· Private foundation
Palmer Family Foundation
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 19 grants below total $27,500 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $36,500 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $9,000 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Quail West Foundation Endowment Fund | $2,000 |
| Society of St. Vincent de Paul Naples | $2,000 |
| St. John of the Cross Church | $2,000 |
| United Way of Collier and the Keys | $2,000 |
| St. Matthew's House | $2,000 |
| Immokalee Foundation | $2,000 |
| OPRF Imagine Foundation | $2,000 |
| Harry Chapin Food Bank | $2,000 |
| Chicago Botanic Garden | $1,500 |
| Aurora University A Fund | $1,000 |
| Ball State University | $1,000 |
| Holiday Food and Gift Basket | $1,000 |
| Max's Mission | $1,000 |
| Center for Independence through Conductive Education | $1,000 |
| Lake Forest College | $1,000 |
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 (FY17–18, $2k) 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 +42% since the first grant, against +19% for the ones you funded once.
42 repeat relationships — 17 still active in FY2024, 25 since wound down; 2 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, 89% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $3k 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
AURORA UNIVERSITY4× · 2017–2022 · $10k · revenue +44%- AAAURORA AREA INTERFAITH FOOD PANTRY3× · 2017–2019 · $7k · revenue +9%
Lake Forest College6× · 2017–2024 · $6k · revenue +73%
Funded once
- JWJJ WATTS FOUNDATIONone grant, 2017 · $5k
- PTPARAMOUNT THEATERone grant, 2018 · $3k
- AFAurora Food Pantryone grant, 2022 · $3k
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.
Illinois college is a co-educational institution of higher education learning providing a four-year educational program leading to the baccalaureate degree. illinois college is a community committed to the highest standards of scholarship…
The indiana university alumni association activates and supports the global alumni network- encouraging alumni to grow a lifelong connection with indiana university, and inspiring their ongoing generosity toward each other and the…
Benedictine University is an inclusive academic community dedicated to teaching and learning, scholarship and service, truth and justice, as inspired by the Catholic intellectual tradition, the social teaching of the Church, and the…
To elevate illinois state university through the power of philanthropy.
The Detroit Historical Society tells Detroit's stories and why they matter through its exhibits, programs, outreach, and the preservation and dissemination of its artifacts and collections.
To serve our communities by provding innovative and compassionate healthcare.
Saint xavier university, a catholic institution inspired by the heritage of the sisters of mercy, educates persons to search for truth, think critically, communicate effectively and serve wisely and compassionately in support of human…
Wilson college empowers students to be confident and critical thinkers, creative visionaries, effective communicators, honorable leaders, and agents of justice.
The chicago psychoanalytic institute transforms the lives of individuals, families and communities, using psychoanalytic knowledge to help them grow and thrive.
The primary mission of furman as a liberal arts institution is to provide a distinctive education in fine arts, humanities, social sciences, mathematics and the sciences, as well as selected professional disciplines.
Rooted in the liberal arts & sciences & lutheran expression of the christian faith, & is committed to offering a challenging education that develops qualities of mind, spirit, & body necessary for a rewarding life of leadership & service…
The missouri western state university foundation is a not-for-profit charitable organization that functions solely to support the mission of missouri western state university, as stated in the university's mission statement. the foundation…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Chicago Horticultural Society and the most unlike its peers is The Home 2 Home Project. 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 62 years old; the field is 15. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 23% startups (under 5 years old) — 6% of your grantees by number, and just 6% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 16% 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.
32 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. 32 of the 68 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 AURORA UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds AURORA AREA INTERFAITH FOOD PANTRY ↗
- Who funds Lake Forest College ↗
- Who funds WAUBONSEE COMMUNITY COLLEGE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ST MARY'S FOOD BANK ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds Indiana University Foundation ↗
- Who funds HARRY CHAPIN FOOD BANK OF SOUTHWEST FLORIDA INC ↗
- Who funds Kenneth C Griffin Museum of Science and Industry ↗
- Who funds MUSICAL INSTRUMENT MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds Chicago Zoological Society ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF COLLIER AND THE KEYS INC ↗
- Who funds THE IMMOKALEE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds ST MATTHEWS HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds Oak Park Country Club Foundation ↗
- Who funds THE MORTON ARBORETUM ↗
- Who funds Center for Independence through Conductive Education Inc ↗
- Who funds UW-WHITEWATER FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Ball State University Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds BEYOND HUNGER ↗
- Who funds SARAH'S INN ↗
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: The Chicago Community Trust · United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc · AbbVie Foundation · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Charities Aid Foundation America · The Ayco Charitable Foundation · Baird Foundation Inc · Dunham Fund · Healthy Communities Foundation · Carol Bernick Family Foundation · Oak Park-River Forest Community 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 Palmer 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.