· Private foundation
Lakshmi 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 FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k9 grants · $45k
- $10k–50k12 grants · $128k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CHESHIRE PROJECT DBA ZENO MOUNTAIN FARM | $16,000 |
| ASPIRE OF ILLINOIS | $12,000 |
| NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO | $10,000 |
| TOTALLINK2 COMMUNITY | $10,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $10,000 |
| SPECIAL OLYMPICS OF ILLINOIS | $10,000 |
| CHICAGO FOUNDATION FOR WOMEN | $10,000 |
| ACCESS LIVING OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO | $10,000 |
| VOICES AND FACES PROJECT | $10,000 |
| PLANNED PARENTHOOD OF ILLINOIS | $10,000 |
| I AM ALS | $10,000 |
| WBEZ - CHICAGO PUBLIC RADIO | $10,000 |
| THE NORA PROJECT NFP | $5,000 |
| MIDWEST ACCESS PROJECT | $5,000 |
| L'ARCHE CHICAGO | $5,000 |
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 (FY17–25, $329k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 85% 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 +25% since the first grant, against +11% for the ones you funded once.
26 repeat relationships — 16 still active in FY2025, 10 since wound down; 4 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, 82% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $30k 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
- AOASPIRE OF ILLINOIS8× · 2017–2025 · $114k · revenue +124%
- ALAccess Living of Metropolitan Chicago9× · 2017–2025 · $90k · revenue +25%
- PPPlanned Parenthood of Illinois8× · 2017–2025 · $80k · revenue +64%
Funded once
- LALESTER AND ROSALIE ANIXTER CENTERone grant, 2017 · $20k · revenue +4%
- BBBest Buddies of Illinoisone grant, 2017 · $20k
- DUDEPAUL UNIVERSITYone grant, 2021 · $10k · revenue +11%
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.
Equality illinois builds a better illinois by advancing equal treatment and social justice through education, advocacy and protection of the rights of the lgbt community.
The mission of goodwill is to create opportunities for individuals with barriers to enhance their lives. barriers include physical or mental disabilities, lack of education and job preparation, socio-economic disadvantages, and others.…
The Arc of Illinois is committed to empowering persons with disabilities to achieve full participation in community life through informed choices.
Arise chicago builds partnerships between faith communities and workers to fight workplace injustice through education, organizing, and advocating for public policy changes.
At legal aid chicago, we work together to provide high quality civil legal aid to people living in poverty and other vulnerable groups.through advocacy, education, collaboration, and litigation we empower individuals, protect fundamental…
Legal protection and advocacy to protect the rights of people with disabilities in wisconsin.
The Network is a group of 40+ member organizations dedicated to improving the lives of those impacted by gender-based violence through education, public policy and advocacy, and connecting community members with direct service providers.…
We work to ensure that individuals with disabilities can live independently as equal members of society.
Advance the human & civil rights of children and adults with disabilities in illinois. administer federally mandated protection & advocacy system for state; exercise statutory powers, and serve as legal advocate and independent watchdog…
The chicago psychoanalytic institute transforms the lives of individuals, families and communities, using psychoanalytic knowledge to help them grow and thrive.
Alternatives, inc.'s mission is to facilitate personal development,strengthen family relationships and enhance the community's well being. serving over 3,000 youth and families annually, the organization offers a range of counseling and…
Secure racial equity and economic opportunity for all
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Access Living of Metropolitan Chicago and the most unlike its peers is The Voices & Faces 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 42 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) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% 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.
28 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. 28 of the 38 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 ASPIRE OF ILLINOIS ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO FOUNDATION FOR WOMEN ↗
- Who funds Access Living of Metropolitan Chicago ↗
- Who funds Planned Parenthood of Illinois ↗
- Who funds SPECIAL OLYMPICS ILLINOIS ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR INDEPENDENT FUTURES ↗
- Who funds SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds ST LOUIS ARC INC ↗
- Who funds Chicago Alliance Against Sexual Exploitation ↗
- Who funds THE VOICES & FACES PROJECT ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO INC ↗
- Who funds GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY ↗
- Who funds TOTALLINK TO COMMUNITY INC ↗
- Who funds OLD TOWN SCHOOL OF FOLK MUSIC ↗
- Who funds Repro TLC ↗
- Who funds WOMEN EMPLOYED ↗
- Who funds EQUAL JUSTICE INITIATIVE ↗
- Who funds LESTER AND ROSALIE ANIXTER CENTER ↗
- Who funds THE JOSSELYN CENTER NFP ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR DOWN SYNDROME ↗
- Who funds TELLIN TALES THEATRE ↗
- Who funds I AM ALS ↗
- Who funds DEPAUL UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds EDGE of Orion ↗
- Who funds LINCOLN PARK VILLAGE INC ↗
- Who funds THE NORA PROJECT ↗
- Who funds ORCHARD VILLAGE ↗
- Who funds L'ARCHE CHICAGO 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: The Chicago Community Trust · Baxter International Foundation · AbbVie Foundation · Polk Bros Foundation Inc · The Coleman Foundation Inc · Circle of Service Foundation · Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago · First Bank Chicago Foundation · George M Eisenberg Foundation for Charities · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · Chicago Foundation for Women · Arthur J Gallagher 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 Lakshmi 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.