· Private foundation
Mendelson-Wolff Family 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 FY2022–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k14 grants · $32k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $44k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $50k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO | $50,000 |
| JEWISH UNITED FUND USA | $28,712 |
| SPERTUS INSTITUTE FOR JEWISH LEARNING | $15,000 |
| SKYART | $9,308 |
| TEMPLE SHOLOM | $5,155 |
| UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO BOOTH | $5,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $4,128 |
| GRANT PARK MUSIC FEST | $2,500 |
| UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS - CHAMPAIGN | $2,000 |
| RAGDALE | $1,000 |
| MARFAN FOUNDATION | $1,000 |
| BABY2BABYORG | $1,000 |
| RESTORE JUSTICE FOUNDATION | $512 |
| US HOLOCAUST MUSEUM | $500 |
| WBEZ | $250 |
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 (FY24–24, $500) 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.
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 +21% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
19 repeat relationships — 10 still active in FY2025, 9 since wound down; 7 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, 66% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $43k 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
University of Chicago3× · 2023–2025 · $53k · revenue +21%- SNSkyArt NFP4× · 2022–2025 · $28k · revenue +11%
- JUJEWISH UNITED FUND OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO3× · 2022–2024 · $21k · revenue +30%
Funded once
- SISPERTUS INSTITUTE FOR JEWISH LEARNING AND LEADERSHIPone grant, 2022 · $9k · revenue -4%
- CACHICAGO ABORTION FUNDgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $5k · revenue +208%
- RFRUN FOR SOMETHING ACTION FUNDone grant, 2023 · $2k · revenue -16%
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.
Federation amplifies our collective strength to make the world a better place for everyone. we assist people in need, impact chicagoans of all faiths; support israel and the jewish people worldwide; respond swiftly to crises; cultivate…
The adler planetarium ('adler') is a not-for-profit cultural institution whose mission is to connect people to the universe and each other under the sky we all share. it aspires to be the world's premier center for engaging in astronomy…
The mission of the jewish museum is to collect, preserve, exhibit and interpret art and jewish culture. see schedule o for more information.
The weitzman national museum of american jewish history, on independence mall in philadelphia, presents educational programs and experiences that preserve, explore, and celebrate the history of jews in america. its purpose is to connect…
Biu produces students who excel in the sciences, humanities, law, engineering, business & the arts.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Grant Park Orchestral Association and the most unlike its peers is The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 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 43 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 0% 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.
24 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. 24 of the 50 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 University of Chicago ↗
- Who funds SkyArt NFP ↗
- Who funds JEWISH NATIONAL FUND (KEREN KAYEMETH LEISRAEL) INC ↗
- Who funds JEWISH UNITED FUND OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds LOOKINGGLASS THEATRE COMPANY ↗
- Who funds SPERTUS INSTITUTE FOR JEWISH LEARNING AND LEADERSHIP ↗
- Who funds Chicago Humanities Festival ↗
- Who funds Storycatchers ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO ABORTION FUND ↗
- Who funds GRANT PARK ORCHESTRAL ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds RUN FOR SOMETHING ACTION FUND ↗
- Who funds University of Illinois Foundation ↗
- Who funds FJC ↗
- Who funds THE MARFAN FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds OPEN BOOKS LTD ↗
- Who funds 3ARTS INC ↗
- Who funds The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE ISRAEL DEFENSE FORCES ↗
- Who funds GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY ↗
- Who funds RESTORE JUSTICE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN FRIENDS OF MAGEN DAVID ADOM ↗
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: John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · The Chicago Community Trust · Arie and Ida Crown Memorial · Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago · Lloyd a Fry Foundation · Arkes Family Foundation · Joseph & Bessie Feinberg Foundation · Reva and David Logan Foundation · Field Foundation of Illinois · The Goldman Sachs Charitable Gift Fund · The Allstate Foundation · National Philanthropic Trust
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 Mendelson-Wolff 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.