· Private foundation
The Brinson Foundation
Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What it funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2020 to 2024.
Where the money goes
Grants by size, and the largest recipients.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k6 grants · $21k
- $10k–50k49 grants · $1.5M
- $50k–250k82 grants · $6.3M
- $250k+1 grant · $600k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ST JOHN'S HEALTH FOUNDATION | $600,000 |
| EISENHOWER HEALTH | $200,000 |
| CHICAGO COMMUNITY FOUNDATION PARTNERSHIP FOR SAFE AND PEACEFUL COMMUNITIES | $200,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO DEPARTMENT OF ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS EDWARD H LEV | $141,700 |
| UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO DEPARTMENT OF ASTRONOMY AND ASTROPHYSICS EDWARD H LEV | $120,000 |
| MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY | $120,000 |
| CARNEGIE INSTITUTION FOR SCIENCE CARNEGIE OBSERVATORIES INSTRUMENTATION PRO | $120,000 |
| PRINCETON UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF ASTROPHYSICAL SCIENCES | $120,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO KAVLI INSTITUTE FOR COSMOLOGICAL PHYSICS | $120,000 |
| MASSACHUSETTS INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY | $120,000 |
| NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY | $120,000 |
| PRINCETON UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OF ASTROPHYSICAL SCIENCES | $120,000 |
| CARNEGIE INSTITUTION FOR SCIENCE CARNEGIE OBSERVATORIES INSTRUMENTATION PRO | $115,000 |
| PRESIDENT AND FELLOWS OF HARVARD COLLEGE | $115,000 |
| WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY | $115,000 |
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 (FY20–24, $453k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 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
Where the work is directed
The same grants placed two ways: where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose sends the money.
About 72% of The Brinson Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked for a different county than the recipient’s own address.
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 +38% since the first grant, against +20% for those funded once.
114 repeat relationships: 91 still active in FY2024, 23 since wound down; 23 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 81% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $1.6M went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
How this is measured
Backed again, and grew
- CICALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY5× · 2020–2024 · $101M · revenue +0%
- RURush University Medical Center5× · 2020–2024 · $1.0M · revenue +30%
University of Chicago3× · 2020–2022 · $922k · revenue +52%
Funded once
- PUPRINCETON UNIVERSITY DEPARTMENT OFone grant, 2023 · $240k
- UOUNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO DEPARTMENT OFone grant, 2023 · $120k
- UOUNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA- DAVISone grant, 2022 · $118k
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 psychoanalytic institute transforms the lives of individuals, families and communities, using psychoanalytic knowledge to help them grow and thrive.
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…
The Chicago School educates the next generation of change-makers in innovative theory and culturally competent practice to strengthen the integrated health of individuals, organizations, and communities.
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
Central indiana corporate partnership (cicp) is an alliance of indiana's business and research university leaders coming together to foster long-term prosperity for the region. cicp's mission is to transform the economy of indiana in order…
The university's goal in the coming decade is to advance learning through the integration of teaching, research and service to others. the core of this goal is to prepare graduates to engage with the world and lead lives of meaning. to do…
Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.
The team at kipp chicago schools is guided by a simple, yet powerful mission: to create a network of excellent schools in chicago that teach our students the character and academic skills necessary to succeed in college and beyond, and to…
Lake Forest Graduate School of Management's mission is to bring the real world to business education and leadership development.
The mission of the george washington university (gw) is to educate individuals in liberal arts, languages, sciences, learned professions, and other courses and subjects of study, and to conduct scholarly research and publish the findings…
Achieving international impact through world-class research and education in fundamental computer science and information technology.
How this is measured
129 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.
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 2026, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 129 of the 181 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 CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY ↗
- Who funds Rush University Medical Center ↗
- Who funds University of Chicago ↗
- Who funds St John's Health Foundation ↗
- Who funds Ann & Robert H Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago ↗
- Who funds CARNEGIE INSTITUTION OF WASHINGTON ↗
- Who funds Eisenhower Medical Center ↗
- Who funds Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago ↗
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- Who funds FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY ↗
- Who funds Kenneth C Griffin Museum of Science and Industry ↗
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- Who funds La Rabida Children's Hospital ↗
- Who funds THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO ↗
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- Who funds THE TRUSTEES OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK ↗
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- Who funds Lyric Opera of Chicago ↗
- Who funds SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION ↗
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- Who funds THE MORTON ARBORETUM ↗
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 · Circle of Service Foundation · Polk Bros Foundation Inc · Arie and Ida Crown Memorial · Finnegan Family Foundation · Robert R McCormick Foundation · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · Vivo Foundation · Cme Group Foundation · The Osa Foundation · Fulk Family Foundation Inc · Mayer and Morris Kaplan Foundation
How this is measured
How much its grantees rely on government
Each dot is one organization The Brinson Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Brinson Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology: 35% of income from government
- President and Fellows of Harvard College: 7% of income from government
- Wesleyan University: 1% of income from government
How this is measured
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to The Brinson Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Brinson 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.
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