· Private foundation
Lavin Family Foundation
Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k15 grants · $54k
- $10k–50k15 grants · $275k
- $50k–250k6 grants · $525k
- $250k+5 grants · $2.8M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ENCHANTED BACKPACK | $850,000 |
| TULANE UNIVERSITY | $750,000 |
| NORTHWESTERN MEMORIAL FOUNDATION | $700,000 |
| ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE | $250,000 |
| JEWISH UNITED FUND | $250,000 |
| CAST WATER SAFETY FOUNDATION | $205,200 |
| OAK PARK & RIVER FOREST HIGH SCHOOL IMAGINE FOUNDATION | $100,000 |
| CHICAGO HOPE ACADEMY | $70,000 |
| BROTHER RICE HIGH SCHOOL | $50,000 |
| DEPRESSION & BIPOLAR SUPPORT ALLIANCE | $50,000 |
| NAVY SEAL FOUNDATION | $50,000 |
| HUA MOMONA FOUNDATION | $40,000 |
| FARM AID | $30,000 |
| SHIRLEY RYAN ABILITYLAB | $25,000 |
| ICAP | $25,000 |
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 (FY17–24, $770k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 92% 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.
Which US states your grants reach
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 +36% since the first grant, against +30% for the ones you funded once.
97 repeat relationships — 29 still active in FY2024, 68 since wound down; 12 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, 92% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $291k 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
- TATHE ADMINISTRATORS OF THE TULANE EDUCATIONAL FUND8× · 2017–2024 · $12M · revenue +72%
- EBENCHANTED BACKPACK5× · 2019–2024 · $4.9M · revenue +218% · 57% of their budget
- JUJEWISH UNITED FUND OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO7× · 2017–2024 · $1.4M · revenue +13%
Funded once
- ACANDREW C LANGERT FAMILY FOUNDATIONone grant, 2022 · $1.0M · revenue -93% · 97% of their budget
- CFCenter for Humane Technologyone grant, 2023 · $1.0M · revenue -39%
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2018 · $324k
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.
The chicago public education fund (the fund) is a nonprofit organization that improves public schools in chicago by investing in the talented educators who lead them.
Lake Forest Graduate School of Management's mission is to bring the real world to business education and leadership development.
The chicago psychoanalytic institute transforms the lives of individuals, families and communities, using psychoanalytic knowledge to help them grow and thrive.
Uchicago medicine network, inc. supports and encourages health and human service by providing support, directly or indirectly to ingalls memorial hospital, the university of chicago medical center, and other related tax-exempt…
See schedule onorc at the university of chicago conducts research and data science on critical societal issues to guide decision-making and the development of programs and public policy. our experts identify relationships and trends, and…
Saint xavier university, a catholic institution inspired by the heritage of the sisters of mercy, educates persons to search for truth, think critically, communicate effectively and serve wisely and compassionately in support of human…
The chicago bar foundation brings the legal community together through advocacy, funding, and innovation to improve access to justice for people in need and to make the legal system more fair, equitable, and effective.
A better chicago is changing how chicago fights poverty by investing in bold ideas that create opportunity for our youth.
The chicagoland chamber of commerce combines the power of people, with our legacy of leadership and business advocacy, to drive a dynamic economy. we focus on delivering value for our members, making chicagoland a world-class place to live…
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.
Illinois college is a co-educational institution of higher education learning providing a four-year educational program leading to the baccalaureate degree. illinois college is a community committed to the highest standards of scholarship…
The Chicago School educates the next generation of change-makers in innovative theory and culturally competent practice to strengthen the integrated health of individuals, organizations, and communities.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Connections for the Homeless Inc and the most unlike its peers is Enchanted Backpack. 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 33 years old; the field is 20. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 18% startups (under 5 years old) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 3% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 12% 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.
191 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. 191 of the 278 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 THE ADMINISTRATORS OF THE TULANE EDUCATIONAL FUND ↗
- Who funds ENCHANTED BACKPACK ↗
- Who funds CAST WATER SAFETY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds JEWISH UNITED FUND OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds ANDREW C LANGERT FAMILY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Center for Humane Technology ↗
- Who funds Northwestern University ↗
- Who funds AFTER SCHOOL MATTERS INC ↗
- Who funds BOYS AND GIRLS CLUBS OF CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE ↗
- Who funds JEWISH FEDERATION OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago ↗
- Who funds THE CAMPANILE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds NCH HEALTHCARE SYSTEM INC ↗
- Who funds American National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches ↗
- Who funds Big Shoulders Fund ↗
- Who funds FARM AID INC ↗
- Who funds LEXINGTON SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO HOPE ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds NAVY SEAL FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT OF CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN INC ↗
- Who funds OAK PARK & RIVER FOREST HIGH SCHOOL IMAGINE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds YOUTH HAVEN INC ↗
- Who funds TRAGEDY ASSISTANCE PROGRAM FOR SURVIVORS INC ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN'S HOME & AID SOCIETY OF ILL ↗
- Who funds FOODCHAIN INC ↗
- Who funds NOURISHING HOPE ↗
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: Carol Bernick Family Foundation · Enchanted Backpack · Patrick G and Shirley W Ryan Foundation · The Chicago Community Trust · Robert R McCormick Foundation · Dr Scholl Foundation · The Robert Thomas Bobins Foundation · Polk Bros Foundation Inc · The Canning Foundation · Circle of Service Foundation · Lloyd a Fry Foundation · John D and Catherine T Macarthur 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 Lavin Family 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.
- Farm Aid Inc — 100% of income from government
- City Year Inc — 11% of income from government
- President and Fellows of Harvard College — 7% of income from government
- Cradles to Crayons Inc — 2% of income from government
- Volunteer Florida Foundation Inc — 2% of income from government
- New World Symphony Inc — 0% of income from government
- Youth Haven Inc — 0% 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 Lavin Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Lavin Family 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.