· Private foundation
Renee and Edward Ross Foundation
Its FY2018 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 FY2017–2018.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2018
- Under $10k1 grant · $1k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $125k
- $250k+14 grants · $20M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ILLINOIS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY | $4,000,000 |
| JUVENILE DIABETES RESEARCH FOUNDATION | $2,000,000 |
| AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR THE WEIZMANN INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE | $2,000,000 |
| ST JUDES CHILDRENS HOSPITAL | $2,000,000 |
| PROVIDENCE ST MEL SCHOOL | $2,000,000 |
| UNITED STATES HOLOCAUST MEMORIAL MUSEUM | $2,000,000 |
| JAMES TYREE FOUNDATION | $1,005,000 |
| MUSEUM OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY | $1,000,000 |
| JEWISH UNITED FUND | $1,000,000 |
| THE PAINTED TURTLE | $1,000,000 |
| ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO | $500,000 |
| THE FIELD MUSEUM | $500,000 |
| LINCOLN PARK ZOO | $500,000 |
| WTTW CHANNEL 11 | $500,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS FOUNDATION | $124,706 |
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 (FY17–17, $2k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 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.
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.
13 repeat relationships — 13 still active in FY2018, 0 since wound down; 3 grantees were first funded in FY2018 (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 FY2018, 75% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $5.0M 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
- IIIllinois Institute of Technology2× · 2017–2018 · $4.1M · revenue +27%
- TUThe United States Holocaust Memorial Museum2× · 2017–2018 · $2.1M · revenue +9%
- JUJEWISH UNITED FUND OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO2× · 2017–2018 · $1.0M · revenue +13%
Funded once
- JDJUVENILE DIABETES RESEARCHone grant, 2017 · $50k
- IHIL HOLOCAUST MUSEUMone grant, 2017 · $25k
- BCBLUHM CARDIOVASCULAR INSTITUTEone grant, 2017 · $25k
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 institute for advanced study (the institute) is one of the world's leading centers for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. see schedule o.
The mission of the jewish museum is to collect, preserve, exhibit and interpret art and jewish culture. see schedule o for more information.
The museum's mission statement is: "to discover, interpret, and disseminate - through scientific research and education - knowledge about human cultures, the natural world, and the universe."
The adler planetarium ('adler') is a not-for-profit cultural institution whose mission is to connect people to the universe and each other under the sky we all share. it aspires to be the world's premier center for engaging in astronomy…
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.
See Form 990, Part I, Line 1, Description of Organization Mission.
Biu produces students who excel in the sciences, humanities, law, engineering, business & the arts.
The organization's mission is to educate students for creative occupations in diverse fields of arts and media.
The university is composed of several colleges and schools providing undergraduate, graduate, professional and post-doctoral education and training and research and clinical programs.
Nyu is a private university with approximately 60,000 matriculating students in 20 schools and institutes. nyu's primary missions are education, research and scholarship, and patient care.
The institute's mission, as set out in its certificate of incorporation, is to promote the clarification and simplification of the law and its better adaptation to social needs, to secure the better administration of justice, and to…
Enhance the ability of actec members to provide the most efficient and highest quality services to their clients; develop qualified trust and estate counselors; improve and reform probate, trust and tax laws, procedures, and standards of…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Chicago Theatre Group Inc and the most unlike its peers is Smithsonian Institution. 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 65 years old; the field is 17. 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 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
28 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. 28 of the 51 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 Illinois Institute of Technology ↗
- Who funds Providence St Mel School ↗
- Who funds The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN COMMITTEE FOR THE WEIZMANN INSTITUTE OF SCIENCE INC ↗
- Who funds JEWISH UNITED FUND OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds THE PAINTED TURTLE ↗
- Who funds Kenneth C Griffin Museum of Science and Industry ↗
- Who funds THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds LINCOLN PARK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY ↗
- Who funds University of Illinois Foundation ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN JEWISH COMMITTEE ↗
- Who funds ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE ↗
- Who funds JEWISH NATIONAL FUND (KEREN KAYEMETH LEISRAEL) INC ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO THEATRE GROUP INC ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds INTERNATIONAL FELLOWSHIP OF CHRISTIANS & JEWS INC ↗
- Who funds SEVA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds House of the Good Shepherd ↗
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: National Philanthropic Trust · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · 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 Renee and Edward Ross 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
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Find your warmest path to Renee and Edward Ross 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.