· Private foundation
The Brennan Family Charitable Trust
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 $10k10 grants · $21k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $53k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MARIST HIGH SCHOOL | $29,613 |
| CARA PROGRAM | $23,700 |
| MARQUETTE LAW SCHOOL | $5,000 |
| ST ALEXANDER CHURCH | $4,209 |
| IRISH AMERICAN PARTNERSHIP | $3,750 |
| BELLARMINE JESUIT RETREAT HOUSE | $2,100 |
| PONDER WORKS | $2,045 |
| PATHLIGHTS | $1,010 |
| TOGETHER WE COPE | $1,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $1,000 |
| MISCERICORIDA | $518 |
| NATIONAL PARK FOUNDATION | $250 |
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, $5k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 97% 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.
Which US states your grants reach
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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +72% since the first grant, against +19% for the ones you funded once.
22 repeat relationships — 12 still active in FY2025, 10 since wound down.
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, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
- TCThe Cara Program7× · 2017–2025 · $123k · revenue +116%
- TITHE IRISH AMERICAN PARTNERSHIP INC8× · 2017–2025 · $33k · revenue +140%
- BJBELLARMINE JESUIT RETREAT HOUSE INC8× · 2017–2025 · $14k · revenue +72%
Funded once
- SOSOUTHWEST ORGANIZING PROJECTgraduatedone grant, 2018 · $10k · revenue +224%
- MMISERICODIAone grant, 2017 · $8k
- MAMIKE ALSTOTT FOUNDATIONone grant, 2024 · $2k
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.
Chicago Cares, Inc. mobilizes volunteers to build a stronger, more unified Chicago.
The aids foundation of chicago mobilizes communities to create equity and justice for people living with and vulnerable to hiv and related chronic disease.
Chicago sun-times serves the public interest by strengthening the well-being of our local communities and our democracy through independent local journalism.
The foundation is set up to deliver one program - look good feel better. the mission of this nationwide program is to improve the quality of life of women, men, and teens undergoing cancer treatment by offering advice on how to cope with…
The chicago bar foundation brings the legal community together through advocacy, funding, and innovation to improve access to justice for people in need and to make the legal system more fair, equitable, and effective.
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…
See schedule onorc at the university of chicago conducts research and data science on critical societal issues to guide decision-making and the development of programs and public policy. our experts identify relationships and trends, and…
Improve the lives of people with cancer and their families through advocacy, research, and patient support, to ensure everyone has an opportunity to prevent, detect, treat, and survive cancer.
The organization is organized and will be operated exclusively for charitable, literary, scientific, and educational purposes within the meaning of code section 501(c)(3), including for such purposes, but not limited to, the promotion of…
The hospital is a catholic health care organization sponsored by the sisters of st. casimir. by our commitment to witness to the healing mission of jesus, we contribute to healthy communities and promote quality health care to all with…
Social current's mission as developed and approved by its board of directors is to advocate for and implement equitable solutions to society's toughest challenges through collaboration, innovation, policy, and practice excellence.
See schedule ocivic consulting alliance is driven by a vision is to be the cornerstone of a civic ecosystem that creates a more vibrant, equitable, and prosperous chicago region for all. civic consulting alliance makes progress toward that…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Together We Cope and the most unlike its peers is Pat Mac's Pack 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 35 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 13% 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.
20 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. 20 of the 41 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 The Cara Program ↗
- Who funds THE IRISH AMERICAN PARTNERSHIP INC ↗
- Who funds BELLARMINE JESUIT RETREAT HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds SOUTHWEST ORGANIZING PROJECT ↗
- Who funds PAYPAL CHARITABLE GIVING FUND ↗
- Who funds TOGETHER WE COPE ↗
- Who funds PATHLIGHTS HUMAN SERVICES ↗
- Who funds MIKE ALSTOTT FAMILY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds SOUTHWEST CHICAGO HOMELESS SERVICES ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL PARK FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds NETWORK FOR GOOD ↗
- Who funds Corazon A Corazon ↗
- Who funds THE CHICAGO COUNCIL ON GLOBAL AFFAIRS ↗
- Who funds Pat Mac's Pack Inc ↗
- Who funds NAMI Chicago ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN FOUNDATION FOR SUICIDE PREVENTION ↗
- Who funds ST BALDRICK'S FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds JENNIFER S FALLICK CANCER SUPPORT CENTER ↗
- Who funds THE MED13L FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Special Children's Charities ↗
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: United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc · Motorola Solutions Foundation · The Chicago Community Trust · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Network for Good · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Amazonsmile Foundation
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 The Brennan Family Charitable Trust 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.
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 The Brennan Family Charitable Trust?
Find your warmest path to The Brennan Family Charitable Trust 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.