· Private foundation
Joseph and Helen Komarek 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.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| FRIENDS OF ISRAEL DEFENSE FORC | $6,000 |
| LURIE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL | $5,000 |
| THE HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL FOUNDATION O | $4,000 |
| CHICAGO YOUTH PROGRAMS | $4,000 |
| ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE | $4,000 |
| CRADLES TO CRAYONS | $4,000 |
| WTTW-CHANNEL 11 | $4,000 |
| CAWC | $3,000 |
| WILLOW HOUSE | $3,000 |
| NORTHWESTERN MEMORIAL FOUNDATION | $2,000 |
| OMNI YOUTH SERVICES | $2,000 |
| FAMILY RESCUE | $2,000 |
| MAGEN DAVID ADOM | $2,000 |
| SHELTER INC | $2,000 |
| CHICAGO BOTANIC GARDENS | $1,500 |
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, $70k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 97% 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 +30% since the first grant, against -2% for the ones you funded once.
39 repeat relationships — 30 still active in FY2025, 9 since wound down; 5 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, 90% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $7k 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
- CYCHICAGO YOUTH PROGRAMS INC6× · 2020–2025 · $29k · revenue +5%
- CTCRADLES TO CRAYONS INC6× · 2020–2025 · $27k · revenue +81%
- ALANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE6× · 2020–2025 · $21k · revenue +48%
Funded once
- PAPEDIATRIC AIDS FOUNDATIONone grant, 2020 · $4k
- MDMAGEN DAVID ADOMone grant, 2020 · $1k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2023 · $1k
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.
Our mission at the university of chicago medicine is to provide superior health care through rigorous research, innovative education, and comprehensive care and healing. in partnership with our colleagues, we pursue life-changing…
The children's hospital of philadelphia, the oldest hospital in the united states dedicated exclusively to pediatrics, strives to be the world leader in the advancement of health care for children by integrating excellent patient care,…
Ann & robert h. lurie children's hospital of chicago is dedicated to the health and well-being of all children. as the pediatric teaching facility for northwestern university feinberg school of medicine, this commitment drives us to be a…
Northwestern memorial healthcare is an integrated healthcare system, consisting of multiple hospitals (including northwestern memorial hospital, an academic medical center) and networks of physicians and healthcare professionals, where the…
Our mission is to strengthen and heal families and individuals from all walks of life through clinical service, education and research.
Founded in 1883, brightpoint (formerly known as children's home & aid) is a leading statewide organization supporting families so children can thrive.
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…
We are chicago's jesuit, catholic university - a diverse community seeking god in all things and working to expand knowledge in the service of humanity through learning, justice, and faith.
Stanley manne children's research institute strives to generate new knowledge and advance the prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of pediatric diseases.
The chicago psychoanalytic institute transforms the lives of individuals, families and communities, using psychoanalytic knowledge to help them grow and thrive.
We, loyola university health system and trinity health, serve together in the spirit of the gospel as a compassionate and transforming healing presence within our communities.lumc is a member of loyola university health system and trinity…
To spark curiosity and creativity in all young children through positive, play-based learning experiences.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Family Rescue Inc and the most unlike its peers is Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. 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 54 years old; the field is 18. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% 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.
26 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. 26 of the 49 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 YOUTH PROGRAMS INC ↗
- Who funds CRADLES TO CRAYONS INC ↗
- Who funds ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE ↗
- Who funds WILLOW HOUSE ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE ISRAEL DEFENSE FORCES ↗
- Who funds CONNECTIONS FOR ABUSED WOMEN AND THEIR CHILDREN ↗
- Who funds FAMILY RESCUE INC ↗
- Who funds SHELTER INC ↗
- Who funds Jewish Child and Family Services ↗
- Who funds CHRISTOPHER HOUSE ↗
- Who funds La Rabida Children's Hospital ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO CHILDREN'S ADVOCACY CENTER ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds HADLEY INSTITUTE FOR THE BLIND AND VISUALLY IMPAIRED ↗
- Who funds Metropolitan Family Services ↗
- Who funds CANCER WELLNESS CENTER ↗
- Who funds The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum ↗
- Who funds OMNI YOUTH SERVICES INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN FRIENDS OF MAGEN DAVID ADOM ↗
- Who funds THE MORTON ARBORETUM ↗
- Who funds THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO ↗
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: United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc · AbbVie Foundation · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · George M Eisenberg Foundation for Charities · Trustmark Foundation · Polk Bros Foundation Inc · Circle of Service Foundation · Greater Chicago Food Depository · The Chicago Community Trust · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc · American Endowment Foundation · Jpmorgan Chase 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 and Helen Komarek 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.
- Cradles to Crayons Inc — 2% 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.