· Private foundation
Louise K Smith 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 $10k46 grants · $39k
- $10k–50k3 grants · $43k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| COLUMBIA UNIV IRVING MEDICAL | $18,000 |
| NY PUBLIC RADIO WNYC | $15,000 |
| CONCERT ARTISTS GUILD | $10,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO | $5,000 |
| NY PUBLIC RADIO WQXR | $5,000 |
| THIRD COAST PERCUSSION | $5,000 |
| METROPOLITAN OPERA | $3,750 |
| ACMP | $3,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $2,500 |
| WAYNE STATE UNIVERSITY | $2,500 |
| COLUMBIA UNIV IRVING MEDICAL NAOMI BERNIE DIABETES CENTER | $2,000 |
| AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION | $1,480 |
| CHAMBER MUSIC AMERICA | $1,000 |
| AMERICAN BALLET THEATER | $600 |
| Individual grant recipient | $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.
Your human-services grants (FY17–23, $2k) 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.
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.
91 repeat relationships — 41 still active in FY2025, 50 since wound down; 6 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, 72% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $22k 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
- CAConcert Artists Guild Inc8× · 2017–2025 · $213k · revenue +21%
- TCTHIRD COAST PERCUSSION NFP8× · 2017–2025 · $142k · revenue +189%
University of Chicago8× · 2017–2025 · $48k · revenue +56%
Funded once
- ACASSN CHAMBER MUSIC PLAERSone grant, 2020 · $1k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2023 · $1k
- NPNY PRESBYTERIAN FOUNDATIONone grant, 2024 · $1k
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 American Chamber Ensemble is a consortium of distinguished musicians whose concerts explore the music for piano with strings, woodwinds and/or voice, presenting both great standard repertoire and living American composers.
Chicago a cappella advances the art and appreciation of ensemble singing. the organization produces an annual series of concerts in the greater chicago area, produces educational outreach programs, creates studio recordings as well as live…
Constellation is a performing arts presenter with an emphasis on forward- thinking practices, particularly in the areas of jazz, improvised, experimental, and contemporary classical music.
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.
To be a sustainable musical institution that brings the intimate experience of a world-class chamber orchestra performance to the greater philadelphia area,enriching the musical life of the city and region by the integrity and excellence…
The cleveland institute of music's mission is to empower the world's most talented classical music students to fulfill their dreams and potential.
Ensemble Dal Niente performs, develops, and sustains new and experimental music for small to large chamber ensemble. We are dedicated to growing relationships with artists, composers, and listeners; advancing distinct and challenging…
Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra (CCO) creates intimate, transformative experiences that connect the musically curious.
We believe opera is a uniquely compelling, entertaining and emotionally thrilling art form. our mission is to bring together growing audiences to experience opera's transformative power.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Grant Park Orchestral Association and the most unlike its peers is Noon Inc. 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 47 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) — 1% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 1% lost their exemption, against 14% 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.
78 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. 78 of the 149 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 Concert Artists Guild Inc ↗
- Who funds THIRD COAST PERCUSSION NFP ↗
- Who funds University of Chicago ↗
- Who funds Chicago Symphony Orchestra ↗
- Who funds CHAMBER MUSIC AMERICA INC ↗
- Who funds The Chicago Community Trust ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO OPERA THEATER ↗
- Who funds CEDILLE CHICAGO NFP ↗
- Who funds Lyric Opera of Chicago ↗
- Who funds Classical Music Chicago ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN COMPOSERS ORCHESTRA INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL NETWORK OF ABORTION FUNDS INC ↗
- Who funds CASA CENTRAL SOCIAL SERVICES CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA ↗
- Who funds Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago ↗
- Who funds EARTHJUSTICE ↗
- Who funds BALLET THEATRE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO ARTS PARTNERSHIPS IN EDUCATION ↗
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 Aaron Copland Fund for Music Inc Co Alter Kendrick & Baron LLP · The Chicago Community Trust · The Amphion Foundation Inc Co Alter Kendrick & Baron LLP · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · The Irving Harris Foundation · Lloyd a Fry Foundation · Polk Bros Foundation Inc · Elizabeth F Cheney Foundation · Ann & Gordon Getty Foundation · Ncrc Community Development Fund Inc · Prince Foundation · John R Halligan Charitable 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 Louise K Smith 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.