· Private foundation
Sumac 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.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2018–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k3 grants · $15k
- $10k–50k13 grants · $340k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $60k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Individual grant recipient | $59,500 |
| CASA CENTRAL | $45,000 |
| SECOND STORY YOUTH SERVICES AND SAF | $40,000 |
| MEXICAN AMERICAN LEGAL DEFENSE | $40,000 |
| ERIE NEIGHBORHOOD HOUSE | $35,000 |
| RESURRECTION PROJECT | $35,000 |
| WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN | $30,000 |
| DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS | $25,000 |
| GLOBAL REFUGE | $20,000 |
| CASA CATALINA FOOD PANTRY | $15,000 |
| BEYOND HUNGER | $15,000 |
| NORTHBROOK FOOD PANTRY | $15,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $15,000 |
| CAPITAL AREA IMMIGRANTS RIGHT | $10,000 |
| OAK PARK HOMELESS COALITION | $5,000 |
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 (FY18–25, $447k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 94% 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.
24 repeat relationships — 15 still active in FY2025, 9 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, 81% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $80k 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
- TRThe Resurrection Project8× · 2018–2025 · $255k · revenue +247%
- ENERIE NEIGHBORHOOD HOUSE8× · 2018–2025 · $235k · revenue +88%
MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC7× · 2019–2025 · $185k · revenue +79%
Funded once
- AAABUSED AND HOMELESS CHILDREN'S REFUGE INCgraduatedone grant, 2018 · $25k · revenue +75%
- 1S1ST STAGE INCgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $20k · revenue +264%
- OTOLNEY THEATRE CENTERone grant, 2020 · $12k
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.
Latino Union works to defend the rights and dignity of contingent workers, including the right to immigrate, work, live free of oppression and violence, and provide for oneself and one's family.
To deliver legal and social services to people and families who want to put down roots in the u.s. and cultivate welcoming communities that uphold our collective freedoms.
At legal aid chicago, we work together to provide high quality civil legal aid to people living in poverty and other vulnerable groups.through advocacy, education, collaboration, and litigation we empower individuals, protect fundamental…
Legal, immigration and community organizing
The Chicago Refugee Coalition is a 501c3 non-profit organization dedicated ot the alleviation of human suffering through innovative partnerships, advocacy and community empowerment.
Strive to improve the health and well being of migrant and seasonal farmworkers and other medically vulnerable populations by providing quality accessable, affordable, and culturally responsive health care within the community we serve.
Alternatives, inc.'s mission is to facilitate personal development,strengthen family relationships and enhance the community's well being. serving over 3,000 youth and families annually, the organization offers a range of counseling and…
Serving recently arrived migrants and asylum seekers in the Chicagoland area and is committed to upholding the dignity and human rights of immigrants.
The greater chicago food depository is the nonprofit food bank serving cook county. our mission - is to end hunger. we believe food is a basic human right. to achieve our mission, we work in partnership with a network of community-based…
To provide meaningful access to high quality, civil legal services in the pursuit of justice for as many low income persons and members of vulnerable populations throughout colorado as possible.
Arise chicago builds partnerships between faith communities and workers to fight workplace injustice through education, organizing, and advocating for public policy changes.
To assist children who have been victims of abuse
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Casa Central Social Services Corporation and the most unlike its peers is Purple Asparagus. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
16 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. 16 of the 32 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 MALDEF - MEXICAN AMERICAN LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND ↗
- Who funds The Resurrection Project ↗
- Who funds ERIE NEIGHBORHOOD HOUSE ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds CASA CENTRAL SOCIAL SERVICES CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds GALA INC GRUPO DE ARTISTAS LATINO AMERICANOS ↗
- Who funds WORLD CENTRAL KITCHEN INC ↗
- Who funds BEYOND HUNGER ↗
- Who funds CAPITAL AREA IMMIGRANTS' RIGHTS COALITION ↗
- Who funds SARAH'S INN ↗
- Who funds Illinois Coalition for Community Services ↗
- Who funds ABUSED AND HOMELESS CHILDREN'S REFUGE INC ↗
- Who funds 1ST STAGE INC ↗
- Who funds LUTHERAN IMMIGRATION & REFUGEE SERVICE INC DBA GLOBAL REFUGE ↗
- Who funds Purple Asparagus ↗
- Who funds HISPANIC FEDERATION 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: The Chicago Community Trust · Healthy Communities Foundation · Robert R McCormick Foundation · United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · Greater Washington Community Foundation · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · National Philanthropic Trust · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Charities Aid Foundation America · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc
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 Sumac 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.
- Lutheran Immigration & Refugee Service Inc Dba Global Refuge — 100% 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.