· Private foundation
Rowan 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.
Read this first · the figures below need context
74% of Rowan Foundation’s FY2025 grant dollars went to Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2025 names 3 organizations directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it. Everything below is therefore FY2024, the last year Rowan Foundation named its own grantees at scale: 12 organizations, $2M. It is dated, not current.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2022–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- $10k–50k16 grants · $348k
- $50k–250k6 grants · $884k
- $250k+1 grant · $387k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| AMERICAN IRELAND FUND | $387,304 |
| IRISH COUNCIL CIVIL LIBERTIES | $223,042 |
| MIGRANT RIGHTS CENTER IE | $220,514 |
| Individual grant recipient | $118,150 |
| TRANSGENDER EQUALITY NETWORK IRELAND | $109,435 |
| THE HOPE AND COURAGE COLLECTIVE | $108,590 |
| Individual grant recipient | $104,679 |
| INSTITUTE FOR STRATEGIC DIALOGUE | $48,000 |
| MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY PHOTOGRAPHY | $40,000 |
| THE CHICAGO COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | $40,000 |
| TRI COUNTY HEALTH NETWORK | $30,000 |
| ILLINOIS COALITION FOR IMMIGRANT REFUGEES | $30,000 |
| CABRINIGREEN LEGAL AID | $25,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $25,000 |
| JUST FOR KIDS FOUNDATION | $20,000 |
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 US giving — 61% of grant dollars ($3.2M). The need read here covers only this US portion; the 39% that went abroad ($2.0M) is mapped below.
Your human-services grants (FY23–24, $35k) land where the poverty rate runs at 7%, against an area that typically sits at 13%. 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.
Which US states your grants reach
Beyond the US — 39% of all-years giving ($2.0M)
2 countries, by the recipient’s country on the filing.
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. International giving is mapped by the recipient’s country from the same 990 filings; comparable need data isn’t available at that grain.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 24% of Rowan Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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.
15 repeat relationships — 13 still active in FY2024, 2 since wound down; 13 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call). Read against FY2024, the last year this funder named its own grantees directly; its giving has since run through a sponsor, which reports no donor behind each grant.
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, 77% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $120k 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
- THTRI-COUNTY HEALTH NETWORK3× · 2022–2024 · $100k · revenue +30%
- CGCABRINI GREEN LEGAL AID3× · 2022–2024 · $75k · revenue +6%
- JFJust For Kids Foundation Inc3× · 2023–2025 · $70k · revenue +8%
Funded once
- UCUPLIFT CHARITY CORPORATIONone grant, 2023 · $251k · revenue +20%
- MRMigrant Rights Centre Irelandone grant, 2022 · $221k
- IIILLINOIS IMMIGRATION FUNDERSone grant, 2023 · $50k
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.
Cobalt advocates actualizes policies, structures and attitudes that secure unassailable reproductive autonomy and abortion access utilizing the political process and civic engagement.
The Chicago Refugee Coalition is a 501c3 non-profit organization dedicated ot the alleviation of human suffering through innovative partnerships, advocacy and community empowerment.
The International Network for the Reduction of Abortion Discrimination and Stigma (inroads) builds cross-movement collective power, provides flexible resources, and strengthens movements across the global abortion justice ecosystem to…
Grants to Iowa and Western Illinois residents for unmet medical expenses
Latino Union works to defend the rights and dignity of contingent workers, including the right to immigrate, work, live free of oppression and violence, and provide for oneself and one's family.
At legal aid chicago, we work together to provide high quality civil legal aid to people living in poverty and other vulnerable groups.through advocacy, education, collaboration, and litigation we empower individuals, protect fundamental…
Mission is to provide women facing an unplanned pregnancy with truthful medical information and education. we are faith-based with a mission to encourage, through education and outreach, the recognition of human life from the moment of…
We provide financial assistance and emotional support while building community spaces for people who need abortions in texas unapologetically, with compassion and conviction. through organizing and movement-building, we foster a positive…
Maap protects and fosters reproductive autonomy by providing access to abortion care through financial, logistical and emotional support.
Women's health clinic focusing on helping at-risk parents deal with issues related to prenancy and parenting.
Blue ridge abortion fund (braf) supports autonomy in reproductive decision making by providing financial, logistical, and emotional support to virginians, or people traveling to virginia for abortion care. (continued on sch. o)we also seek…
The New York Abortion Access Fund (NYAAF) supports New Yorkers and people traveling to New York State to access abortion care through financial assistance, case management, and connections to other resources.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Crossroads Fund Inc and the most unlike its peers is Natural Resources Defense Council Inc. 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 33 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) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 16% 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.
19 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. 19 of the 38 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 FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ↗
- Who funds THE AMERICAN IRELAND FUND (DBA THE IRELAND FUNDS AMERICA/THE IRELAND FUNDS) ↗
- Who funds UPLIFT CHARITY CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds UPLIFT SOLUTIONS INC ↗
- Who funds TRI-COUNTY HEALTH NETWORK ↗
- Who funds CROSSROADS FUND INC ↗
- Who funds CABRINI GREEN LEGAL AID ↗
- Who funds ILLINOIS COALITION FOR IMMIGRANT AND REFUGEE RIGHTS ↗
- Who funds Just For Kids Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds Angel Baskets Inc ↗
- Who funds SAN MIGUEL RESOURCE CENTER (SMRC) ↗
- Who funds MIDWEST ACCESS COALITION ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO PUBLIC MEDIA INC ↗
- Who funds COBALT FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds COLORADO DOULA PROJECT ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO ABORTION FUND ↗
- Who funds MEDICAL STUDENTS FOR CHOICE ↗
- Who funds Memphis Center For Reproductive Health Inc ↗
- Who funds NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL 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: Peter Kinney and Lisa Sandquist Foundation · Telluride Foundation · The Denver Foundation · New Venture Fund · National Philanthropic Trust · Network for Good · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · 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 Rowan 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 Rowan Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Rowan 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.