· Private foundation
Sjostrom & Sons Foundation
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| YMCA OF ROCK RIVER VALLEY | $6,500 |
| ROSECRANCE FOUNDATION | $5,000 |
| TRINITY LUTHERAN CHURCH | $3,000 |
| UNITED WAY OF ROCK RIVER VALLEY | $3,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN | $2,500 |
| BURPEE NATURAL HISTORY MUSEUM | $2,500 |
| MERCYHEALTH DEVELOPMENT FNDN | $2,000 |
| TRINITY DAYCARE | $2,000 |
| NATURAL LAND INSTITUTE | $1,500 |
| ROCKFORD SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA | $1,250 |
| KEN-ROCK COMMUNITY CENTER | $1,000 |
| DISCOVERY CENTER | $1,000 |
| ROCK VALLEY COLLEGE | $1,000 |
| SWEDISH HISTORICAL SOCIETY | $1,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $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 (FY17–25, $79k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, 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.
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 +29% since the first grant, against +15% for the ones you funded once.
47 repeat relationships — 33 still active in FY2025, 14 since wound down; 2 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (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 FY2025, 94% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $3k 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
- YOYMCA OF ROCK RIVER VALLEY9× · 2017–2025 · $54k · revenue +55%
- RFROSECRANCE FOUNDATION INC9× · 2017–2025 · $45k · revenue +258%
- RSROCKFORD SYMPHONY ORCHESTRAS INC8× · 2017–2025 · $10k · revenue +5%
Funded once
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2023 · $4k
- CCCORNELL COLLEGEone grant, 2024 · $2k · revenue 0%
- ACAUGUSTANA COLLEGEgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $2k · revenue +27%
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.
Rock river valley blood center, in partnership with our community, is dedicated to providing safe, high value blood products and services to people in need.
The mission of goodwill is to create opportunities for individuals with barriers to enhance their lives. barriers include physical or mental disabilities, lack of education and job preparation, socio-economic disadvantages, and others.…
The rockford area economic development council cultivates opportunities for primary job growth that increase the economic well-being of our region
To provide analysis and commentary on cultural, economic, political, and educational issues through a published monthly opinion magazine and to operate continuing adult educational conferences in american and european literature and…
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…
The mission of rock island economic growth corporation is to renovate and build new single family or multi-family housing in the midwest region; to foster low-income housing that: enhances the overall image and economic vitality of the…
Provide community-based residential housing to adults with autism and/or severe developmental disabilities. also provide developmental training and other supports to this same population.
To provide quality, affordable, accessible, child care in a developmentally appropriate learning environment. the program is committed to the holistic development of the individual child through a broad range of educational programs, which…
Reach for your potential, inc is a provider of adult daycare services and rehabilitation/housing of disabled individuals serving approximately 135 individuals from iowa city and the surrounding communities.
Rocky mountain college educates future leaders through liberal arts and professional programs that cultivate critical thinking, creative expression, ethical decision making, informed citizenship, and professional excellence.
The university of rio grande/ rio grande community college is america's unique private/public institution of higher education designed to provide learners the opportunity to attain a high-quality, high-value education. our personalized,…
We deliver a healthcare experience that consistently exceeds patients' expectations through exceptional people - our people are our foundation. we employ trusted, dedicated professionals who serve with compassion, empathy and respect.…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Rockford Rescue Mission Ministries and the most unlike its peers is Roy Gayle Pony Baseball Softball Inc. 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 60 years old; the field is 23. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 19% 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 10% 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.
29 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. 29 of the 58 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 YMCA OF ROCK RIVER VALLEY ↗
- Who funds ROSECRANCE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF ROCK RIVER VALLEY ↗
- Who funds NATURAL LAND INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds ROCKFORD SYMPHONY ORCHESTRAS INC ↗
- Who funds ILLINOIS GROWTH ENTERPRISES ↗
- Who funds LIFESCAPE COMMUNITY SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds BARBARA OLSON CENTER OF HOPE ↗
- Who funds KEN-ROCK COMMUNITY CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds ROCKFORD DAY NURSERY ↗
- Who funds VNA Health Care ↗
- Who funds MERCYHEALTH DEVELOPMENT FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds ROCK RIVER VALLEY PANTRY ↗
- Who funds ROCKFORD ART MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds NORTHWEST COMMUNITY CENTER ↗
- Who funds TINKER SWISS COTTAGE INC ↗
- Who funds ROCKFORD AREA ARTS COUNCIL ↗
- Who funds Cedarville University ↗
- Who funds ROY GAYLE PONY BASEBALL SOFTBALL INC ↗
- Who funds ROCKFORD UNIVERSITY ↗
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: Community Foundation of Northern IL · Bergstrom Inc Charitable Foundation Xxxxx2008 · Blazer Foundation · The Kjellstrom Family Foundation · Guy Reno Family Foundation · The Ben Harding Family Foundation · United Way of Rock River Valley · Kristin L Anderson Charitable Foundation · Tracy E Anderson Charitable Foundation · The David & Colleen Anderson Charitable Foundation · John & Linda Anderson Charitable Foundation · Jeffrey R Anderson Charitable 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 Sjostrom & Sons 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.
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How do I get to Sjostrom & Sons Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Sjostrom & Sons 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.