· Private foundation
Master Educational Assistance Foundation
Its FY2025 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 FY2020–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k40 grants · $116k
- $10k–50k13 grants · $268k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| LIBERTY FOREVER FOUNDATION | $48,000 |
| CHRIST THE KING COLLEGE PREP | $37,585 |
| UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS | $28,298 |
| LANSING CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL | $20,000 |
| FRIEDA INC | $20,000 |
| RESILIENCE PARTNERS NFP | $18,000 |
| ST FRANCES OF ROME SCHOOL | $17,500 |
| PILSEN PROMISE PROJECT | $17,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF MARYLAND | $16,381 |
| CHICAGO POLICE MARINE CORPS LG | $13,460 |
| Individual grant recipient | $12,000 |
| CENTER FOR SPIRITUAL INTEG ARTS | $10,000 |
| MARIST HIGH SCHOOL | $10,000 |
| BROTHERHOOD FOR THE FALLEN | $8,500 |
| AMERICAN BRAIN TUMOR ASSN | $7,000 |
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 (FY20–25, $21k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +17% since the first grant, against +14% for the ones you funded once.
66 repeat relationships — 30 still active in FY2025, 36 since wound down; 23 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, 67% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $125k 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
- RPResilience Partners NFP5× · 2020–2025 · $90k · revenue +38%
University of Chicago2× · 2023–2024 · $57k · revenue +21%
American Brain Tumor Association5× · 2020–2025 · $35k · revenue +28%
Funded once
- CTChrist the Kng College Prepone grant, 2024 · $26k
- CTCHRIST THE KING COLLEGEone grant, 2023 · $24k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2022 · $20k
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.
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 psychoanalytic institute transforms the lives of individuals, families and communities, using psychoanalytic knowledge to help them grow and thrive.
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.
Under the medical service plan of the university of maryland school of medicine, medical services are rendered by the members of the faculty on behalf of the school of medicine in connection with their duties to provide clinical…
Resurrection University (dba Oak Point University) inspires, educates and forms life-long learners who meet the world's changing needs with curiosity, ingenuity and grace.
Under the medical service plan of the university of maryland school of medicine, medical services are rendered by the members of the faculty on behalf of the school of medicine in connection with their duties to provide clinical…
The organization's mission is to educate students for creative occupations in diverse fields of arts and media.
Under the medical sevice plan of the university of maryland school of medicine, medical services are rendered by the members of the faculty on behalf of the school of medicine in connection with their duties to provide clinical instruction…
The organization's mission is to serve the interests of law enforcement at the local and state-wide levels, including legislation, labor, social events of law enforcement officers,etc. and to act as the collective bargaining agent for the…
Under the medical service plan of the university of maryland school of medicine, medical services are rendered by the members of the faculty on behalf of the school of medicine in connection with their duties to provide clinical…
Under the medical service plan of the university of maryland school of medicine, medical services are rendered by the members of the faculty on behalf of the school of medicine in connection with their duties to provide clinical…
Under the medical service plan of the university of maryland school of medicine, medical services are rendered by the members of the faculty on behalf of the school of medicine in connection with their duties to provide clinical…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Resurrection Project and the most unlike its peers is Empowering Garden 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 50 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 21% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 16% 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.
30 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. 30 of the 171 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 Resilience Partners NFP ↗
- Who funds ILLINOIS COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds University of Chicago ↗
- Who funds American Brain Tumor Association ↗
- Who funds BROTHERHOOD FOR THE FALLEN ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO POLICE MEMORIAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds OPPORTUNITY KNOCKS INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds University of Dayton ↗
- Who funds ST CATHERINE UNIVERSITY ↗
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: Good Heart Work Smart Foundation · The Chicago Community Trust · Big Shoulders Fund · The Coleman Foundation Inc · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · Fifth Third Chicagoland Foundation · Cme Group Community Foundation F/K/A Nymex Foundation · Forefront · Helen V Brach Foundation · Polk Bros Foundation Inc · United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc
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 Master Educational Assistance 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.
- Shriners Hospitals for Children — 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.