· Private foundation
Robert M and Barbara G Thomas 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 FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Individual grant recipient | $500 |
| Mercy Home for Boys and Girls | $250 |
| Catholic Charities | $250 |
| Chicago Food Depository | $250 |
| Northern Illinois Food Bank | $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 (FY19–19, $50) land where the poverty rate runs at 7%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 0% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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.
8 repeat relationships — 2 still active in FY2025, 6 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, 50% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $750 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
- IGIndividual grant recipient6× · 2020–2025 · $6k
- DMDANIEL MURPHY SCHOLARSHIP FDTN2× · 2017–2018 · $4k
- ICImmaculate Conception Parish4× · 2019–2022 · $1k
Funded once
- HFHABITAT FOR HUMANITY LAKE COUNTYgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $125 · revenue +95%
- TGThe Gallaudet Fundone grant, 2019 · $100
- HFHabitat for Humanityone grant, 2024 · $100
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.
Rainforest trust saves endangered wildlife and protects our planet by creating rainforest reserves through partnerships, community engagement, and donor support.
Wwf's mission is to conserve nature and reduce the most pressing threats to the diversity of life on earth. (continued on schedule o)
Animal outlook is a national animal protection organization working to end the abuse of farmed animals using a variety of strategies, including investigations, legal advocacy, corporate and food system reform, and vegan outreach.
To promote public health, safety, and welfare through the improvement of the quality and quantity of drinking water and the development and furtherance of understanding of the problems relating thereto.
The resource renewal institute facilitates the creation, development and implementation of practical strategies to solve the entire complex environmental problem by addressing it comprehensively.
The endowment works collaboratively with partners in the public and private sectors to advance systemic, transformative, and sustainable change for the health and vitality of the nation's working forests and forest reliant communities.
This member-supported organization protects and restores iowa's land, water and wildlife for future generations. priorities include permanent land protection, promotion of improved land management and bringing new conservation…
Ci works to spotlight and secure the critical benefits that nature provides to humanity.
Nacwa is the national voice of public clean water utilities, shaping water policy, convening a vibrant peer network, and empowering water leaders.
The mission of heartlands conservancy is to empower and colaborate with the people of southern illinois to advance and protect the health of our distinctive communities and nationally significant natural and cultural resources.
To sustain, restore, and enhance the nation's fish, wildlife, plants, and habitats.
American rivers is championing a national effort to protect and restore all rivers, from remote mountain streams to urban waterways. healthy rivers provide people and nature with clean, abundant water and natural habitat. for 50 years,…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The River Alliance of Wisconsin Inc and the most unlike its peers is Foster Pet Outreach. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
11 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. 11 of the 26 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 THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds NORTHERN ILLINOIS FOOD BANK ↗
- Who funds HABITAT FOR HUMANITY LAKE COUNTY ↗
- Who funds THE RIVER ALLIANCE OF WISCONSIN INC ↗
- Who funds ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENSE FUND INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds OPENLANDS ↗
- Who funds FOSTER PET OUTREACH ↗
- Who funds Charity Navigator ↗
- Who funds ORPHANS OF THE STORM ↗
- Who funds TROUT UNLIMITED INC ↗
Government reliance of your grantees
Every dot is one organization Robert M and Barbara G Thomas 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 M and Barbara G Thomas Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Robert M and Barbara G Thomas 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.