· Private foundation
Lydia and Gus Backer Family 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.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2023–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k15 grants · $29k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $10k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Easterseals DuPage & Fox Valley | $10,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $5,000 |
| Mayo Clinic | $5,000 |
| World Central Kitchen | $5,000 |
| The Obama Foundation | $2,500 |
| Shirley Ryan Ability Lab | $2,500 |
| Unicef | $2,500 |
| Writers Theatre | $1,000 |
| Orphans of the Storm Animal Shelter | $1,000 |
| Food Bank of New York City | $1,000 |
| Greater Chicago Food Depository | $1,000 |
| Entertainment Community Fund | $1,000 |
| Amnesty International | $500 |
| Desert Botanic Garden | $500 |
| Humane Society of Marathon County | $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 (FY23–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 66% 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +36% since the first grant, against -6% for the ones you funded once.
8 repeat relationships — 8 still active in FY2024, 0 since wound down; 7 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, 49% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $18k 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
WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN INC2× · 2023–2024 · $8k · revenue +36%
THE BARACK OBAMA FOUNDATION2× · 2023–2024 · $8k · revenue +49%- WTWriters Theatre Inc2× · 2023–2024 · $2k · revenue +89%
Funded once
- CCCOMMUNITY CHURCHone grant, 2023 · $5k
- FOFRIENDS OF THE CHICAGO RIVERone grant, 2023 · $1k · revenue +15%
- ARAmerican Red Crossone grant, 2023 · $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.
Lincoln park zoo is dedicated to connecting people with nature by providing a free, family-oriented wildlife experience in the heart of chicago and by advancing the highest quality of animal care, horticulture, education, science and…
To inspire conservation leadership by connecting people with wildlife and nature.
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.
To promote public health, safety, and welfare through the improvement of the quality and quantity of drinking water and the development and furtherance of understanding of the problems relating thereto.
The operation of a children's museum.
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…
The chicago club is and shall continue to be the premier club in the city of chicago, serving the business, civic, educational, and philanthropic leaders, and their families, by providing a private club with outstanding dining, service,…
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.
The organization's mission is to educate students for creative occupations in diverse fields of arts and media.
Nourishing hope provides food, mental health support, and social services to help all our neighbors thrive.
The chicago theatre group is committed to producing both classic and contemporary works giving full voice to a wide range of artists and visions. by dedicating itself to three guiding principles - quality, equity, and community - the…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Chicago Horticultural Society and the most unlike its peers is Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
17 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. 17 of the 27 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 EASTER SEALS DUPAGE & THE FOX VALLEY REGION ↗
- Who funds WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN INC ↗
- Who funds THE BARACK OBAMA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MAYO CLINIC ↗
- Who funds Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago ↗
- Who funds HAWAII COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Writers Theatre Inc ↗
- Who funds ORPHANS OF THE STORM ↗
- Who funds FOOD BANK FOR NEW YORK CITY ↗
- Who funds GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE CHICAGO RIVER ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO PUBLIC LIBRARY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds LAKE FOREST OPEN LANDS ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds DESERT BOTANICAL GARDEN INC ↗
- Who funds HUMANE SOCIETY OF MARATHON COUNTY INC ↗
- Who funds THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY ↗
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: American Online Giving Foundation Inc · 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 Lydia and Gus Backer 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.
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.