· Private foundation
Jordan and Jean Nerenberg Family 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.
Read this first · the figures below need context
96% of Jordan and Jean Nerenberg Family Foundation’s FY2024 grant dollars went to Schwab Charitable Fund, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2024 names 31 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2023, the last year Jordan and Jean Nerenberg Family Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 30 organizations, $155k. It is dated, not current.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2021–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2023
- Under $10k36 grants · $90k
- $10k–50k3 grants · $65k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| JEWISH FEDERATION OF METROPOLIAN CHICAGO | $30,000 |
| UNION FOR REFORM JUDIASM | $25,000 |
| BERKELEY-CARROLL STREET SCHOOL | $10,000 |
| ANSHE EMET SYNAGOGUE | $6,900 |
| ROGUE THEATRE | $6,300 |
| TIMELINE THEATRE COMPANY | $6,000 |
| GRANT PARK MUSIC FESTIVAL | $6,000 |
| AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR THE WEIZMANN INST | $5,000 |
| STEEP THEATRE COMPANY | $5,000 |
| REINVENT ALBANY | $5,000 |
| EMANUEL CONGREGATION | $3,500 |
| TUCSON SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | $3,000 |
| STEPPENWOLF THEATRE COMPANY | $3,000 |
| CHICAGO HUMANITIES FESTIVAL | $3,000 |
| GROUNDSWELL COMMUNITY MURAL PROJECT | $3,000 |
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 (FY22–23, $4k) land where the poverty rate runs at 20%, 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.
35 repeat relationships — 29 still active in FY2023, 6 since wound down; 23 grantees were first funded in FY2023 (too recent to call). Read against FY2023, the last year this funder named its own grantees directly; its giving has since run through a sponsor, which reports no donor behind each grant.
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, 70% 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
AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE2× · 2021–2022 · $35k · revenue +111%- TBTHE BERKELEY CARROLL SCHOOL3× · 2022–2024 · $25k · revenue +13%
Northwestern University4× · 2021–2024 · $25k · revenue +14%
Funded once
- FFFILM FORUM INCgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $5k · revenue +92%
- TLTHE LATIN SCHOOL OF CHICAGOone grant, 2022 · $3k · revenue +18%
- WTWriters Theatre Incgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $3k · revenue +161%
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.
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 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…
The mission of the jewish museum is to collect, preserve, exhibit and interpret art and jewish culture. see schedule o for more information.
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 organization's mission is to educate students for creative occupations in diverse fields of arts and media.
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…
The Museum of Modern Art is a private, non-profit institution chartered by the State of New York Department of Education in 1929 to foster public awareness of modern and contemporary art. (Continued in Schedule O)
The adler planetarium ('adler') is a not-for-profit cultural institution whose mission is to connect people to the universe and each other under the sky we all share. it aspires to be the world's premier center for engaging in astronomy…
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…
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…
Seeks to expand the boundaries of theater, producing, performing and presenting works of literary, experimental and educational value. provide a home for outstanding artists, a training ground for young artists (including an extensive…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Grant Park Orchestral Association and the most unlike its peers is The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 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 14. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 24% startups (under 5 years old) — 6% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 14% 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.
49 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. 49 of the 72 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 DONOR ADVISED CHARITABLE GIVING INC ↗
- Who funds JEWISH FEDERATION OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE ↗
- Who funds THE BERKELEY CARROLL SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds Northwestern University ↗
- Who funds GRANT PARK ORCHESTRAL ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds TIMELINE THEATRE COMPANY ↗
- Who funds The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum ↗
- Who funds STEPPENWOLF THEATRE COMPANY ↗
- Who funds The Rogue Theatre ↗
- Who funds THE HABONIM CAMP ASSOCIATION COMPANY INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds Tucson Symphony Society ↗
- Who funds Albany Park Theater Project ↗
- Who funds THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds NEIGHBORS TOGETHER CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds Chicago Humanities Festival ↗
- Who funds Arizona Theatre Company ↗
- Who funds JEWISH UNITED FUND OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds TUCSON MUSEUM OF ART AND HISTORIC BLOCK INC ↗
- Who funds STEEP THEATRE ↗
- Who funds REINVENT ALBANY ↗
- Who funds FILM FORUM INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICA ISRAEL DEMOCRACY COALITION ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN SOCIETY OF OVERSEAS RESEARCH ↗
- Who funds University of Arizona Foundation ↗
- Who funds GROUNDSWELL COMMUNITY MURAL PROJECTINC ↗
- Who funds SPRING STREET CLIMATE FUND INC ↗
- Who funds THE LATIN SCHOOL OF CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds ARIZONA OPERA COMPANY ↗
- Who funds Writers Theatre 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 · The Chicago Community Trust · Community Foundation for Southern Arizona · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · Bayless Family Foundation · Arts Foundation for Tucson and Southern Arizona · Jarvis Foundation · Jewish Community Foundation of Southern Arizona · The Hs Lopez Family Foundation · Brooklyn Community Foundation · The Shubert Foundation Inc · The Gordon 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 Jordan and Jean Nerenberg Family 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.
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How do I get to Jordan and Jean Nerenberg Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Jordan and Jean Nerenberg Family 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.