· Private foundation
The Baila 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 it funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.
Where the money goes
Grants by size, and the largest recipients.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k15 grants · $29k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $26k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| University of Chicago | $26,000 |
| Music Will | $7,500 |
| Marine Biological Laboratory | $5,000 |
| Northwestern University | $5,000 |
| Basketball & Mentorship Academy | $3,000 |
| The Selfhelp Home | $1,000 |
| CJE Senior Life | $1,000 |
| Goodman Theatre | $1,000 |
| Anti-Defamation League | $1,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $1,000 |
| St James Cathedral | $1,000 |
| Chicago Architecture Center | $600 |
| International Women Associates | $500 |
| Lincoln Park Zoo | $500 |
| Chicago Botanic Gardens | $400 |
Does the money reach high-need areas?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.
Its human-services grants (FY17–25, $12k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
How this is measured
Which US states its grants reach
How this is measured
Who it funds again
Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.
Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +17% since the first grant, against +4% for those funded once.
38 repeat relationships: 12 still active in FY2025, 26 since wound down; 4 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, 70% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $17k went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
How this is measured
Backed again, and grew
University of Chicago8× · 2017–2025 · $89k · revenue +56%
Northwestern University7× · 2017–2025 · $58k · revenue +41%- ALANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE8× · 2017–2025 · $13k · revenue +78%
Funded once
- GTGoodman Theaterone grant, 2022 · $6k
- ACAmerican Committe for the Weizmann Institute of Scienceone grant, 2021 · $3k
- ACAmerican Committe for the Weitmann Institute of Scienceone grant, 2020 · $3k
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.
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.
The organization's mission is to educate students for creative occupations in diverse fields of arts and media.
The Chicago History Museum strives to be a destination for learning, inspiration, and civic engagement. Through dynamic exhibitions, tours, programs, digital resources, and special events, the Museum connects people to Chicago's history…
The chicago psychoanalytic institute transforms the lives of individuals, families and communities, using psychoanalytic knowledge to help them grow and thrive.
The music institute of chicago ("music institute") leads people toward a lifelong engagement with music, by providing widely accessible resources for high quality music teaching, performing, and service activities.
Illinois college is a co-educational institution of higher education learning providing a four-year educational program leading to the baccalaureate degree. illinois college is a community committed to the highest standards of scholarship…
Chicago opera theater expands the tradition of opera as a living art form by engaging lovers of music and storytelling through innovative experiences, predominantly of new and rarely performed works.
Chicago sun-times serves the public interest by strengthening the well-being of our local communities and our democracy through independent local journalism.
The Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University ("The Auditorium"), an Illinois not-for-profit corporation, is committed to presenting the finest in international, cultural, community and educational programming to Chicago and to the…
To inspire conservation leadership by connecting people with wildlife and nature.
To give members the ability to control their financial destiny by providing members with the means to satisfy their needs for financial services in a comfortable family-like environment. in doing so, the credit union strives to maintain…
How this is measured
41 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.
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 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 41 of the 73 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.
Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee
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.
- Who funds University of Chicago ↗
- Who funds Northwestern University ↗
- Who funds ILLINOIS MUSLIM COMMUNIITY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Chicago Architecture Foundation ↗
- Who funds ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO SHAKESPEARE THEATER ↗
- Who funds COUNCIL FOR JEWISH ELDERLY ↗
- Who funds MUSIC WILL INC ↗
- Who funds PANDAS NETWORKORG ↗
- Who funds THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds MARINE BIOLOGICAL LABORATORY ↗
- Who funds LINCOLN PARK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE RESEARCH FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds International Women Associates Inc ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO JEWISH DAY SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds WINDOW TO THE WORLD COMMUNICATIONS INC ↗
- Who funds MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART ↗
- Who funds BLIND SERVICE ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE CHICAGO RIVER ↗
- Who funds Lyric Opera of Chicago ↗
- Who funds THE LATIN SCHOOL OF CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds THE SELFHELP HOME INC ↗
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.
Open a dossier: The Chicago Community Trust · Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · Walder Foundation · Lloyd a Fry Foundation · Arie and Ida Crown Memorial · AbbVie Foundation · Ncrc Community Development Fund Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program
How this is measured
How much its grantees rely on government
Each dot is one organization The Baila Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Baila Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.
- Marine Biological Laboratory: 20% of income from government
How this is measured
Play a game based on Baila’s filings →