How much does Susan & Jerome Ettelson Fund give?

Susan & Jerome Ettelson Fund reported 65 grants totaling $97,600 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 29 and 78 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does Susan & Jerome Ettelson Fund fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Animals (56%), Human Services (6%), Food & Nutrition (6%).

Who are Susan & Jerome Ettelson Fund's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: The Anti-Cruelty Society ($92k), Shedd Aquarium Society ($63k), Lincoln Park Zoological Society ($46k).

Does Susan & Jerome Ettelson Fund fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 8% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Susan & Jerome Ettelson Fund accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

Which funders back the same organizations as Susan & Jerome Ettelson Fund?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include PC Fund for Animals Charitable Tr, Bradford Family Foundation, Surendra and Karen Gupta Arc Foundation.

Where is Susan & Jerome Ettelson Fund based?

Susan & Jerome Ettelson Fund is based in IL.

Susan & Jerome Ettelson Fund

Susan & Jerome Ettelson Fund at a glance

· Private foundation

Susan & Jerome Ettelson Fund

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.

$98k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$13k

Largest

01What it funds

0196% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.

Animals$380kHuman Services$42kFood & Nutrition$40kEnvironment$40kScience & Tech$28kArts & Culture$28kHousing & Shelter$26kInternational$18kOther$0

02FY2025 · 65 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k62 grants · $65k
$10k–50k3 grants · $33k

$400

Median grant

States reached

$315k

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
ANTI-CRUELTY SOCIETY	$12,800
Individual grant recipient	$10,000
FRIENDS OF ANIMAL CARE AND CONTROL	$10,000
LINCOLN PARK ZOO	$5,000
GIVE KIDS THE WORLD VILLAGE	$5,000
WORLD WILDLIFE FUND	$5,000
SHEDD AQUARIUM	$5,000
CRADLES TO CRAYONS	$5,000
CHICAGO COALITION FOR HOMELESS	$5,000
MUSEUM OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY	$3,500
GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY	$3,500
FRANCIS W PARKER SCHOOL	$2,500
BEST FRIENDS ANIMAL SOCIETY	$2,500
ORPHANS OF THE STORM ANIMAL SHELTER	$1,500
ALIVE RESCUE	$1,000

02The need

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Its human-services grants (FY17–25, $31k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

How this is measured

Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.

Which US states its grants reach

How this is measured

US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

95%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$641k · 94 repeat orgs$32k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +31% since the first grant, against +11% for those funded once.

94 repeat relationships: 60 still active in FY2025, 34 since wound down; 5 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$641k

$30k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+31%

+11%

Still filing today

79%

52%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 98% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

AnimalsHuman ServicesArts & CultureFood & NutritionEducationEnvironmentOther

How this is measured

First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

TA
The Anti-Cruelty Society
9× · 2017–2025 · $92k · revenue +52%
SA
SHEDD AQUARIUM SOCIETY
9× · 2017–2025 · $63k · revenue +67%
LP
LINCOLN PARK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY
9× · 2017–2025 · $46k · revenue +30%

Funded once

CP
CHICAGO PUBLIC ART GROUPgraduated
one grant, 2018 · $5k · revenue +131%
CA
CHICAGO ANIMAL CARE AND CONTROL
one grant, 2021 · $5k
EQUAL JUSTICE INITIATIVE
one grant, 2021 · $3k · revenue -45%

How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

Global Animal Partnership

Animals

Progressive Animal Welfare Society aka Paws

A champion for animals since 1967, PAWS is a nationally recognized leader - rehabilitating injured and orphaned wildlife, sheltering and adopting homeless cats and dogs, and educating people to make a better world for animals and people.

Animals

Humane World for Animals International

HUMANE WORLD FOR ANIMALS INTERNATIONAL, FKA HUMANE SOCIETY INTERNATIONAL (HSI), works around the globe to promote the human-animal bond, rescue and protect dogs and cats, improve farm animal welfare, protect wildlife, promote animal-free…

Animals

Partners for Animal Welfare Society

Animal shelter for the protection and care of abused and neglected animals.

Animals

Animal Outlook Inc

Animal outlook is a national animal protection organization working to end the abuse of farmed animals using a variety of strategies, including investigations, legal advocacy, corporate and food system reform, and vegan outreach.

Animals

All About Animals Rescue

All about animals rescue's mission is no more homeless pets.

Animals

Animal Care Sanctuary

Animal care sanctuary's lifesaving mission as a no kill organization envisions a community that promotes turning compassion into action for companion animals by: 1.) adopting healthy pet companions into loving homes. 2.) promoting the…

Animals

Humane Animal Partners

Founded in 2023, humane animal partners is a nonprofit no-kill animal care and adoption center. we are committed to providing for the needs of homeless and owned dogs and cats in our community. we make "friends for life" by connecting…

Animals

Animal Humane Society

Animal Humane Society (AHS) established in 1878 and incorporated as a nonprofit charitable organization in 1891 works to engage the hearts, hands, and minds of the community to help animals. AHS's vision is to compassionately and…

Animals

Humane Society of Southern Arizona

To compassionately serve pets and the people who love them.

Animals

Pet Animal Welfare Society of Connecticut Inc

Pet animal welfare society of ct (paws), established in 1962, is a no-kill animal rescue shelter dedicated to the rescue and adoption of our community's homeless and abused dogs and cats. paws efforts are focused on three critical needs:…

Animals

Animal Wellness Action

To prevent cruelty to animals, we promote enacting and enforcing good public policies. enacting good laws depends upon electing good lawmakers, and we remind voters which candidates care about and support animal issues.

Human Services

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Defenders of Animal Rights Inc; the most unlike its peers is The Rolling Dog Farm. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

04the grantee network

101 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2026, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 101 of the 143 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

100/101

Grantees still filing

72/101

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Animals$325,548Other$178,650Arts & Culture$51,500Environment$39,305Food & Nutrition$38,175Human Services$33,950Education$6,450

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

PC Fund for Animals Charitable TrWY36.6× affinity15 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: PC Fund for Animals Charitable Tr · Bradford Family Foundation · Surendra and Karen Gupta Arc Foundation · Seckinger Foundation Corporation · Amica Companies Foundation · Joyce a Ward Foundation · The Gerald B Shreiber Foundation · AbbVie Foundation · The Patricia Florence Miller Trust · Amg Charitable Gift Foundation · Leslie L Alexander Foundation Inc · The Galoney-Strubbe Charitable Foundation 19-Rp683

How this is measured

Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Susan & Jerome Ettelson Fund funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Susan & Jerome Ettelson Fund. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

9get no government money at all

11report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–75%

typical government reliance, FY20–25

How this is measured

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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to Susan & Jerome Ettelson Fund?

Find your warmest path to Susan & Jerome Ettelson Fund 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.

Play a game based on Susan & Jerome Ettelson’s filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions

grants reported with no recipient in the public record

The regranting layer

51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer

The DAF merry-go-round

$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds

The endowment market

who holds foundation money, and what just moved

The camps

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

By state

where grant money is based, and what stays home