· 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.
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
- Under $10k6 grants · $23k
- $10k–50k8 grants · $128k
- $250k+1 grant · $2.2M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| GREATER MILWAUKEE FOUNDATION- CHARITABLE FAMILY FUND | $2,247,279 |
| DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS | $30,000 |
| HOUSING OPPORTUNTIES AND MAINTENANCE FOR THE ELDERLY (HOME) | $20,000 |
| LOTUS LEGAL CLINIC | $15,000 |
| THE NIGHT MINISTRY | $15,000 |
| CATHOLIC CHARITIES OF THE ARCHDIOCESE OF CHICAGO | $15,000 |
| ROOTED AND RISING WASHINGTON PARK | $12,500 |
| CENTRO SAN BONIFACIO | $10,000 |
| ASPIRE | $10,000 |
| MARYKNOLL SISTERS | $5,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $5,000 |
| NEW LIFE CENTER | $5,000 |
| IL HUNGER COALITION | $3,000 |
| PILSEN FOOD PANTRY | $2,500 |
| VOCES DE LA FRONTERA(COMMUNITY SHARES OF WI) | $2,500 |
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, $190k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 85% 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.
25 repeat relationships — 7 still active in FY2025, 18 since wound down; 8 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, 4% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2.3M 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
MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC9× · 2017–2025 · $125k · revenue +98%
THE NIGHT MINISTRY7× · 2018–2025 · $85k · revenue +26%
CATHEDRAL CENTER INC6× · 2018–2023 · $58k · revenue +77%
Funded once
- RAROOTED AND RISING WASHINGTON PKone grant, 2024 · $25k
- WFWELLPOINT FORMERLY SAINT Aone grant, 2022 · $10k
- PBPRECIOUS BLOOD MINISTRY OF RECONCILIATION NFPgraduatedone grant, 2018 · $7k · revenue +151%
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.
The Chicago Refugee Coalition is a 501c3 non-profit organization dedicated ot the alleviation of human suffering through innovative partnerships, advocacy and community empowerment.
House of Good Shepherd serves with love and compassion women and children affected by domestic violence by offering a safe place with opportunities for emotional, educational and spiritual growth, giving hope and continued support for a…
Nourishing hope provides food, mental health support, and social services to help all our neighbors thrive.
Chicago Workers' Collaborative's mission is to promote full employment and equality for the lowest wage-earners, primarily temporary staffing workers, in the Chicago region through leadership and skills training, critical assistance and…
Casa central drives change by empowering individuals and families to thrive - delivering impactful services that transform lives and uplift communities.
Respond now connects those in need with health, hunger, and housing services in the chicago southland.
Chh honors every person's right to a home and health care, by bridging the housing and health care systems, to improve the lives of chicagoans experiencing homelessness.
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.
The Network is a group of 40+ member organizations dedicated to improving the lives of those impacted by gender-based violence through education, public policy and advocacy, and connecting community members with direct service providers.…
Cornerstone Counseling empowers people to reach their spiritual, relational, and emotional potential through exceptional counseling and personal development services.
Well Aware's mission is to provide innovative and sustainable solutions to water scarcity and contamination in East Africa.
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…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Family Rescue Inc and the most unlike its peers is Lotus Legal Clinic Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 41 years old; the field is 18. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% 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 15% 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.
28 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. 28 of the 54 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 MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds THE NIGHT MINISTRY ↗
- Who funds CATHEDRAL CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds CENTRO SAN BONIFACIO INC ↗
- Who funds META HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds HOUSING OPPORTUNITIES AND MAINTENANCE FOR THE ELDERLY INC ↗
- Who funds FAMILY RESCUE INC ↗
- Who funds ASPIRITECH NFP ↗
- Who funds WELLPOINT CARE NETWORK INC ↗
- Who funds RESILIENCE ↗
- Who funds ASPIRE OF ILLINOIS ↗
- Who funds LOTUS LEGAL CLINIC INC ↗
- Who funds Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago ↗
- Who funds UNITED METHODIST CHILDREN'S SERVICES OF WISCONSIN INC ↗
- Who funds PENFIELD CHILDREN'S CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds EL PORVENIR ↗
- Who funds GIRLFORWARD ↗
- Who funds ILLINOIS HUNGER COALITION ↗
- Who funds PRECIOUS BLOOD MINISTRY OF RECONCILIATION NFP ↗
- Who funds GREEN ERA EDUCATIONAL NFP ↗
- Who funds Cornerstone Community Outreach ↗
- Who funds SOUTH AFRICA PARTNERS 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 · 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
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 Sweeney Family 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.
- South Africa Partners Inc — 42% 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.
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.