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Kay Torshen Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

Kay Torshen 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.

$108k
Granted FY2024still arriving
5
Grants FY2024still arriving
3
States reached
$100k
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its granteesRead
04Its fieldRead
01What it funds
0192% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2024.

Arts & Culture$625kInternational$155kPublic Safety & Disaster$48kEducation$38kHealth$29kReligion$16kSocial Science$9kScience & Tech$7kOther$0
02FY2024 · 5 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2024

  • Under $10k4 grants · $8k
  • $50k–250k1 grant · $100k
$1,000
Median grant
3
States reached
$2.2M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART MIAMI INC$100,000
UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI$5,000
CHICAGO COUNCIL ON SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY$1,000
COUNCIL FOR ECONOMIC EDUCATION$1,000
FRANCIS W PARKER SCHIOOL$1,000
02The need
03

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Its human-services grants (FY20–20, $1k) 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 its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 11%Share Our Spare: $1k → 14%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount
How this is measured
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.
How this is measured
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.
03Its grantees
repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

97%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$927k · 18 repeat orgs$33k to everyone else

18 repeat relationships: 4 still active in FY2024, 14 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

18
31

Total granted

$927k
$28k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+45%
+67%

Still filing today

78%
55%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 95% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $5k went to new ones.

50%100%’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24
RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24
Arts & CultureEducationHealthInternationalSocial ScienceYouth DevelopmentOther
How this is measured
First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

  • IO
    INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART MIAMI INC
    4× · 2021–2024 · $310k · revenue +83%
  • TA
    THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO
    6× · 2017–2022 · $210k · revenue +45%
  • MO
    MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART
    5× · 2017–2022 · $86k · revenue +0%

Funded once

  • TF
    THE FORTNIGHTLY OF CHICAGOgraduated
    one grant, 2017 · $2k · revenue +35%
  • TA
    The Arts Club of Chicago
    one grant, 2017 · $2k · revenue +6%
  • UO
    UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO WOMEN'S BOARD
    one grant, 2018 · $1k
How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

1
True Chicago
Arts & Culture
2
Chicago Historical Society

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…

Arts & Culture
3
Columbia College Chicago

The organization's mission is to educate students for creative occupations in diverse fields of arts and media.

Education
4
American Museum of Natural History

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."

Arts & Culture
5
California Institute of Contemporary Art
—
6
Chicago Opera Theater

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.

Arts & Culture
7
Design Museum of Chicago

The Design Museum of Chicago strives to inspire, educate and innovate through design. As a resource for the Chicago design community and beyond, the museum facilitates an open dialogue about contemporary and historical design through…

Arts & Culture
8
The Richard H Driehaus Foundation
Philanthropy
9
The Chicago High School for the Arts

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…

Education
10
Students Run Chicago
Health
11
Institute for Advanced Study - Louis Bamberger & Mrs Felix Fuld Foundation

The institute for advanced study (the institute) is one of the world's leading centers for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. see schedule o.

Science & Tech
12
Chicago Collections Consortium Inc Nfp

Chicago collections consortium (ccc) is a collaboration among libraries, museums, and allied organizations working together to collect, preserve, and share freely,openly, and equitably the history and culture of chicago with the world.…

Arts & Culture
How this is measured
The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Museum of Contemporary Art; the most unlike its peers is The Neue Galerie New York. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
04the grantee network

32 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 32 of the 50 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
9
Early backer (in before they grew)
32/32
Grantees still filing
28/32
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

INSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART MIAMI INC: $310,000 · Arts & CultureINSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART MIAMI INCMUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART: $86,000 · Arts & CultureMUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART+10 more: $14,166 · Arts & CultureTHE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO: $210,000 · EducationTHE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGOUniversity of Chicago: $8,100 · Education+5 more: $19,595 · Education+5 moreTHE CHICAGO COUNCIL ON GLOBAL AFFAIRS: $155,000 · InternationalTHE CHICAGO COUNCI…BENS: $25,000 · OtherCHICAGO SINAI CONGREGATION: $15,760 · OtherCOMMUNITIES IN SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO: $5,000 · OtherChicago Council on Science & Technology: $6,000 · Other+22 more: $22,635 · OtherCHICAGO POLICE FOUNDATION: $48,000 · Public BenefitRush University Medical Center: $25,000 · HealthAnn & Robert H Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago Foundation: $1,000 · HealthCOUNCIL FOR ECONOMIC EDUCATION: $8,500 · Social Science
Arts & Culture$410,166Education$237,695International$155,000Other$74,395Public Benefit$48,000Health$26,000Social Science$8,500

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetINSTITUTE OF CONTEMPORARY ART MIAMI INC: $310,000 over 4y, 0.9% of budgetTHE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO: $210,000 over 6y, 0.0% of budgetTHE CHICAGO COUNCIL ON GLOBAL AFFAIRS: $155,000 over 5y, 0.5% of budgetMUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART: $86,000 over 5y, 0.2% of budgetCHICAGO POLICE FOUNDATION: $48,000 over 2y, 8.8% of budgetRush University Medical Center: $25,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetCOUNCIL FOR ECONOMIC EDUCATION: $8,500 over 6y, 0.1% of budgetUniversity of Chicago: $8,100 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetFrancis W Parker School: $7,000 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetTHE LATIN SCHOOL OF CHICAGO: $6,000 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetChicago Council on Science & Technology: $6,000 over 6y, 0.4% of budgetUniversity of Miami: $5,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetCOMMUNITIES IN SCHOOLS OF CHICAGO: $5,000 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetUNITING VOICES: $4,500 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetHISTORIC PRESERVATION FOUNDATION OF THE FORTNIGHTLY: $3,250 over 5y, 0.4% of budgetTHE FORTNIGHTLY OF CHICAGO: $2,200 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetThe Arts Club of Chicago: $2,100 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetWHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART: $1,064 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetShare our Spare: $1,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetGREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY: $1,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetRoosevelt University: $1,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetAnn & Robert H Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago Foundation: $1,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetONEGOAL: $1,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetJORGE M PEREZ ART MUSEUM OF MIAMI-DADE COUNTY INC: $800 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetMuseum of Modern Art: $532 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetNATIONAL MUSEUM OF MEXICAN ART FKA MEXICAN FINE ARTS CENTER MUSEUM: $500 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetPALM SPRINGS ART MUSEUM: $500 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetSOLOMON R GUGGENHEIM FOUNDATION: $490 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetTHE NEUE GALERIE NEW YORK: $430 over 1y, 2.4% of budgetLYNN SAGE BREAST CANCER FOUNDATION: $100 over 1y, 0.0% of budget
Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

The Chicago Community…Gs Donor Advised Phil…Smart Family Foundati…Kovler Family Foundat…Polk Bros Foundation …Arie and Ida Crown Me…AbbVie FoundationNational Philanthropi…Morgan Stanley Global…Vanguard Charitable E…Donor Advised Charita…The Bank of America C…
The Chicago Community TrustIL16.8× affinity7 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: The Chicago Community Trust · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc · Smart Family Foundation of Illinois · Kovler Family Foundation · Polk Bros Foundation Inc · Arie and Ida Crown Memorial · AbbVie Foundation · National Philanthropic Trust · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc

How this is measured
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Kay Torshen Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Kay Torshen Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%0%1%3%5%funder's share of their income ↑0%5%10%15%20%share of the org’s income from government →median 5%
  • University of Miami: 5% of income from government
no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
0get no government money at all
5report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
0rely on government for over half their income
⤢ axis zoomed · 0–20%
typical government reliance, FY20–25
How this is measured
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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 50 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

How this is measured
Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears.

Generated from the IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2024, released 2024. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Source object · view filing

Play a game based on Kay Torshen’s filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions
grants reported with no recipient in the public record
The regranting layer
51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer
The DAF merry-go-round
$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds
The endowment market
who holds foundation money, and what just moved
The camps
funders cluster by geography, not ideology
By state
where grant money is based, and what stays home