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Illinois · Private foundation

The Arrington 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.

$49k
Granted FY2025(still arriving)
17
Grants FY2025
8
Organizations funded FY2024
75%
First-time grantees FY2024
Read the full brief
Median grant, FY2025
$1,500
Largest grant, FY2025
$10,000
Organizations funded a year
8 to 16
FY2018 to FY2024
States reached, FY2025
3
Total assets, FY2025
$624k
Applications
Preselected organizations only
Per its most recent filing; check its own site

How open it is to new grantees

In FY2024, 75% of the organizations The Arrington Foundation funded were first-time grantees, receiving 69% of its grant dollars.

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 31% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $11k 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 ServicesArts & CultureEducationAnimalsYouth DevelopmentHousing & ShelterOther
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$49k67%
FY20248$16k75%
FY20239$16k44%
FY202216$91k56%
FY202112$20k25%
FY202011$12k36%
FY201911$34k36%
FY201815$19k47%
95% classified

What it funded, over time

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

Health$56kEducation$55kArts & Culture$47kYouth Development$27kCommunity Improvement$24kHuman Services$21kPublic Benefit$10kReligion$9kOther$0

Where its grants go

Grant dollars by states, across the years we hold.

Which US states its grants reach

IL
NY
OH
MD
KS
TN
DC
GA
TX
FL

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 35 grantees

What it could do for these grantees

Plus 24 recipients with no EIN on record ($107k), not named here.

Where it is load-bearing

Each grantee by its size and the share of its budget The Arrington Foundation supplied at peak.

25%50%75%100%$100k$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetUniversity of Illinois Foundation: $40,438 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetChicago Symphony Orchestra: $27,356 over 9y, 0.0% of budgetFriends of Prentice: $22,625 over 5y, 1.4% of budgetYoung Mens Christian Assoc McGaw Inc: $12,000 over 3y, 0.1% of budgetThe Wilderness Society: $7,500 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetEvanston Township High School District 202 Ed Foundation: $7,170 over 1y, 0.6% of budgetEquity & Empowerment for Evanston Families: $4,500 over 3y, 0.8% of budgetNorthlight Theatre Inc: $4,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetHealthnetwork Foundation Fka Health Net Foundation Inc: $4,000 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetEvanston Fourth of July Association: $4,000 over 4y, 3.0% of budgetThe Actors Gymnasium Inc: $3,549 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetOperation Healing Forces Inc: $2,500 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetMudlark Theater Company NFP: $2,500 over 1y, 0.3% of budgetAmerican Heart Association Inc: $2,500 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetClearbrook: $1,500 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetThe Economic Club of Chicago: $1,100 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetThe United States Holocaust Memorial Museum: $1,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetGarrido Stray Rescue Foundation: $1,000 over 1y, 0.7% of budgetMemorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center: $950 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetChicago Youth Centers: $509 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetOpen Communities: $500 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetThe Service Club of Chicago: $500 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetWounded Warrior Project Inc: $500 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetJewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago: $250 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetMusic Institute of Chicago: $250 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetAmerican Cancer Society Inc: $200 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetSt Jude Children's Research Hospital Inc: $150 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetForce Recon Association: $100 over 1y, 0.3% of budgetMisericordia Home: $100 over 1y, 0.0% 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 29.

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 TrustIL23.6× affinity12 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: The Chicago Community Trust · Evanston Community Foundation · Lewis-Sebring Family Foundation · Northwestern University · Elizabeth Beidler Tisdahl Foundation · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc · Ncrc Community Development Fund Inc · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · American Endowment Foundation · National Philanthropic Trust

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 The Arrington Foundation with peer funders

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to The Arrington Foundation?

Find your warmest path to The Arrington 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 The Arrington Foundation

How much does The Arrington Foundation give?
The Arrington Foundation reported 17 grants totaling $49,042 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 8 and 16 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.
What does The Arrington Foundation fund?
By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Health (20%), Education (19%), Arts & Culture (16%).
Who are The Arrington Foundation's largest grantees?
By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: University of Illinois Foundation ($40k), Chicago Symphony Orchestra ($27k), Friends of Prentice ($23k).
Does The Arrington Foundation fund new organizations?
In FY2024, 75% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.
Does The Arrington 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 The Arrington Foundation?
Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include The Chicago Community Trust, Evanston Community Foundation, Lewis-Sebring Family Foundation.
Where is The Arrington Foundation based?
The Arrington 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 59 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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