· Private foundation
Ross Family Foundation
Its FY2024 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 FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k13 grants · $25k
- $10k–50k6 grants · $70k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ALLIANCE FOR THE GREAT LAKES | $20,000 |
| ST MARGARET'S CENTER | $10,000 |
| GARY SINISE FDN | $10,000 |
| DUO DEVELOPMENT-CENTER NEIGH TECH | $10,000 |
| REVIVE CENTER | $10,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $10,000 |
| ST LEONARDS MINISTRIES | $5,000 |
| WINNETKA COMMUNITY HOUSE | $3,500 |
| NRDC | $2,500 |
| ERIE FAMILY HEALTH FDN | $2,500 |
| MEALS ON WHEELS | $2,500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $2,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $2,000 |
| TOYS FOR TOTS | $1,000 |
| CHICAGO SHAKESPEARE THEATRE | $1,000 |
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 (FY17–23, $3k) 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 +40% since the first grant, against +14% for the ones you funded once.
31 repeat relationships — 12 still active in FY2024, 19 since wound down; 7 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 52% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $46k 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
ALLIANCE FOR THE GREAT LAKES3× · 2021–2024 · $38k · revenue +34%
GARY SINISE FOUNDATION4× · 2021–2024 · $30k · revenue +47%- OOPENLANDS6× · 2017–2023 · $23k · revenue +166%
Funded once
- SFSTRIDES FOR PEACE INCone grant, 2023 · $15k · revenue -46%
- NCNEHEMIAH CHICAGO ECCO HOUSEone grant, 2019 · $11k
- CFCONNECTIONS FOR THE HOMELESS INCone grant, 2021 · $10k · revenue +14%
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.
Chicago sun-times serves the public interest by strengthening the well-being of our local communities and our democracy through independent local journalism.
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.
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…
Uchicago medicine network, inc. supports and encourages health and human service by providing support, directly or indirectly to ingalls memorial hospital, the university of chicago medical center, and other related tax-exempt…
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.
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…
Lincoln park zoo is dedicated to connecting people with nature by providing a free, family-oriented wildlife experience in the heart of chicago and by advancing the highest quality of animal care, horticulture, education, science and…
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…
To inspire and prepare young people to succeed in a global economy
Lake Forest Graduate School of Management's mission is to bring the real world to business education and leadership development.
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…
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.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Connections for the Homeless Inc and the most unlike its peers is Meals On Wheels. 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 39 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 21% startups (under 5 years old) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 15% 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.
53 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. 53 of the 104 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 ALLIANCE FOR THE GREAT LAKES ↗
- Who funds GARY SINISE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL INC ↗
- Who funds OPENLANDS ↗
- Who funds St Leonard's Ministries ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds STRIDES FOR PEACE INC ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds WINNETKA COMMUNITY HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds CONNECTIONS FOR THE HOMELESS INC ↗
- Who funds CONTEXTOS NFP ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO WOMEN'S HEALTH CENTER ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO SHAKESPEARE THEATER ↗
- Who funds FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY ↗
- Who funds WELCOME HOME ANGEL INC ↗
- Who funds Chicago Humanities Festival ↗
- Who funds Teamwork Englewood Inc ↗
- Who funds SUMMER SEARCH ↗
- Who funds WILDLIFE CONSERVATION NETWORK INC ↗
- Who funds Erie Family Health Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds BOB WOODRUFF FAMILY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds BUILD INC ↗
- Who funds BRAVEN INC ↗
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 · Charles H and Beverly E Shaw Foundation · Tinberg Foundation · Kemper Educational and Charitable Fund · Greater Chicago Food Depository · United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc · Sheila Reynolds Berner Foundation · Field Foundation of Illinois · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · Barbour Family Foundation · Patrick and Anna M Cudahy Fund · Forefront
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 Ross 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.
- Save the Children Federation Inc — 30% of income from government
- Wounded Warrior Project Inc — 0% 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Ross Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Ross Family 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.