· Private foundation
Joseph L & Emily K Gidwitz Memorial Foundation
Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k3 grants · $13k
- $10k–50k7 grants · $175k
- $50k–250k6 grants · $600k
- $250k+2 grants · $550k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Council for Jewish Elderly | $300,000 |
| University of Chicago | $250,000 |
| Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago | $200,000 |
| Council for Jewish Elderly | $100,000 |
| Jewish United Fund | $100,000 |
| Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago | $100,000 |
| Jewish United Fund | $50,000 |
| Greater Chicago Food Depository | $50,000 |
| Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago | $45,000 |
| Chicago Botanic Gardens | $25,000 |
| American Jewish Committee | $25,000 |
| Nicklaus Children's Hospital Foundation | $25,000 |
| DonorsChooseOrg | $20,000 |
| Anti Defamation League | $20,000 |
| Cara Collective | $15,000 |
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 (FY21–24, $1.0M) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, 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.
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.
17 repeat relationships — 11 still active in FY2024, 6 since wound down; 2 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, 97% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $40k 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
- JUJEWISH UNITED FUND OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO8× · 2017–2024 · $3.8M · revenue +13%
University of Chicago7× · 2018–2024 · $1.0M · revenue +52%- RIRehabilitation Institute of Chicago7× · 2017–2023 · $875k · revenue +31%
Funded once
SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTIONgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $125k · revenue +34%- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2019 · $125k
- KCKenneth C Griffin Museum of Science and Industryone grant, 2019 · $100k · revenue -1%
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.
Chartered by a unanimous act of congress, the museum is america's national institution for the documentation, study, interpretation, and education of holocaust history and serves as our country's memorial to the victims of the holocaust.…
The mission of the jewish museum is to collect, preserve, exhibit and interpret art and jewish culture. see schedule o for more information.
Biu produces students who excel in the sciences, humanities, law, engineering, business & the arts.
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.
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 institute for advanced study (the institute) is one of the world's leading centers for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. see schedule o.
The museum's mission statement is: "to discover, interpret, and disseminate - through scientific research and education - knowledge about human cultures, the natural world, and the universe."
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…
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 organization's mission is to educate students for creative occupations in diverse fields of arts and media.
The weitzman national museum of american jewish history, on independence mall in philadelphia, presents educational programs and experiences that preserve, explore, and celebrate the history of jews in america. its purpose is to connect…
Chm decodes technology - its computing past, digital present, and future impact on humanity.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Access Living of Metropolitan Chicago 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.
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 13% 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.
22 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. 22 of the 30 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 JEWISH UNITED FUND OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds COUNCIL FOR JEWISH ELDERLY ↗
- Who funds University of Chicago ↗
- Who funds Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago ↗
- Who funds GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE ↗
- Who funds HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL FOUNDATION OF ILLINOIS INC ↗
- Who funds ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE ↗
- Who funds DONORSCHOOSEORG ↗
- Who funds SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds JEWISH FEDERATION OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds Illinois Executive Mansion Association ↗
- Who funds Kenneth C Griffin Museum of Science and Industry ↗
- Who funds Access Living of Metropolitan Chicago ↗
- Who funds BUZZARDS BAY COALITION ↗
- Who funds ISRAEL TENNIS CENTERS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Chicago Festival of Israeli Cinema NFP ↗
- Who funds OLD TOWN SCHOOL OF FOLK MUSIC ↗
- Who funds FLORIDA STATE PARKS FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds The Cara Program ↗
- Who funds METROSQUASH NFP ↗
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 Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund
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 L & Emily K Gidwitz Memorial 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.
- Buzzards Bay Coalition — 37% 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Joseph L & Emily K Gidwitz Memorial Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Joseph L & Emily K Gidwitz Memorial 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.