· Private foundation
John R Halligan Charitable Fund
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 $10k41 grants · $254k
- $10k–50k56 grants · $1.3M
- $50k–250k13 grants · $1.0M
- $250k+1 grant · $269k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| LYRIC OPERA OF CHICAGO | $268,522 |
| CHICAGO HISTORY MUSEUM | $100,000 |
| HAWAIIAN HUMANE SOCIETY | $100,000 |
| HAWAII OPERA THEATRE | $100,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $90,000 |
| PBS HAWAII | $90,000 |
| HONOLULU MUSEUM OF ART | $90,000 |
| BISHOP MUSEUM | $80,000 |
| HONOLULU ZOO SOCIETY | $70,000 |
| HAWAII SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | $60,000 |
| ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO | $60,000 |
| DIAMOND HEAD THEATRE | $55,000 |
| CHICAGO OPERA THEATRE | $55,000 |
| CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | $50,000 |
| FIELD MUSEUM | $45,000 |
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 (FY22–24, $55k) 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.
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 +19% for the ones you funded once.
113 repeat relationships — 104 still active in FY2024, 9 since wound down; 7 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, 99% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $37k 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
- LOLyric Opera of Chicago8× · 2017–2024 · $1.9M · revenue +33%
- HOHAWAII OPERA THEATRE8× · 2017–2024 · $640k · revenue +12%
- HPHAWAII PUBLIC TELEVISION FOUNDATION DBA PBS HAWAII8× · 2017–2024 · $595k · revenue +9%
Funded once
- OOORPAHNS OF THE STORM ANIMAL SHELTERone grant, 2017 · $5k
- CFCHICAGO FOLKS OPERETTA NFPone grant, 2023 · $3k · revenue +19%
- HCHAWAIIAN CONSERVATION ALLIANCE FUNDone grant, 2017 · $3k
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 high school for the arts (chiarts) develops the next generation of diverse, artistically promising scholar-artists through intensive pre-professional training in the arts, combined with a comprehensive college preparatory…
Illinois Philharmonic Orchestra's mission as a professional orchestra is to utilize the universal expression of music to create profound, inspiring, and personal connections between the people and communities of Chicagos Southland.
Chicago a cappella advances the art and appreciation of ensemble singing. the organization produces an annual series of concerts in the greater chicago area, produces educational outreach programs, creates studio recordings as well as live…
The mission of the aloha theatre is to enrich the lives of hawaii residents and visitors by providing quality live theatre, performing arts education, and a venue for artistic expression.
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…
Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra (CCO) creates intimate, transformative experiences that connect the musically curious.
To create vivid, entertaining theatrical experiences that invigorate and engage people of all ages and identities by illuminating the complexity, ambiguity, and wonder of our world. shared humanity and unforgettable stories - now this is…
The mission of HGO is to enrich our diverse community through the art of opera. We will do so by creating, curating, exploring, and producing outstanding experiences centered around the human voice.(Continued on Schedule O)
Strengthen communities by providing high-quality and innovative artistic experiences that entertain, inspire, and unite diverse audiences.
To present high quality arts programming and musical performances that will educate, enrich and improve the quality of life for the diverse Chicago cultural communities and beyond.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Chicago Theatre Group Inc and the most unlike its peers is The Arts at Marks Garage. 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 49 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) — 1% of your grantees by number, and just 5% 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.
80 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. 80 of the 123 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 Lyric Opera of Chicago ↗
- Who funds HAWAIIAN HUMANE SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds HAWAII OPERA THEATRE ↗
- Who funds HONOLULU MUSEUM OF ART ↗
- Who funds HAWAII PUBLIC TELEVISION FOUNDATION DBA PBS HAWAII ↗
- Who funds BISHOP MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO OPERA THEATER ↗
- Who funds DIAMOND HEAD THEATRE ↗
- Who funds Chicago Symphony Orchestra ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY ↗
- Who funds Chicago Zoological Society ↗
- Who funds SHEDD AQUARIUM SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART ↗
- Who funds Kenneth C Griffin Museum of Science and Industry ↗
- Who funds HAWAII SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ↗
- Who funds KOHL CHILDREN'S MUSEUM OF GREATER CHICAGO INC ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO THEATRE GROUP INC ↗
- Who funds GARFIELD PARK CONSERVATORY ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO SINFONIETTA INC ↗
- Who funds HAWAII PUBLIC RADIO ↗
- Who funds LINCOLN PARK CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds THE CHICAGO ACADEMY OF SCIENCES ↗
- Who funds KESHET ↗
- Who funds HAWAII THEATRE CENTER ↗
- Who funds THE NEWBERRY LIBRARY ↗
- Who funds PEARL HARBOR AVIATION MUSEUM ↗
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: Ncrc Community Development Fund Inc · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · J Watumull Fund · Atherton Family Foundation · The Cades Foundation · The Chicago Community Trust · Kosasa Foundation · Polk Bros Foundation Inc · Hawaii Community Reinvestment Corporation · Hawaii Council for Humanities · Cooke Foundation Limited · Tradewind Group 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 John R Halligan Charitable Fund 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.