· Private foundation
Mason Foundation Inc
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 it funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.
Where the money goes
Grants by size, and the largest recipients.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k8 grants · $51k
- $10k–50k14 grants · $370k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $81k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO AND SCHOOL OF THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO | $81,000 |
| MARINE CORPS SCHOLARSHIP FOUNDATION | $48,000 |
| HOOVER INSTITUTION AT STANFORD UNIVERSITY | $39,000 |
| LAKE FOREST COLLEGE | $39,000 |
| CHRISTIAN SCIENCE SOCIETY LIBERTYVILLE IL | $32,000 |
| VASSAR COLLEGE | $32,000 |
| RAVINIA FESTIVAL AND RAVINIA STEANS MUSIC INSTITUTE | $31,000 |
| CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | $23,000 |
| LYRIC OPERA OF CHICAGO | $23,000 |
| JOHN G SHEDD AQUARIUM | $23,000 |
| INTERNATIONAL CRANE FOUNDATION | $23,000 |
| LAKE FOREST-LAKE BLUFF HISTORY CENTER | $16,000 |
| FIRST CHURCH OF CHRIST SCIENTIST - BOSTON | $16,000 |
| OUTWARD BOUND USA | $13,000 |
| GOLDEN APPLE FOUNDATION | $12,000 |
Does the money reach high-need areas?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.
Its human-services grants (FY17–25, $44k) land where the poverty rate runs at 8%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 0% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.
How this is measured
Which US states its grants reach
How this is measured
Who it funds again
Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.
Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +57% since the first grant, against -43% for those funded once.
25 repeat relationships: 19 still active in FY2025, 6 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, 89% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $52k went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
How this is measured
Backed again, and grew
- TATHE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO9× · 2017–2025 · $421k · revenue +45%
Lake Forest College9× · 2017–2025 · $366k · revenue +73%- MCMARINE CORPS SCHOLARSHIP FOUNDATION INC9× · 2017–2025 · $291k · revenue +28%
Funded once
- PFPROJECT FOR PUBLIC SPACES INCone grant, 2017 · $5k · revenue -43%
- EIETHNOMEDICINE INSTITUTEone grant, 2017 · $500
How this is measured
Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
Closest unfunded matches
The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.
The mission of mit is to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century.
The organization's mission is to educate students for creative occupations in diverse fields of arts and media.
The Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) is a world-renowned center for biological discovery and training that is notably affiliated with more than 60 Nobel Prize winners. Research is conducted by full-time faculty as well as hundreds of the…
New york school of interior design provides the most innovative, immersive, and transformative interior design education in the world, demonstrating the impact of professionally designed interiors on the health, happiness, and well-being…
Lake Forest Graduate School of Management's mission is to bring the real world to business education and leadership development.
The University of New Haven is a student-centered comprehensive university with an emphasis on excellence in liberal arts and professional education. Our mission is to prepare our students to lead purposeful and fulfilling lives in a…
The purpose of the water research foundation (wrf) is a definitive research organization to advance the science of all things water to better meet the evolving needs of its subscribers and the water sector. to engage exclusively in…
Williams College strives to achieve educational excellence by fostering a community of learning in collaboration with students, faculty, staff, devoted alumni and parents.
The primary mission of furman as a liberal arts institution is to provide a distinctive education in fine arts, humanities, social sciences, mathematics and the sciences, as well as selected professional disciplines.
The Museum of Modern Art is a private, non-profit institution chartered by the State of New York Department of Education in 1929 to foster public awareness of modern and contemporary art. (Continued in Schedule O)
How this is measured
21 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.
Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.
How this is measured
Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2026, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 21 of the 31 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.
Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.
Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee
Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing
Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding
A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.
- Who funds THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds Lake Forest College ↗
- Who funds MARINE CORPS SCHOLARSHIP FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE BOARD OF TRUSTEES OF THE LELAND STANFORD JUNIOR UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds Chicago Symphony Orchestra ↗
- Who funds VASSAR COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds Lyric Opera of Chicago ↗
- Who funds SHEDD AQUARIUM SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds INTERNATIONAL CRANE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds GOLDEN APPLE FOUNDATION FOR EXCELLENCE IN TEACHING ↗
- Who funds History Center of Lake Forest-Lake Bluff ↗
- Who funds MISS HALL'S SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds DEER PATH ART LEAGUE ↗
- Who funds WORLD MONUMENTS FUND INC ↗
- Who funds WINDOW TO THE WORLD COMMUNICATIONS INC ↗
- Who funds Gorton Community Center ↗
- Who funds THE MARINE MAMMAL CENTER ↗
- Who funds THE INSTITUTE FOR ETHNOMEDICINE INC DBA BRAIN CHEMISTRY LABS ↗
- Who funds WORLD WILDLIFE FUND INC ↗
- Who funds OUTWARD BOUND INC ↗
- Who funds PROJECT FOR PUBLIC SPACES INC ↗
Co-funders
Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.
Open a dossier: The Chicago Community Trust · The Ayco Charitable Foundation · Clarks Fork Foundation · Butler Family Foundation · National Philanthropic Trust · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile Foundation
How this is measured
How much its grantees rely on government
Each dot is one organization Mason Foundation Inc funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Mason Foundation Inc. Bigger dots raise more.
How this is measured
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Mason Foundation Inc?
Find your warmest path to Mason Foundation Inc 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.
Play a game based on Mason’s filings →