· Private foundation
Law-Ware-Shedd-Murphy 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 $10k1 grant · $500
- $10k–50k5 grants · $99k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Latin School of Chicago | $30,000 |
| WTTW | $30,000 |
| GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEP | $15,000 |
| FRIENDS OF 2ND PRES CHURCH | $14,000 |
| The Womans Board of Northwestern Me | $10,000 |
| Omena Historical Society | $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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 95% of your 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.
15 repeat relationships — 3 still active in FY2025, 12 since wound down; 3 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, 59% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $41k 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
GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY6× · 2017–2022 · $140k · revenue +140%- IFILLINOIS FIRE SAFETY ALLIANCE4× · 2018–2024 · $46k · revenue +13%
- WTWINDOW TO THE WORLD COMMUNICATIONS INC2× · 2020–2025 · $33k · revenue +16%
Funded once
Lake Forest Collegegraduatedone grant, 2019 · $15k · revenue +58%- SCScripps Collegegraduatedone grant, 2017 · $11k · revenue +72%
- LPLINCOLN PARK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETYgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $10k · revenue +73%
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.
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…
Lake Forest Graduate School of Management's mission is to bring the real world to business education and leadership development.
To inspire conservation leadership by connecting people with wildlife and nature.
The lincoln children's museum invites children to create, discover and learn through the power of play.
The organization's mission is to educate students for creative occupations in diverse fields of arts and media.
To Prepare Students for Success in Four-Year Colleges.
Operation of a nautical history museum.
The operation of a children's museum.
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 public education fund (the fund) is a nonprofit organization that improves public schools in chicago by investing in the talented educators who lead them.
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.
The music institute of chicago ("music institute") leads people toward a lifelong engagement with music, by providing widely accessible resources for high quality music teaching, performing, and service activities.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The 100 Club of Illinois and the most unlike its peers is Masters School. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
13 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. 13 of the 34 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 GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY ↗
- Who funds ILLINOIS FIRE SAFETY ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds THE 100 CLUB OF ILLINOIS ↗
- Who funds WINDOW TO THE WORLD COMMUNICATIONS INC ↗
- Who funds THE LATIN SCHOOL OF CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds Lake Forest College ↗
- Who funds Scripps College ↗
- Who funds LINCOLN PARK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds Ronald McDonald House Global ↗
- Who funds Chicago Children's Museum ↗
- Who funds TRAVERSE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA D/B/A TRAVERSE CITY PHILHARMONIC ↗
- Who funds MASTERS SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE SEA LIONS INC DBA PACIFIC MARINE MAMMAL CENTER ↗
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 Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile 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 Law-Ware-Shedd-Murphy 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.