· Private foundation
Shea Family Foundation Inc
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 FY2020–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k11 grants · $27k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $113k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| JOFFREY BALLET | $60,000 |
| CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | $52,550 |
| ADVENTURES FOR THE MIND FOUNDATION | $7,500 |
| PALM SPRINGS PATHFINDERS CO THUNDERBIRD COUNTRY CLUB | $5,800 |
| UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME | $5,000 |
| RANCHO MIRAGE LIBRARY FOUNDATION | $2,500 |
| JUNIOR LEAGUE OF CHICAGO | $2,215 |
| IMMACULATE CONCEPTION ST JOSEPH PARISH | $1,500 |
| ANNUAL CATHOLIC APPEAL OF THE ARCHDIOCESE OF CHICAGO | $1,500 |
| CLARK CARES FOUNDATION | $500 |
| GENEVA NATIONAL SCHOLARSHIP FUND | $250 |
| INTERNATIONAL FOLK ART MARKET | $250 |
| LOYOLA UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO | $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 (FY22–22, $250) land where the poverty rate runs at 8%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 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
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.
15 repeat relationships — 7 still active in FY2024, 8 since wound down; 5 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, 96% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $6k 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
- TJTHE JOFFREY BALLET5× · 2020–2024 · $321k · revenue +57%
- CSChicago Symphony Orchestra5× · 2020–2024 · $99k · revenue +71%
- TLTHE LINCOLN ACADEMY OF ILLINOIS3× · 2020–2022 · $12k · revenue +89%
Funded once
- TMTHE MILKEN INSTITUTEgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $10k · revenue +182%
- FPForest Preserve Foundation Incone grant, 2021 · $10k · revenue -27%
- DUDePaul University School of Lawone grant, 2020 · $5k
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 mission of the university of illinois alumni association is to enhance and advance the relationship between the university of illinois at urbana-champaign (the university) and all its alumni; to inspire lifelong loyalty and pride among…
Saint xavier university, a catholic institution inspired by the heritage of the sisters of mercy, educates persons to search for truth, think critically, communicate effectively and serve wisely and compassionately in support of human…
The chicago psychoanalytic institute transforms the lives of individuals, families and communities, using psychoanalytic knowledge to help them grow and thrive.
The Chicago School educates the next generation of change-makers in innovative theory and culturally competent practice to strengthen the integrated health of individuals, organizations, and communities.
Illinois college is a co-educational institution of higher education learning providing a four-year educational program leading to the baccalaureate degree. illinois college is a community committed to the highest standards of scholarship…
Depauw university develops leaders the world needs through an uncommon commitment to the liberal arts. depauw's diverse and inclusive learning and living experience, distinctive in its rigorous intellectual engagement and its global and…
Northwestern is committed to excellent teaching, innovative research and the personal and intellectual growth of its students in a diverse academic community.
The GI Research Foundation works to treat, prevent, and cure digestive diseases. In collaboration with the physicians and scientists at the University of Chicago Digestive Diseases Center, we fund innovative clinical and laboratory…
Lake Forest Graduate School of Management's mission is to bring the real world to business education and leadership development.
The music institute of chicago ("music institute") leads people toward a lifelong engagement with music, by providing widely accessible resources for high quality music teaching, performing, and service activities.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Junior League of Chicago Inc and the most unlike its peers is Clarke Cares Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
20 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. 20 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 THE JOFFREY BALLET ↗
- Who funds Chicago Symphony Orchestra ↗
- Who funds University of Notre Dame du Lac ↗
- Who funds THE ADVENTURES FOR THE MIND FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds THE LINCOLN ACADEMY OF ILLINOIS ↗
- Who funds THE MILKEN INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds Forest Preserve Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds THE JUNIOR LEAGUE OF CHICAGO INC ↗
- Who funds STRONGER THAN EVER ↗
- Who funds University of Illinois Foundation ↗
- Who funds DURHAM DEVILS GIVING INC ↗
- Who funds AURORA UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds CLARKE CARES FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Chicago Blackhawks Foundation ↗
- Who funds HEALTHCARE ALTERNATIVE SYSTEMS INC ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO SUMMER BUSINESS INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds THE SERVICE CLUB OF CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds Revive & Thrive Project ↗
- Who funds LOYOLA UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO CHILDREN'S ADVOCACY CENTER ↗
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 · Network for Good · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · 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 Shea Family Foundation Inc 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.