· Private foundation
Sheila Reynolds Berner Foundation
Its FY2022 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 FY2017–2022.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2022
- Under $10k2 grants · $4k
- $10k–50k6 grants · $135k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $180k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CATHOLIC THEOLOGICAL UNION AT CHICAGO | $179,900 |
| CHICAGO COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | $43,300 |
| FENIX FAMILY HEALTH CENTER INC | $24,073 |
| JACKSON HOLE COMMUNITY SCHOOL | $20,000 |
| CHICAGO JESUIT ACADEMY | $17,500 |
| FAIRFIELD UNIVERSITY | $15,000 |
| ARCHDIOCESE OF CHICAGO | $15,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF NOTRE DAME | $4,300 |
| TOP BOX FOODS | $127 |
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 (FY17–21, $12k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 96% 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 +49% since the first grant, against +31% for the ones you funded once.
45 repeat relationships — 3 still active in FY2022, 42 since wound down; 5 grantees were first funded in FY2022 (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 FY2022, 70% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $93k 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
- FFFenix Family Health Center4× · 2017–2022 · $84k · revenue +157%
- JIJUSTICE IN MOTION INC3× · 2017–2021 · $46k · revenue +182%
- HAHoward Area Community Center3× · 2017–2021 · $6k · revenue +39%
Funded once
- CTCATHOLIC THEOLOGICAL UNIONone grant, 2017 · $31k
- LALOYOLA ACADEMYone grant, 2017 · $25k
- BCBOSTON COLLEGE CAMPUS MINISTRYone grant, 2021 · $25k
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.
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 University of New Haven is a student-centered comprehensive university with an emphasis on excellence in liberal arts and professional education. Our mission is to prepare our students to lead purposeful and fulfilling lives in a…
Loyola University New Orleans, a Jesuit and Catholic institution of higher education, welcomes students of diverse backgrounds and prepares them to lead meaningful lives with and for others; to pursue truth, wisdom, and virtue; and to work…
The organization's mission is to educate students for creative occupations in diverse fields of arts and media.
Steadfast in jesus christ as revealed in the holy scriptures, concordia university chicago promotes academic rigor in its liberal arts and professional programs; grounds students in objective truth, integrity, and excellence; and practices…
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…
To make the catholic intellectual tradition a vital part of the culture of universities. to enrich academic communities at the university of chicago, across the nation, and the world with the insights of catholic thought. to dialogue with…
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…
The association of catholic colleges and universities, founded in 1899, serves as the collective voice of u.s catholic higher education. through programs and services, the association strengthens and promptes the catholic identity and…
The mission of madonna university, a catholic and franciscan institution of higher learning, is to instill in its students christain humanistic values, intellectual inquiry, a respect for university and a committment to serving others…
The common application is a not-for-profit membership organization of over 1,100 colleges and universities across the globe committed to access, equity, and integrity in the college admission process. every year, over 1.5 million students…
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…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Catholic Medical Mission Board Inc and the most unlike its peers is Little Sisters of the Poor. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 47 years old; the field is 20. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 18% startups (under 5 years old) — 1% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 2% lost their exemption, against 12% 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.
99 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. 99 of the 182 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 Fenix Family Health Center ↗
- Who funds University of Notre Dame du Lac ↗
- Who funds JUSTICE IN MOTION INC ↗
- Who funds THE NATIONAL CATHOLIC REPORTER PUBLISHING CO ↗
- Who funds COMMONWEALTH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds FAITH IN PUBLIC LIFE INC ↗
- Who funds Jackson Hole Community School ↗
- Who funds Fairfield University ↗
- Who funds DANNY DID FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds COME TO BELIEVE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY FOUNDATION OF JACKSON HOLE ↗
- Who funds The Hap Foundation Inc (F/K/A Journeycare Foundation) ↗
- Who funds Howard Area Community Center ↗
- Who funds Viator House of Hospitality ↗
- Who funds LOYOLA UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds CRISTO REY NETWORK ↗
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: Helen V Brach Foundation · The Chicago Community Trust · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · Kemper Educational and Charitable Fund · Charles H and Beverly E Shaw Foundation · United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc · Robert R McCormick Foundation · The Service Club of Chicago · Dr Scholl Foundation · Frank Family Foundation · George M Eisenberg Foundation for Charities · Baxter International 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 Sheila Reynolds Berner 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.
- President and Fellows of Harvard College — 7% of income from government
- Squash Haven Inc — 4% of income from government
- Feed the Children Inc — 1% of income from government
- Fairfield University — 1% of income from government
- Americares Foundation Inc — 0% of income from government
- Food for the Poor 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 Sheila Reynolds Berner Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Sheila Reynolds Berner 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.