· Private foundation
Pond Family Foundation
Its FY2021 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 FY2020–2021.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2021
- Under $10k21 grants · $66k
- $10k–50k7 grants · $100k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CHILD CENTER OF NY | $25,000 |
| GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY | $25,000 |
| AMERICAN RED CROSS | $10,000 |
| TIMELINE THEATER | $10,000 |
| MUSIC INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO | $10,000 |
| BRADY CENTER | $10,000 |
| WORLD FOOD PROGRAM | $10,000 |
| NIGHT MINISTRY | $6,000 |
| BETTER GOV'T ASSOCIATION | $5,000 |
| CARE | $5,000 |
| AMERICANS UNITED FOR SEPARATION OF CHURCH & STATE | $5,000 |
| AMERICAN HEART ASSOCIATION | $5,000 |
| HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH | $5,000 |
| AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY | $5,000 |
| 350ORG | $5,000 |
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 (FY20–21, $59k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 91% 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.
Which US states your grants reach
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.
20 repeat relationships — 20 still active in FY2021, 0 since wound down; 7 grantees were first funded in FY2021 (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 FY2021, 78% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $36k 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
GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY2× · 2020–2021 · $38k · revenue +17%- TCTHE CHILD CENTER OF NY INC2× · 2020–2021 · $35k · revenue +58%
- AUAMERICANS UNITED FOR SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE2× · 2020–2021 · $15k · revenue +106%
Funded once
- BRBRAIN RESEARCH FOUNDATIONgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $60k · revenue +60%
Teach for America Incone grant, 2020 · $50k · revenue -3%- FMFIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORYgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $25k · revenue +112%
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 purpose of the water research foundation (wrf) is a definitive research organization to advance the science of all things water to better meet the evolving needs of its subscribers and the water sector. to engage exclusively in…
Wri is committed to creating change that improves people's lives and ensures the natural world can thrive. (see schedule o)wri's bold vision requires a formula for success we call "count it. change it. scale it.":- count it: our work is…
See schedule onorc at the university of chicago conducts research and data science on critical societal issues to guide decision-making and the development of programs and public policy. our experts identify relationships and trends, and…
Help improve policy and decision making through research and analysis.
Sfn's mission is to: 1. advance the understanding of the brain and the nervous system by bringing together scientists of all segments of neuroscience, by facilitating the integration of research directed at all levels of biological…
Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.
The mission of mit is to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century.
At the internet society foundation, we focus on funding initiatives that strengthen the internet in function and reach so that it can effectively serve all people. our work advances the vision of the internet society (isoc): the internet…
Central indiana corporate partnership (cicp) is an alliance of indiana's business and research university leaders coming together to foster long-term prosperity for the region. cicp's mission is to transform the economy of indiana in order…
The npr foundation ("foundation") is organized and operated exclusively for the benefit of its sole supported organization, national public radio, inc. ("npr inc."). the foundation supports npr inc. through various activities such as…
Advance science, engineering, and innovation throughout the world for the benefit of all. the world's largest multidisciplinary scientific society and a leading publisher of cutting-edge research through its science family of journals,…
The union of concerned scientists puts rigorous, independent science into action, developing solutions and advocating for a healthy, safe, and just future.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Wikimedia Foundation Inc and the most unlike its peers is Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. 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 48 years old; the field is 20. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 18% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 12% 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 57 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 BRAIN RESEARCH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Teach for America Inc ↗
- Who funds THE NIGHT MINISTRY ↗
- Who funds GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY ↗
- Who funds THE CHILD CENTER OF NY INC ↗
- Who funds FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY ↗
- Who funds THE LOOMIS INSTITUTE D/B/A THE LOOMIS CHAFFEE SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago ↗
- Who funds AMERICANS UNITED FOR SEPARATION OF CHURCH AND STATE ↗
- Who funds HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH INC ↗
- Who funds MUSIC INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE WORLD FOOD PROGRAM INC ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds 350ORG ↗
- Who funds COOPERATIVE FOR ASSISTANCE AND RELIEF EVERYWHERE INC ↗
- Who funds THE MONTANA LAND RELIANCE ↗
- Who funds President and Fellows of Middlebury College ↗
- Who funds MEDICAL DEBT RESOLUTION INC ↗
- Who funds American Heart Association Inc ↗
- Who funds J STREET EDUCATION FUND INC ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO FOUNDATION FOR WOMEN ↗
- Who funds LINCOLN PARK CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds WOMEN EMPLOYED ↗
- Who funds Access Living of Metropolitan Chicago ↗
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 · Hirsch-Schwartz Foundation · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · National Philanthropic Trust · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Charities Aid Foundation America · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · 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 Pond 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.
- President and Fellows of Middlebury College — 1% of income from government
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.