· Private foundation
Robert & Susan Star 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 you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2018–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k18 grants · $8k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $10k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| AMERICAN COLLEGE OF CHEST PHYSICIANS | $10,000 |
| BUILD INC | $2,000 |
| MASS TEACHER RESOURCES | $1,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO LAW SCHOOL | $500 |
| MISERICORDIA FAMILY ASSOCIATION | $500 |
| WRITERS THEATRE | $500 |
| NORTH SUBURBAN LEGAL AID CLINIC | $500 |
| WAKING IN THE SCHOOLS - WITS | $500 |
| CHICAGO BOTANICAL GARDEN | $300 |
| JEWISH CHILD AND FAMILY SERVICES | $250 |
| NATIONAL PEACE CORPS ASSOCIATION | $250 |
| NATIONAL IMMIGRANT JUSTICE CENTER | $250 |
| YOUNG CENTER FOR IMMIGRANT CHILDREN'S RIGHTS | $250 |
| COVENANT HOUSE ILLINOIS | $250 |
| KESHET | $250 |
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 (FY18–25, $6k) 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.
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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +42% since the first grant, against +29% for the ones you funded once.
30 repeat relationships — 13 still active in FY2025, 17 since wound down; 6 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, 33% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $12k 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
- BIBUILD INC7× · 2018–2025 · $13k · revenue +523%
- TSTHE SPARKS FOUNDATION2× · 2022–2023 · $10k · revenue +124%
AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION FOUNDATION INC5× · 2018–2022 · $4k · revenue +110%
Funded once
- RNRAVINIA NURSERY SCHOOLgraduatedone grant, 2018 · $5k · revenue +51%
- MBMURPHY'S BACKPACK FOUNDATIONone grant, 2021 · $600
- JIJUSTICE IN MOTION INCone grant, 2024 · $500 · revenue 0%
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 organization's mission is to educate students for creative occupations in diverse fields of arts and media.
The chicago public education fund (the fund) is a nonprofit organization that improves public schools in chicago by investing in the talented educators who lead them.
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…
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.
To spark curiosity and creativity in all young children through positive, play-based learning experiences.
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…
National public radio, inc. ("npr") works collaboratively with member public radio station licensees ("member stations") to create a more informed public, one that is challenged and invigorated by a deeper understanding and appreciation of…
We believe in the life-changing, transformational, revelatory power of great art and opera. Lyric Opera of Chicago exists to provide a broad, deep, and relevant cultural service to the Chicago region and the nation, and to advance the…
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…
To attract, recruit, advance, and retain attorneys of color in the twin cities through education and collaboration with member organizations.
Defend freedom of speech, press, assembly, and other rights guaranteed by the us constitution and the constitution of the state of illinois.
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…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is North Shore Senior Center and the most unlike its peers is The Sparks 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 51 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) — 5% of your grantees by number, and just 2% 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.
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 61 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 BUILD INC ↗
- Who funds American College of Chest Physicians ↗
- Who funds THE SPARKS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds RAVINIA NURSERY SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds NORTH SUBURBAN LEGAL AID CLINIC ↗
- Who funds SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE ↗
- Who funds Jewish Child and Family Services ↗
- Who funds KESHET ↗
- Who funds MISERICORDIA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE TELLURIDE MEDICAL CENTER FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds THE YOUNG CENTER FOR IMMIGRANT CHILDRENS RIGHTS ↗
- Who funds URBAN GATEWAYS ↗
- Who funds SIERRA CLUB ↗
- Who funds Erikson Institute ↗
- Who funds EVERYTOWN FOR GUN SAFETY SUPPORT FUND INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL PEACE CORPS ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds Sunbird Initiative ↗
- Who funds JUSTICE IN MOTION INC ↗
- Who funds Writers Theatre Inc ↗
- Who funds MOAB MUSIC FESTIVAL INC ↗
- Who funds WINDOW TO THE WORLD COMMUNICATIONS INC ↗
- Who funds MUSIC OF THE BAROQUE ↗
- Who funds NORTHERN ILLINOIS FOOD BANK ↗
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 · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · Morton S Abelson Foundation · First Bank Chicago Foundation · Polk Bros Foundation Inc · United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc · AbbVie Foundation · National Philanthropic Trust · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · American Endowment Foundation · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Jpmorgan Chase 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 Robert & Susan Star 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 Robert & Susan Star Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Robert & Susan Star 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.