· Private foundation
Pepper 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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k1 grant · $2k
- $10k–50k12 grants · $240k
- $50k–250k11 grants · $886k
- $250k+4 grants · $2.1M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO | $1,010,000 |
| JOHN G SHEDD AQUARIUM | $500,000 |
| NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY | $305,000 |
| NORTHSHORE HOSPITALS FOUNDATION | $300,000 |
| LINCOLN PARK ZOO | $185,000 |
| ADLER PLANETARIUM | $146,250 |
| ARKANSAS MUSEUM OF FINE ARTS | $100,000 |
| PLYMOUTH PLACE | $100,000 |
| MONMOUTH COLLEGE | $54,936 |
| MADONNA MISSION | $50,000 |
| COMMUNITY HEALTH NETWORK | $50,000 |
| BARRINGTON HORSESHOE CLUB (FRIENDS OF THE FIELDS) | $50,000 |
| BISHOP ANDERSON HOUSE | $50,000 |
| JUNIOR ACHIEVEMENT OF CENTRAL OHIO | $50,000 |
| ELGIN SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | $50,000 |
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 (FY17–24, $272k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 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 +45% since the first grant, against +15% for the ones you funded once.
30 repeat relationships — 17 still active in FY2024, 13 since wound down; 11 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, 76% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $770k 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
Northwestern University7× · 2017–2024 · $1.4M · revenue +41%- TATHE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO6× · 2017–2024 · $1.2M · revenue +45%
- SASHEDD AQUARIUM SOCIETY2× · 2023–2024 · $1.0M · revenue +10%
Funded once
- PEPROTESTANT EPISCOPAL CHURCH DIOCESE OF CHICAGO BISHOPS AND TRUSTEESone grant, 2018 · $282k
- MMMax McGraw Wildlife Foundationgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $250k · revenue +38%
- GSGirl Scouts of Greater Chicago and Northwest Indianaone grant, 2023 · $142k · revenue +25%
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.
We are chicago's jesuit, catholic university - a diverse community seeking god in all things and working to expand knowledge in the service of humanity through learning, justice, and faith.
The Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) is a world-renowned center for biological discovery and training that is notably affiliated with more than 60 Nobel Prize winners. Research is conducted by full-time faculty as well as hundreds of the…
The organization's mission is to educate students for creative occupations in diverse fields of arts and media.
The mission of the university of chicago has been to sustain at the highest level of excellence, the communication of knowledge, the creation of knowledge and the fostering of a dynamic community of scholars and students.
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.
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…
The mission of Rush is to improve the health of the individuals and diverse communities we serve through the integration of outstanding patient care, education, research and community partnerships.
Edward-Elmhurst Healthcare follows the mission of Endeavor Health to "help everyone in our communities be their best."
The elmhurst memorial healthcare group follows the mission of endeavor health (f/k/a ns-ee holdings). the mission of endeavor health is to "help everyone in our communities be their best." central to this mission is a commitment to…
Provide post-secondary education leading to a baccalaureate degree. Program service expenditures are made in conjunction with the operation of a liberal arts college spread over 107 acres with approximately 63 educational and support…
To Prepare Students for Success in Four-Year Colleges.
Edward Hospital follows the mission of Endeavor Health to "help everyone in our communities be their best."
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Chicago Horticultural Society and the most unlike its peers is Max McGraw Wildlife Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 58 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) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% 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.
38 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. 38 of the 59 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 Northwestern University ↗
- Who funds THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds SHEDD AQUARIUM SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds LINCOLN PARK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds Endeavor Health Clinical Operations ↗
- Who funds Max McGraw Wildlife Foundation ↗
- Who funds North Central College ↗
- Who funds AGC EDUCATION AND RESEARCH FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE ADLER PLANETARIUM ↗
- Who funds Girl Scouts of Greater Chicago and Northwest Indiana ↗
- Who funds Madonna Mission ↗
- Who funds The Hap Foundation Inc (F/K/A Journeycare Foundation) ↗
- Who funds PLYMOUTH PLACE INC ↗
- Who funds OPENLANDS ↗
- Who funds ACADEMY FOR URBAN SCHOOL LEADERSHIP ↗
- Who funds Big Shoulders Fund ↗
- Who funds Kenneth C Griffin Museum of Science and Industry ↗
- Who funds MONMOUTH COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ELGIN SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds Junior Achievement of Central Ohio Inc ↗
- Who funds BARRINGTON 220 EDUCATIONAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY HEALTH NETWORK INC ↗
- Who funds ST JAMES CATHEDRAL COUNSELING CTR ↗
- Who funds Chicago Zoological Society ↗
- Who funds BARRINGTON YOUTH & FAMILY SERVICES ↗
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 · The Ayco Charitable Foundation · United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc · Motorola Solutions Foundation · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · Patrick G and Shirley W Ryan Foundation · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · AbbVie Foundation · Dr Scholl Foundation · Polk Bros Foundation Inc · Baird Foundation Inc · 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 Pepper 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Pepper Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Pepper Family 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.