· Public charity
Metropolitan Mayors Caucus
The caucus provides a forum through which the chief elected officials of the region cooperatively develop consensus on common public policy issues and multi-jurisdictional challenges.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k6 grants · $46k
- $10k–50k14 grants · $190k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $362k
- $250k+5 grants · $33M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CITY OF CHICAGO | $30,251,235 |
| VILLAGE OF OAK PARK | $1,062,545 |
| LAKE COUNTY | $923,990 |
| CITY OF ELGIN | $737,237 |
| VILLAGE OF FORD HEIGHTS | $257,545 |
| VILLAGE OF UNIVERSITY PARK | $223,022 |
| CITY OF URBANA | $138,897 |
| OPTICOS DESIGN INC | $25,333 |
| UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS | $25,000 |
| CHICAGO METROPOLITAN AGENCY FOR PLANNING | $20,103 |
| METROPOLITAN PLANNING COUNCIL | $15,000 |
| ACTIVE TRANSPORTATION ALLIANCE | $15,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $10,000 |
| PARK FOREST FIRE DEPARTMENT | $10,000 |
| VILLAGE OF ELMWOOD PARK | $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 14%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 96% 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.
24 repeat relationships — 2 still active in FY2024, 22 since wound down; 25 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, 2% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $33M 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
- COCITY OF ELGIN2× · 2019–2024 · $747k
- CMChicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning4× · 2019–2022 · $322k
- VOVillage of River Forest2× · 2017–2022 · $182k
Funded once
- WAWest Aurora School District 129one grant, 2017 · $580k
- GTGlenbard Township High School District 87one grant, 2017 · $345k
- EUEMORY UNIVERSITYone grant, 2017 · $324k
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.
Latino Union works to defend the rights and dignity of contingent workers, including the right to immigrate, work, live free of oppression and violence, and provide for oneself and one's family.
English language individuals and other disdvantaged minorities to achieve economic self sufficiency.
At legal aid chicago, we work together to provide high quality civil legal aid to people living in poverty and other vulnerable groups.through advocacy, education, collaboration, and litigation we empower individuals, protect fundamental…
The Chicago Refugee Coalition is a 501c3 non-profit organization dedicated ot the alleviation of human suffering through innovative partnerships, advocacy and community empowerment.
Serving recently arrived migrants and asylum seekers in the Chicagoland area and is committed to upholding the dignity and human rights of immigrants.
To promote the full and equal participation of immigrants and refugees in the political, civic, cultural, and social life of our diverse society.
The welcome network exists to caringly provide practical resources, spiritual mentoring, and real community to internationally-born residents of northwest indiana and south chicago.
Champion equitable responses and recovery efforts for the Latinx community impacted by COVID-19
To provide low or no cost medical care to low income and uninsured people.
North suburban legal aid clinic's mission is to provide accessible, quality, equitable, free legal services in the areas of domestic violence, housing, and immigration to give low-income, at-risk community members access to justice and the…
Executive Service Corps is the premier nonprofit consultancy that engages highly skilled professionals who use their experience and expertise to provide nonprofits with the consulting services they need to be successful. Our vision is to…
Connecting and amplifying the power of individuals to build a just, equitable, and inclusive city.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Immigration Project Inc and the most unlike its peers is Claude and Marilyn Boles Foundation Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
5 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. 5 of the 180 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.
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: Openlands · The Morton Arboretum · Illinois Clean Energy Community Foundation · Ageoptions Inc (Fka Suburban Area Agency on Aging) · Firehouse Subs Public Safety Foundation Inc · The Dupage Community Foundation · Greater Chicago Food Depository · National Fish and Wildlife Foundation · AARP · The Chicago Community Trust · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund
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 Metropolitan Mayors Caucus 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.