· Private foundation
Joseph & Bessie Feinberg 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.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k41 grants · $176k
- $10k–50k36 grants · $831k
- $50k–250k20 grants · $1.7M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| NORTHWESTERN FEINBERG SCHOOL OF MEDICINE | $225,000 |
| WEST COAST SPORTS MEDICINE FOUNDATION | $205,000 |
| LOOKINGGLASS THEATRE COMPANY | $115,000 |
| COLLABORACTION THEATRE | $105,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $100,000 |
| DOVETAIL PROJECT | $100,000 |
| ECHOES OF HOPE | $100,000 |
| FRIENDS OF ELNET | $100,000 |
| IMAGINE ENGLEWOOD IF | $75,382 |
| TIMELINE THEATRE | $60,000 |
| HERITAGE RETREATS | $50,000 |
| KING'S CARE FOUNDATION | $50,000 |
| CONNECTIONS FOR THE HOMELESS | $50,000 |
| PEOPLE'S MUSIC SCHOOL | $50,000 |
| COMMUNITYHEALTH | $50,000 |
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, $1.3M) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 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 +34% since the first grant, against +11% for the ones you funded once.
149 repeat relationships — 84 still active in FY2025, 65 since wound down; 12 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, 91% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $253k 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
- FOFRIENDS OF ELNET6× · 2020–2025 · $1.1M · revenue +60%
The National Public Housing Museum5× · 2020–2025 · $980k · revenue +188% · 48% of their budget- CFCONNECTIONS FOR THE HOMELESS INC6× · 2020–2025 · $800k · revenue +124%
Funded once
- FSFEINBERG SCHOOL OF MEDICINEone grant, 2023 · $225k
- NFNORTHWESTERN FEINBERG SCHOOL OF MEDICINE BATTLE DISCRETIONARYone grant, 2021 · $200k
- BFBRIGHTER FUTURES FOR PHILLIPSone grant, 2021 · $100k · 37% of their budget
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.
Connecting and amplifying the power of individuals to build a just, equitable, and inclusive city.
A better chicago is changing how chicago fights poverty by investing in bold ideas that create opportunity for our youth.
Live Free Illinois is a statewide organization partnering with over 120 congregations and directly impacted individuals to build safer more equitable communities across Illinois. Operating at the intersection of criminal justice reform and…
Chicago Votes is a non-partisan, non-profit organization building a more inclusive democracy by putting power in the hands of young Chicagoans. We're engaging and developing a new generation of leaders by opening the doors of government,…
Chicago Coalition to End Homelessness (CCH) builds community power and advances racial equity through organizing, advocacy, legal assistance, and education to prevent and end homelessness because housing is a human right.
To promote public appreciation, understanding and support of the humanities through festivals and educational programs.
The Chicago Refugee Coalition is a 501c3 non-profit organization dedicated ot the alleviation of human suffering through innovative partnerships, advocacy and community empowerment.
To achieve parity in economic opportunity for people of color by advancing multiracial leadership in corporate governance, expanding the talent pipline for executive-level management, and growing minority businesses.
Cinema/Chicago, the non-profit 501(c)(3) presenting organization of the Chicago International Film Festival, enriches the community through year-round programming devoted to international and independent cinema. We strengthen communication…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Access Living of Metropolitan Chicago and the most unlike its peers is Mud Theatre Project. 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 26 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) — 6% of your grantees by number, and just 4% 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.
127 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.
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 2017–2026, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 127 of the 248 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
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
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 FRIENDS OF ELNET ↗
- Who funds The National Public Housing Museum ↗
- Who funds CONNECTIONS FOR THE HOMELESS INC ↗
- Who funds Imagine Englewood If NFP ↗
- Who funds JEWISH UNITED FUND OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds International Neighborhood Collaborative ↗
- Who funds BETTER GOVERNMENT ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE NIGHT MINISTRY ↗
- Who funds The People's Music School ↗
- Who funds GIRLS 4 SCIENCE ↗
- Who funds IGNITE ↗
- Who funds READER INSTITUTE FOR COMMUNITY JOURNALISM INC ↗
- Who funds LOOKINGGLASS THEATRE COMPANY ↗
- Who funds YOUNG CHICAGO AUTHORS ↗
- Who funds WINDOW TO THE WORLD COMMUNICATIONS INC ↗
- Who funds COLLABORACTION THEATRE CO ↗
- Who funds NOURISHING HOPE ↗
- Who funds Albany Park Theater Project ↗
- Who funds COVENANT HOUSE ILLINOIS INC ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO PUBLIC MEDIA INC ↗
- Who funds Erikson Institute ↗
- Who funds Chicago Heightening Opportunity and Potential for ↗
- Who funds LADIES OF VIRTUE ↗
- Who funds Injustice Watch NFP ↗
- Who funds La Rabida Children's Hospital ↗
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: Polk Bros Foundation Inc · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · The Chicago Community Trust · Lloyd a Fry Foundation · Robert R McCormick Foundation · Circle of Service Foundation · Field Foundation of Illinois · United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc · The Joyce Foundation · Arie and Ida Crown Memorial · The Pierce Family Charitable Foundation · Reva and David Logan 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 Joseph & Bessie Feinberg 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
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Find your warmest path to Joseph & Bessie Feinberg 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.