Illinois · Private foundation
Sacks Family 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.
- $7.0M
- Granted FY2025(still arriving)
- 53
- Grants FY2025
- 49
- Organizations funded FY2024
- 14%
- First-time grantees FY2024
- Median grant, FY2025
- $50,000
- Largest grant, FY2025
- $1,077,500
- Organizations funded a year
- 41 to 75
- FY2018 to FY2024
- States reached, FY2025
- 6
- Total assets, FY2025
- $3.1M
- Applications
- Preselected organizations only
- Per its most recent filing; check its own site
How open it is to new grantees
In FY2024, 14% of the organizations Sacks Family Foundation funded were first-time grantees, receiving 3% of its grant dollars.
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2024, 97% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $187k went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
How this is measured
The numbers by year
| Fiscal year | Organizations funded | To those organizations | First-time grantees |
|---|---|---|---|
| FY2025still arriving | 52 | $7.0M | 25% |
| FY2024 | 49 | $5.5M | 14% |
| FY2023 | 57 | $6.8M | 21% |
| FY2022 | 75 | $6.7M | 31% |
| FY2021 | 63 | $5.7M | 40% |
| FY2020 | 49 | $4.4M | 37% |
| FY2019 | 41 | $3.5M | 17% |
| FY2018 | 45 | $4.0M | 33% |
What it funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.
Where its grants go
Grant dollars by states, across the years we hold.
Which US states its grants reach
Top grantees
Largest recipients by total granted, FY2017 to FY2025, and the share of each one’s budget the grants supplied at peak.
| Grantee | Total granted | Years | Share of their budget |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Barack Obama Foundation | $9,000,000 | 9 | 1% |
| Northwestern University | $6,197,500 | 9 | 0% |
| The Administrators of the Tulane Educational Fund | $4,550,000 | 9 | 0% |
| Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago | $3,701,018 | 6 | 1% |
| University of Chicago | $2,600,000 | 7 | 0% |
| The Art Institute of Chicago | $1,767,500 | 9 | 0% |
| Museum of Contemporary Art | $1,666,761 | 9 | 1% |
| Steppenwolf Theatre Company | $1,320,000 | 8 | 2% |
| Hope Chicago Inc | $1,000,000 | 4 | 2% |
| Bill Hillary & Chelsea Clinton Foundation | $1,000,000 | 2 | 2% |
Show all 136 grantees
What it could do for these grantees
Plus 41 recipients with no EIN on record ($2.5M), not named here.
Where it is load-bearing
Sacks Family Foundation supplied at least a quarter of the budget for 2 of its grantees at some point. The chart plots its 118 largest grantees; load-bearing ones sit top left.
Tap a dot to name the grantee.
How this is measured
Co-funders
Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.
Open a dossier: Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago · Jarvis Foundation · Circle of Service Foundation · The Chicago Community Trust · Kovler Family Foundation · Polk Bros Foundation Inc · Arie and Ida Crown Memorial · Lloyd a Fry Foundation · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · The Bluhm Family Foundation · AbbVie Foundation · The Sidley Austin Foundation
How this is measured
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Sacks Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Sacks 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.
About Sacks Family Foundation
- How much does Sacks Family Foundation give?
- Sacks Family Foundation reported 53 grants totaling $7,015,100 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 41 and 75 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.
- What does Sacks Family Foundation fund?
- By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Education (25%), Public Benefit (18%), Arts & Culture (16%).
- Who are Sacks Family Foundation's largest grantees?
- By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: The Barack Obama Foundation ($9.0M), Northwestern University ($6.2M), The Administrators of the Tulane Educational Fund ($4.5M).
- Does Sacks Family Foundation fund new organizations?
- In FY2024, 14% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.
- Does Sacks Family Foundation accept unsolicited applications?
- Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
- Which funders back the same organizations as Sacks Family Foundation?
- Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago, Jarvis Foundation, Circle of Service Foundation.
- Where is Sacks Family Foundation based?
- Sacks Family Foundation is based in IL.
Play a game based on Sacks Family’s filings →