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Illinois · Private foundation

Sweeney Family 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.

$2.4M
Granted FY2025(still arriving)
15
Grants FY2025
9
Organizations funded FY2024
33%
First-time grantees FY2024
Read the full brief
Median grant, FY2025
$10,000
Largest grant, FY2025
$2,247,279
Organizations funded a year
9 to 19
FY2018 to FY2024
States reached, FY2025
3
Applications
Preselected organizations only
Per its most recent filing; check its own site

How open it is to new grantees

In FY2024, 33% of the organizations Sweeney Family Foundation funded were first-time grantees, receiving 32% of its grant dollars.

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 68% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $33k went to new ones.

50%100%’18’19’20’21’22’23’24
RenewedFirst-time

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

’18’19’20’21’22’23’24
Human ServicesReligionHealthYouth DevelopmentFood & NutritionEnvironmentOther
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.
The numbers by year
Fiscal yearOrganizations fundedTo those organizationsFirst-time grantees
FY2025still arriving15$2.4M53%
FY20249$103k33%
FY202310$108k40%
FY202212$95k8%
FY202116$112k19%
FY202014$118k21%
FY201915$87k27%
FY201819$94k53%
94% classified

What it funded, over time

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

Philanthropy$2.2MHuman Services$329kInternational$138kHousing & Shelter$112kHealth$68kReligion$64kCrime & Legal$38kYouth Development$35kOther$0

Top grantees

Largest recipients by total granted, FY2017 to FY2025, and the share of each one’s budget the grants supplied at peak.

Show all 30 grantees

What it could do for these grantees

Plus 24 recipients with no EIN on record ($2.5M), not named here.

Where it is load-bearing

Each grantee by its size and the share of its budget Sweeney Family Foundation supplied at peak.

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetMedecins Sans Frontieres USA Inc: $125,000 over 9y, 0.0% of budgetThe Night Ministry: $85,000 over 7y, 0.2% of budgetCathedral Center Inc: $57,500 over 6y, 1.0% of budgetCentro San Bonifacio Inc: $57,500 over 9y, 1.5% of budgetMeta House Inc: $55,000 over 6y, 0.1% of budgetHousing Opportunities and Maintenance for the Elderly Inc: $43,000 over 5y, 0.6% of budgetFamily Rescue Inc: $35,000 over 4y, 0.3% of budgetAspiritech Nfp: $32,500 over 6y, 0.2% of budgetWellpoint Care Network Inc: $27,500 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetResilience: $20,000 over 2y, 0.4% of budgetAspire of Illinois: $17,500 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetLotus Legal Clinic Inc: $15,000 over 1y, 1.9% of budgetCatholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago: $15,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetEl Porvenir: $12,500 over 2y, 0.5% of budgetPenfield Children's Center Inc: $12,500 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetGirlforward: $10,000 over 2y, 1.1% of budgetPrecious Blood Ministry of Reconciliation Nfp: $7,000 over 1y, 0.4% of budgetIllinois Hunger Coalition: $7,000 over 4y, 0.5% of budgetGreen Era Educational Nfp: $5,000 over 1y, 8.3% of budgetSouth Africa Partners Inc: $5,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetCornerstone Community Outreach: $5,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetSos Outreach: $2,500 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetFigueroa Wu Family Foundation: $2,500 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetBeyond Legal Aid: $2,500 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetWell of Mercy Inc: $2,000 over 2y, 0.4% of budgetGrant a Wish Inc: $1,500 over 1y, 0.9% of budget

Tap a dot to name the grantee.

How this is measured
Share of budget is the funder’s grant in a year over the grantee’s total revenue that year, at its highest across the years we hold; revenue is from all sources. Only grantees confirmed against their own filings, whose grants do not exceed their revenue, are plotted: the largest 26.

Nonprofits that may fit its grantmaking

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.

The Chicago Community TrustIL19× affinity10 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: The Chicago Community Trust · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · United Way of Greater Milwaukee & Waukesha County Inc · Greater Milwaukee Foundation Inc · AbbVie Foundation · Patrick and Anna M Cudahy Fund · Joseph and Vera Zilber Family Foundation Inc · Polk Bros Foundation Inc · Circle of Service Foundation · Greater Chicago Food Depository · United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc · Herbert H Kohl Charities Inc

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.

Compare Sweeney Family Foundation with peer funders

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to Sweeney Family Foundation?

Find your warmest path to Sweeney Family 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.

About Sweeney Family Foundation

How much does Sweeney Family Foundation give?
Sweeney Family Foundation reported 15 grants totaling $2,397,779 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 9 and 19 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.
What does Sweeney Family Foundation fund?
By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Philanthropy (70%), Human Services (10%), International (4%).
Who are Sweeney Family Foundation's largest grantees?
By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: Medecins Sans Frontieres USA Inc ($125k), The Night Ministry ($85k), Cathedral Center Inc ($58k).
Does Sweeney Family Foundation fund new organizations?
In FY2024, 33% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.
Does Sweeney Family Foundation 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 Sweeney Family Foundation?
Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include The Chicago Community Trust, John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation, United Way of Greater Milwaukee & Waukesha County Inc.
Where is Sweeney Family Foundation based?
Sweeney Family Foundation is based in IL.

On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 54 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

How this is measured
Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears.

Generated from the IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2025, released 2025. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Source object · view filing

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