· Private foundation
Red Bird Hollow 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 it funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.
Where the money goes
Grants by size, and the largest recipients.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k17 grants · $47k
- $10k–50k9 grants · $162k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $151k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| NORTHWESTERN MEMORIAL FOUNDATION | $100,000 |
| LAKE FOREST OPEN LANDS ASSOCIATION | $51,281 |
| CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | $30,000 |
| CATO INSTITUTE | $25,000 |
| MES FUND | $25,000 |
| CHURCH OF THE HOLY SPIRIT | $20,000 |
| LAKE FOREST COLLEGE | $20,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $12,000 |
| MONTESSORI CENTER OF MINNESOTA | $10,000 |
| AMERICAN COUNCIL OF TRUSTEES AND ALUMNI | $10,000 |
| TEACH FOR AMERICA | $10,000 |
| HOOVER INSTITUTION | $7,000 |
| GORTON COMMUNITY CENTER | $5,000 |
| BEACON ACADEMY | $5,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $5,000 |
Does the money reach high-need areas?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.
Its human-services grants (FY19–25, $51k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 43% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants spread fairly evenly across need levels.
How this is measured
Which US states its grants reach
How this is measured
Who it funds again
Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.
Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +33% since the first grant, against +21% for those funded once.
74 repeat relationships: 23 still active in FY2025, 51 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, 98% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $6k went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
How this is measured
Backed again, and grew
Lake Forest College7× · 2017–2025 · $6.3M · revenue +73%- LFLAKE FOREST OPEN LANDS ASSOCIATION8× · 2017–2025 · $1.2M · revenue +420%
- IPILLINOIS POLICY INSTITUTE4× · 2019–2023 · $500k · revenue +2%
Funded once
THE COLLEGE FOUNDATION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIAgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $503k · revenue +78%- LFLAKE FOREST ACADEMYgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $500k · revenue +33%
- PFPRESERVATION FOUNDATION OF LAKE COUNTYone grant, 2023 · $500k
How this is measured
Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
Closest unfunded matches
The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.
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 bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
The foreign policy research institute (frpi) is dedicated to producing the highest quality scholarship and nonpartisan policy analysis focused on crucial foreign policy and national security challenges facing the united states. we educate…
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…
Lake Forest Graduate School of Management's mission is to bring the real world to business education and leadership development.
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.
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 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…
Wilson college empowers students to be confident and critical thinkers, creative visionaries, effective communicators, honorable leaders, and agents of justice.
We provide exemplary interdisciplinary programs for a community of scholar-practitioners within a distributed learning model grounded in student-driven inquiry and leading to enhanced knowledge.
The institute of world politics is a graduate school of national security and international affairs, dedicated to developing leaders with a sound understanding of international realities and the ethical conduct of statecraft, based on…
Golden gate university prepares individuals to lead and serve by providing high quality, practice-based educational programs in law, taxation, business and related professions - as a nonprofit institution - in an innovative and challenging…
How this is measured
84 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.
Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.
How this is measured
Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 84 of the 143 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.
Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.
Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee
Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing
Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding
A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.
- Who funds Lake Forest College ↗
- Who funds LAKE FOREST OPEN LANDS ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds THE COLLEGE FOUNDATION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA ↗
- Who funds ILLINOIS POLICY INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds LAKE FOREST ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds Forest Bluff School ↗
- Who funds CATO INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds Teach for America Inc ↗
- Who funds BERNIE'S BOOK BANK ↗
- Who funds Chicago Symphony Orchestra ↗
- Who funds The Island School Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds MONTESSORI INSTITUTE OF MILWAUKEE INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN COUNCIL OF TRUSTEES AND ALUMNI ↗
- Who funds BEACON ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds Institute for Humane Studies ↗
- Who funds MES Foundation ↗
- Who funds Gorton Community Center ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE FOR PUBLIC POLICY RESEARCH ↗
- Who funds MONTESSORI TRAINING CENTER OF MINNESOTA INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN TRANSPARENCY ↗
- Who funds North Chicago Community Partners ↗
- Who funds JUDICIAL WATCH INC ↗
- Who funds THE FUND FOR AMERICAN STUDIES ↗
Co-funders
Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.
Open a dossier: The Chicago Community Trust · The Buchanan Family Foundation · Clarks Fork Foundation · Hunter Family Foundation · The Gorter Family Foundation · Carney Family Foundation · Butler Family Foundation · Hunter Family Foundation · Hedberg Foundation Inc · David D & Mary F Grumhaus Fund · CMB Foundation · Harold M & Adeline S Morrison Family Foundation
How this is measured
How much its grantees rely on government
Each dot is one organization Red Bird Hollow Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Red Bird Hollow Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.
How this is measured
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Red Bird Hollow Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Red Bird Hollow 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.
Play a game based on Red Bird Hollow’s filings →