· Public charity
Start Early
START EARLY advances quality early learning for families with children, before birth through their earliest years, to help close the opportunity gap.
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.
By grant size · FY2025
- $10k–50k1 grant · $21k
- $50k–250k21 grants · $2.5M
- $250k+29 grants · $34M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MARILLAC SOCIAL CENTER | $3,707,485 |
| CHICAGO CHILD CARE SOCIETY | $3,284,713 |
| EL HOGAR | $3,118,820 |
| ONE HOPE UNITED | $2,456,810 |
| FAMILY FOCUS INC | $2,288,127 |
| CASA CENTRAL | $2,205,660 |
| SGA YOUTH & FAMILY SERVICES | $1,412,403 |
| THE CHILDREN'S HOME | $1,361,477 |
| CHILDREN'S HOME AIDCHILDREN'S SOCIETY OF IL | $1,279,149 |
| ASIAN HUMAN SERVICES | $1,244,947 |
| THE CHILDREN'S PLACE ASSOCIATION | $1,090,150 |
| CATHOLIC CHARITIES | $1,059,627 |
| UNITED METHODIST CHILDREN'S HOME | $918,350 |
| PUBLIC HEALTH FOUNDATION OF NW IL | $794,408 |
| YMCA OF CHICAGO | $780,104 |
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, $145.0M) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 87% 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 +56% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
64 repeat relationships — 50 still active in FY2025, 14 since wound down.
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, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
- CCCASA CENTRAL SOCIAL SERVICES CORPORATION8× · 2017–2025 · $17M · revenue +43%
- OHOne Hope United8× · 2017–2025 · $16M · revenue +170%
- MSMARILLAC ST VINCENT FAMILY SERVICES INC8× · 2017–2025 · $13M · revenue +12%
Funded once
- TATexas A&M San Antonio Foundationone grant, 2024 · $250k · revenue 0%
- CCChampaign County MH Centerone grant, 2017 · $127k
- CFCouncil for a Strong Americaone grant, 2017 · $125k · revenue -96%
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.
Concordia place's continuum of programs support families throughout their children's development, from the neonatal period through college entry: home visiting for expecting parents and infants, early childhood education and care for…
To provide a variety of programs in the chicago area to help children, parents, and adults achieve greater inner well-being, sustain closer relationships, and have more pleasurable family, school, and work lives.
We deliver head start and related programs throughout southeastern az for prenatal through preschool aged children and their families. the focus of our work is: early childhood education & school readiness; health & nutrition; and parent…
By advocating for quality early care and education, empowering families with information and financial support, and building the capabilities of educators, Children's Council of San Francisco ensures that every child in San Francisco has…
Children's institute's mission is to leverage research, practice, policy, and advocacy to shift systems toward justice for families so that all of oregon's children, prenatal to grade 5, have access to opportunity.
The organization is dedicated to combining education and advocacy to expand opportunities for children and families in order to strengthen the voice of the latino community based on the belief that the most effective way to support latino…
Childstrive builds on the relationships, strengths, and unique abilities of young children and their families by fostering social, emotional, and physical well-being so all children can flourish.
To strengthen the well-being and development of families and individuals through professional human services programs, including therapy, counseling, education, special assistance, and advocacy.
Infant welfare society of chicago (iws) (d/b/a iws family health) provides quality medical, dental and behavioral health services for the health, physical and mental development of children and their families in the chicagoland community.
Association house's mission is to advance each person's full participation in the life of their families, communities, and society. since 1899, we have served a vibrant, multicultural community. we used a trauma informed, culturally…
Advocate for early childhood social & economic development and professionals who work with children and their families to advance this mission.
The child center of ny strengthens children and families with skills, opportunities, and emotional support to build healthy, successful lives.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Children's Home & Aid Society of Ill and the most unlike its peers is Republican Main Street Partnership. 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) — 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 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.
60 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. 60 of the 76 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 CASA CENTRAL SOCIAL SERVICES CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds One Hope United ↗
- Who funds MARILLAC ST VINCENT FAMILY SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds EL HOGAR DEL NINO ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN'S HOME & AID SOCIETY OF ILL ↗
- Who funds Family Focus ↗
- Who funds SGA YOUTH & FAMILY SERVICES NFP ↗
- Who funds FAMILY FOCUS LEGACY ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN'S HOME ASSOCIATION OF ILLINOIS ↗
- Who funds THE CHILDREN'S PLACE ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds ASIAN HUMAN SERVICES ↗
- Who funds SPERO FAMILY SERVICES ↗
- Who funds Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago ↗
- Who funds AUNT MARTHA'S HEALTH AND WELLNESS INC ↗
- Who funds PUBLIC HEALTH FOUNDATION OF NORTHWEST IL ↗
- Who funds NEW MOMS INC ↗
- Who funds YWCA METROPOLITAN CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds Metropolitan Family Services ↗
- Who funds TEEN PARENT CONNECTION INC ↗
- Who funds PILSEN LITTLE VILLAGE COMMUNITY MENTAL HEALTH CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds VNA Health Care ↗
- Who funds CHILD TRENDS INC ↗
- Who funds EVERYCHILD ↗
- Who funds The YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago ↗
- Who funds ADVOCATE NORTH SIDE HEALTH NETWORK ↗
- Who funds LIFT INC ↗
- Who funds CENTERS FOR NEW HORIZONS INC ↗
- Who funds ACADEMY FOR GLOBAL CITIZENSHIP CHARTER SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds TULSA EDUCARE INC ↗
- Who funds EDUCARE DC ↗
- Who funds COMPREHENSIVE BEHAVIORAL HEALTH CENTER OF ST CLAIR COUNTY 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: United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc · Buffett Early Childhood Fund · The Chicago Community Trust · The Irving Harris Foundation · Robert R McCormick Foundation · Greater Chicago Food Depository · Alliance for Early Success Fka Birth to Five Policy Alliance · Northwestern Memorial HealthCare Group · Bright Promises Foundation · Visiting Nurse Association of Chicago (Aka) Vna Foundation · Donley Foundation-Ud Dtd 12-8-86 · Cme Group 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 Start Early 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.
- Sunbeam Family Services Inc — 52% of income from government
- Child Trends Inc — 50% of income from government
- Tulsa Educare Inc — 46% of income from government
- United Way Miami Inc — 23% 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.