· Private foundation
Michael J Stephen and Lucile G Stephen 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 FY2018–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k4 grants · $18k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $10k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS | $10,000 |
| JWAS FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| EVERYTOWN FOR GUN SAFETY SUPPORT FU | $5,000 |
| BLOCK CLUB CHICAGO | $5,000 |
| THE STANLEY CLARK SCHOOL FUND | $2,675 |
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 (FY18–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 100% 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.
11 repeat relationships — 4 still active in FY2024, 7 since wound down; 1 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, 64% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $10k 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
- DUDOMINICAN UNIVERSITY3× · 2018–2020 · $13k · revenue +34%
EVERYTOWN FOR GUN SAFETY SUPPORT FUND INC2× · 2023–2024 · $10k · revenue +12%
PRO PUBLICA INC2× · 2021–2022 · $10k · revenue +79%
Funded once
- CCCULTIVATING COMMUNITYone grant, 2019 · $2k · revenue +10%
- UGUnity Gardensgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $1k · revenue +115%
- LCLA CASA DE AMISTAD INCgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $1k · revenue +119%
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.
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.
The University of New Haven is a student-centered comprehensive university with an emphasis on excellence in liberal arts and professional education. Our mission is to prepare our students to lead purposeful and fulfilling lives in a…
DC Greens advances health equity by building a just and resilient food system.
Trusted journalism, inspiring stories and lifelong learning.
The vision of the Council for a Parliament of the World's Religions is of a just, peaceful and sustainable world in which: *Religious and spiritual communities live in harmony and contribute to a better world from their riches of wisdom…
Enhancing lives by promoting the safe & efficient use of electricity.
The mission of denver botanic gardens is to connect people with plants, especially plants from the rocky mountain region and similar regions around the world, providing delight and enlightenment to everyone.
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
To teach and disseminate educational materials to the public.
Star farm chicago is an urban farm in the back of the yards neighborhood that seeks to increase accessibility and of locally grown organic produce through affordable farm stands, csas, year-round farmers markets participation, food…
Guided by the principles of academic rigor and diversity, the international school of san francisco offers programs of study in french and english to prepare its graduates for a world in which the ability to think critically and to…
Educate, Inspire, Connect and Mobilize Community Leaders to serve and strengthen greater Indianapolis.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Medecins Sans Frontieres Usa Inc and the most unlike its peers is Shem Center for Interfaith Spirituality. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
10 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. 10 of the 16 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 DOMINICAN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds STANLEY CLARK SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds EVERYTOWN FOR GUN SAFETY SUPPORT FUND INC ↗
- Who funds PRO PUBLICA INC ↗
- Who funds BLOCK CLUB CHICAGO NFP ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds CULTIVATING COMMUNITY ↗
- Who funds Unity Gardens ↗
- Who funds LA CASA DE AMISTAD INC ↗
- Who funds SHEM CENTER FOR INTERFAITH SPIRITUALITY ↗
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: Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile 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 Michael J Stephen and Lucile G Stephen 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.