEMORIAL FOUNDATIONNOURISHING HOPE: $150,000 · OtherNOURISHING HOPEAMERICAN HEARING IMPAIRED HOCKEY ASSN INC: $150,000 · Arts & CultureAMERICAN HEAR…The Musical Arts Institute: $12,500 · Arts & CultureThe Musical A…MERIT SCHOOL OF MUSIC: $12,500 · Arts & CultureMERIT SCHOOL …Gorton Community Center: $100,000 · Human ServicesFamily First Center of Lake County: $50,000 · Community ImprovementWILLOW HOUSE: $12,500 · Community ImprovementChicago Cred Inc: $50,000 · EmploymentTHE GRACE NETWORK: $25,000 · Education
Other$1,112,500Arts & Culture$175,000Human Services$100,000Community Improvement$62,500Employment$50,000Education$25,000

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetNOURISHING HOPE: $150,000 over 3y, 0.3% of budgetAMERICAN HEARING IMPAIRED HOCKEY ASSN INC: $150,000 over 3y, 22% of budgetGorton Community Center: $100,000 over 2y, 1.9% of budgetChicago Cred Inc: $50,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetTHE GRACE NETWORK: $25,000 over 1y, 7.2% of budgetWILLOW HOUSE: $12,500 over 1y, 2.3% of budgetThe Musical Arts Institute: $12,500 over 1y, 1.5% of budgetMERIT SCHOOL OF MUSIC: $12,500 over 1y, 0.2% of budget
Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a set of overlaps that mostly run through this funder rather than between each other.

Fidelity Investments …
Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift FundMA4.9× affinity5 shared granteesties to 0 of 0Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund

How this is measured
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization John & Nancy Hughes Charitable Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from John & Nancy Hughes Charitable Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%2%6%14%25%funder's share of their income ↑0%4%8%11%15%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    4report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–15%
    typical government reliance, FY20–25
    How this is measured
    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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

    On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 11 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

    How this is measured
    Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears.

    Generated from the IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2025, released 2025. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

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    More from the funding graph

    The unnamed billions
    grants reported with no recipient in the public record
    The regranting layer
    51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer
    The DAF merry-go-round
    $9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds
    The endowment market
    who holds foundation money, and what just moved
    The camps
    funders cluster by geography, not ideology
    By state
    where grant money is based, and what stays home