· Private foundation
Matthew Zell 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 FY2019–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k7 grants · $27k
- $10k–50k6 grants · $70k
- $50k–250k6 grants · $528k
- $250k+3 grants · $1.1M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| The Nature Conservancy | $500,000 |
| Imagine H2O Inc | $325,000 |
| Powell Gardens Inc | $250,000 |
| Savanna Institute | $200,000 |
| Camp Ramah in Wisconsin Inc | $118,000 |
| National Ramah Commission Inc | $60,000 |
| The Aspen Institute Inc | $50,000 |
| Medicine Fish Corp | $50,000 |
| Blue Forest Finance Inc | $50,000 |
| National Kidney Foundation of Illinois | $20,000 |
| North Suburban Synagogue Beth El | $10,000 |
| Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago | $10,000 |
| The ARK | $10,000 |
| Rochelle Zell Jewish High School | $10,000 |
| Maot Chitim | $10,000 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY19–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 77% 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.
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.
18 repeat relationships — 17 still active in FY2024, 1 since wound down; 4 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, 66% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $410k 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
- SISAVANNA INSTITUTE3× · 2022–2024 · $1.8M · revenue +40%
- NKNATIONAL KIDNEY FOUNDATION OF ILLINOIS4× · 2021–2024 · $100k · revenue +48%
- BFBLUE FOREST FINANCE INC2× · 2023–2024 · $100k · revenue +21%
Funded once
- CICurrent Innovation NFPgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $25k · revenue +344%
- UHUSA HOCKEY FOUNDATIONgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $10k · revenue +59%
- AFAmerican Friends of Livnot ULehibanotgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $500 · revenue +128%
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.
Our vision is to reignite the zionist spirit and meet the needs of jewish civilization in the twenty-first century by connecting people around the world through the vibrancy and creativity of contemporary israeli culture.
The Jewish Film Institute champions bold films and filmmakers that expand and evolve the Jewish story for audiences everywhere. Through its exhibition and artist development programs, JFI celebrates the spirit of film, inquiry,…
The jewish agency binds jews across ideologies and civilizations together in a worldwide jewish family with israel at its center. it provides the global framework for aliyah, ensures global jewish safety, strengthens jewish identity and…
Minneapolis jewish federation is a nonprofit organization that promotes a culture of philanthropy, leverages resources to meet local and global jewish needs, and facilitates community planning to ensure a thriving and secure future.
Through its news service and public programs, Israel 21c educates individuals and groups about comtemporary life in Israel providing news and information on the people of Israel, its culture and business and scientific achievements.
The institute for protein innovation is advancing protein science to accelerate research and improve human health.
The jewish climate trust inc's mission is to maximize the jewish people's positive impact on climate. it is a central hub for climate philanthropy and action, strategically deploying the resources and ingenuity of the jewish people to…
To cultivate the social, cultural, and spiritual well-being of Jewish farmers.
The Jewish Council on Urban Affair's (JCUA) longstanding mission is to combat poverty, racism and antisemitism working in partnership with diverse communities. JCUA uses a community organizing model to engage the Jewish community in the…
To proclaim the gospel, grow the messianic jewish community and engage the church concerning israel and the jewish people. this is done through education, evangelism and being a movement leader, all with excellence in order to transform…
To support a strong and secure israel and to carry out public information activities on the middle east peace issues in the united states.
The shalom hartman institute (shi) is a leading research and educational center serving israel and world jewry. we work to enrich the moral and spiritual life of israel and the jewish people, deepen the commitment to pluralism and israel's…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Aspen Institute Inc and the most unlike its peers is Medically Induced Suicide Ed Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 32 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
21 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. 21 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 SAVANNA INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds Imagine H2O Inc ↗
- Who funds POWELL GARDENS INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL KIDNEY FOUNDATION OF ILLINOIS ↗
- Who funds BLUE FOREST FINANCE INC ↗
- Who funds ROCHELLE ZELL JEWISH HIGH SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL RAMAH COMMISSION INC ↗
- Who funds MAOT CHITIM OF GREATER CHICAGO INC ↗
- Who funds MEDICINE FISH CORP ↗
- Who funds THE ASPEN INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds JEWISH FEDERATION OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds Current Innovation NFP ↗
- Who funds Kenneth C Griffin Museum of Science and Industry ↗
- Who funds JEWISH UNITED FUND OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN MODELING TEACHERS ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds THE INHEIRITANCE PROJECT LTD ↗
- Who funds USA HOCKEY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds OPENDOR MEDIA INC ↗
- Who funds Medically Induced Suicide Ed Foundation ↗
- Who funds American Friends of Livnot ULehibanot ↗
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: Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago · Charles and M R Shapiro Foundation Inc · Hochberg Family Foundation · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · Jewish Communal Fund · National Philanthropic Trust · AbbVie Foundation · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc · The Chicago Community Trust · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · The Pfizer Foundation Inc · American Endowment 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 Matthew Zell 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Matthew Zell Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Matthew Zell Family Foundation 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.