· Private foundation
Michael Gidwitz Charitable 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
By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).
A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 74% of MICHAEL GIDWITZ CHARITABLE FOUNDATION’s grantee dollars fall outside its nine largest cause areas, whether because the recipient carries no IRS cause code or because its cause sits in the long tail. A chart would be mostly one residual band and misrepresent the portfolio.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k21 grants · $65k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $40k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| WHEELCHAIR FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| NEW EYES FOR THE NEEDY | $10,000 |
| NORTHWESTERN MEMORIAL FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| BROTHER RICE HIGH SCHOOL | $10,000 |
| HADLEY INSTITUTE FOR THE BLIND AND VISUALLY IMPAIRED | $6,000 |
| ST GERMAIN SCHOOL | $6,000 |
| PAWS CHICAGO | $5,000 |
| MAYO FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $5,000 |
| ADVOCATE CHARITABLE FOUNDATION CO KEYSER FAMILY PEDIATRIC CANCER CENTER | $5,000 |
| MAKE-A-WISH FOUNDATION OF NORTHERN ILLINOIS | $5,000 |
| MARION TREE OF ST GERMAINE | $4,000 |
| SHRINERS HOSPITAL FOR CHILDREN CHICAGO | $4,000 |
| ST JUDE CHILDREN'S RESEARCH HOSPITAL | $3,000 |
| GASTRO-INTESTINAL RESEARCH FOUNDATION | $2,000 |
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 (FY17–25, $20k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 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 +44% since the first grant, against -31% for the ones you funded once.
33 repeat relationships — 22 still active in FY2025, 11 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, 83% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $18k 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
- NENew Eyes for the Needy Inc9× · 2017–2025 · $42k · revenue +44%
- MFMAKE-A-WISH FOUNDATION OF ILLINOIS INC9× · 2017–2025 · $41k · revenue +12%
- PCPAWS CHICAGO9× · 2017–2025 · $35k · revenue +163%
Funded once
- TCTHE CURE IT FOUNDATION INCone grant, 2017 · $5k
- HFHABITAT FOR HUMANITYone grant, 2022 · $2k
- CACAL'S ANGELSone grant, 2020 · $1k
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.
To help conquer cancer and other diseases through the application of biostatistical principles and innovative data management methods.
Break through cancer is a foundation dedicated to supporting translational research in the most difficult to treat cancers. our partner organizations are among the top cancer research centers and together, represent some of the most…
Improve the lives of people with cancer and their families through advocacy, research, and patient support, to ensure everyone has an opportunity to prevent, detect, treat, and survive cancer.
We are dedicated to the health and well-being of all children. as the pediatric teaching facility for the northwestern university feinberg school of medicine, this commitment drives us to be a leader in: -pediatric health care delivery…
Curesearch's mission is to fund & support targeted & innovative cancer research with measurable results, & to be the authoritative source of information & resources for all those affected by children's cancer. see schedule o for…
To make all childhood cancers universally survivable by delivering new treatments to clinical trials through scientific discovery.
Provider of pediatric healthcare, education, research & community service
To prevail over cancer, marshaling heart and mind in bold scientific discovery, pioneering prevention and compassionate care.
The samuel waxman cancer research foundation (the "foundation") funds innovative research to bring faster cures to patients. in addition to supporting ongoing collaborative research in specific cancers, our scientists are investigating the…
To optimize philanthropy in support of the mission and future of the children's hospital of chicago medical center.
Provide pediatric and subspecialty surgical, research, and educational services.
City of Hope's mission is to make hope a reality for all touched by cancer and diabetes. PLEASE SEE SCHEDULE O FOR A CONTINUATION OF OUR MISSION
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Make-a-Wish Foundation of Illinois Inc and the most unlike its peers is La Caccina. 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 39 years old; the field is 18. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 5% lost their exemption, against 15% 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.
20 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. 20 of the 44 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 New Eyes for the Needy Inc ↗
- Who funds MAKE-A-WISH FOUNDATION OF ILLINOIS INC ↗
- Who funds PAWS CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds HADLEY INSTITUTE FOR THE BLIND AND VISUALLY IMPAIRED ↗
- Who funds Pediatric Oncology Treasure Chest ↗
- Who funds BLOOD CANCER UNITED INC ↗
- Who funds TREE HOUSE HUMANE SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds GASTRO INTESTINAL RESEARCH FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds LESTER AND ROSALIE ANIXTER CENTER ↗
- Who funds Ronald McDonald House Global ↗
- Who funds THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds Bear Necessities Pediatric Cancer Foundation ↗
- Who funds STEPHEN SILLER TUNNEL TO TOWERS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE CURE IT FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds The Anti-Cruelty Society ↗
- Who funds LA CACCINA ↗
- Who funds WEST ISLIP BREAST CANCER COALITION FOR LONG ISLAND INC ↗
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: United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc · AbbVie Foundation · The Chicago Community Trust · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · The Pfizer Foundation Inc · Charities Aid Foundation America · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · National Philanthropic Trust · Paypal Charitable Giving Fund · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Network for Good
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 Michael Gidwitz Charitable 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.
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Find your warmest path to Michael Gidwitz Charitable 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.