· Private foundation
The Comer Foundation
Its FY2024 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 clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k1 grant · $310
- $50k–250k2 grants · $198k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| COMER SCIENCE AND EDUCATION FOUNDATION | $147,879 |
| UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON FOUNDATION | $50,000 |
| LEGAL ACTION OF WISCONSIN | $310 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 39% of your dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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 +88% since the first grant, against +41% for the ones you funded once.
6 repeat relationships — 0 still active in FY2024, 6 since wound down; 3 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, 0% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $198k 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
- GCGARY COMER YOUTH CENTER INC5× · 2017–2021 · $106k · revenue +88%
- TATHE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO2× · 2018–2019 · $20k · revenue +34%
- NANATIONAL ALLIANCE OF STATE AND TERRITORIAL AIDS DIRECTORSDBA NASTAD2× · 2018–2019 · $11k · revenue +82%
Funded once
DIRECT RELIEFone grant, 2022 · $40k · revenue +8%
HYDE PARK ART CENTERone grant, 2021 · $30k · revenue -62%- FFFacets Film Forumone grant, 2022 · $25k · revenue -20%
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.
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…
Uchicago medicine network, inc. supports and encourages health and human service by providing support, directly or indirectly to ingalls memorial hospital, the university of chicago medical center, and other related tax-exempt…
To serve our communities by provding innovative and compassionate healthcare.
Engage actively and continuously in medical research, education and training in the practice of medicine in conjunction with the department of family medicine of the indiana university school of medicine and indiana university…
The University of New Haven is a student-centered comprehensive university with an emphasis on excellence in liberal arts and professional education. Our mission is to prepare our students to lead purposeful and fulfilling lives in a…
Arbor research collaborative for health is committed to improving patient care through research that shapes medical policies and practice. in particular, arbor research conducts health outcomes research on chronic disease and end-stage…
The organization's mission is to educate students for creative occupations in diverse fields of arts and media.
The organization provides medical care to improve, maintain, and restore the health of the people in the communities we serve.
We empower directors and transform boards to be future ready.
A nonprofit scientific research organization that develops vaccines and antibodies for hiv, tuberculosis, and emerging infectious diseases.
The fsmb serves as the voice for state medical boards, supporting them through education, assessment, research and advocacy while providing services and initiatives that promote patient safety, quality health care and regulatory best…
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…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Hyde Park Art Center and the most unlike its peers is Comer Science & Education Foundation. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 48 years old; the field is 20. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 17% startups (under 5 years old) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 34% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 8% 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.
26 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. 26 of the 35 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 TEENS TAKE ON CLIMATE INC ↗
- Who funds COMER SCIENCE & EDUCATION FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds GARY COMER YOUTH CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds DIRECT RELIEF ↗
- Who funds HYDE PARK ART CENTER ↗
- Who funds Facets Film Forum ↗
- Who funds THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL ALLIANCE OF STATE AND TERRITORIAL AIDS DIRECTORSDBA NASTAD ↗
- Who funds THE GHETTO FILM SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds URBAN GROWERS COLLECTIVE INC ↗
- Who funds Operation Walk Chicago ↗
- Who funds People's Harm Reduction Alliance ↗
- Who funds MUSIC AND DANCE THEATER CHICAGO INC ↗
- Who funds FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY ↗
- Who funds FOREFRONT ↗
- Who funds Lyric Opera of Chicago ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CANCER SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds Northwestern University ↗
- Who funds LEGAL ACTION OF WISCONSIN INC ↗
- Who funds Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago ↗
- Who funds AIDS Foundation of Chicago ↗
- Who funds New Eyes for the Needy Inc ↗
- Who funds Kansas City CARE Clinic ↗
- Who funds SOUTHSIDE HARM REDUCTION SERVICES ↗
- Who funds Howard Brown Health Center ↗
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 · AIDS United · National Philanthropic Trust · 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 Comer 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.
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 Comer Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Comer 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.