· Private foundation
The Cooper Foundation % Julie Cohen
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).
A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 41% of THE COOPER FOUNDATION % JULIE COHEN’s grantee dollars fall outside its nine largest cause areas, whether because the recipient carries no IRS cause code or because its cause sits in the long tail. A chart would be mostly one residual band and misrepresent the portfolio.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k24 grants · $15k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $10k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| JEWISH UNITED FUND | $10,250 |
| PARENTEACH INSTITUTE | $2,500 |
| PANCREATIC CANCER ACTION NETWORK | $1,127 |
| THE WEBER FAMILY ARTS FOUNDATION | $1,000 |
| ILLINOIS HOLOCAUST MUSEUM | $1,000 |
| THE ARK | $540 |
| Individual grant recipient | $540 |
| LINCOLN PARK ZOO | $532 |
| ALZHEIMERS ASSOCIATION | $522 |
| Individual grant recipient | $520 |
| LES TURNER ALS FOUNDATION | $518 |
| CONNECTIONS FOR THE HOMELESS | $515 |
| JANE ADAMS RESOURCE CENTER | $515 |
| CJE SENIOR LIFE | $513 |
| SHALVA | $510 |
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 (FY19–25, $17k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 100% 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.
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.
22 repeat relationships — 8 still active in FY2025, 14 since wound down; 17 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, 53% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $12k 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
- JUJEWISH UNITED FUND OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO6× · 2019–2025 · $17k · revenue +57%
- ADALZHEIMER'S DISEASE & RELATED DISORDERS ASSOCIATION INC6× · 2019–2025 · $14k · revenue +17%
- AFAMERICAN FRIENDS OF HEBREW UNIVERSITY INC5× · 2019–2023 · $8k · revenue +20%
Funded once
HILLEL THE FOUNDATION FOR JEWISH CAMPUS LIFEgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $1k · revenue +41%- MPMEDIA PROCESS EDUCATIONAL FILMone grant, 2020 · $160 · revenue -98%
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.
Federation amplifies our collective strength to make the world a better place for everyone. we assist people in need, impact chicagoans of all faiths; support israel and the jewish people worldwide; respond swiftly to crises; cultivate…
The adler planetarium ('adler') is a not-for-profit cultural institution whose mission is to connect people to the universe and each other under the sky we all share. it aspires to be the world's premier center for engaging in astronomy…
The university is composed of several colleges and schools providing undergraduate, graduate, professional and post-doctoral education and training and research and clinical programs.
The mission of the jewish museum is to collect, preserve, exhibit and interpret art and jewish culture. see schedule o for more information.
Biu produces students who excel in the sciences, humanities, law, engineering, business & the arts.
The institute for advanced study (the institute) is one of the world's leading centers for theoretical research and intellectual inquiry. see schedule o.
Brightfocus foundation funds exceptional research worldwide to defeat alzheimer's disease, macular degeneration, and glaucoma and provides expert information on these heartbreaking diseases. please refer to schedule o for a complete…
The weitzman national museum of american jewish history, on independence mall in philadelphia, presents educational programs and experiences that preserve, explore, and celebrate the history of jews in america. its purpose is to connect…
Our mission is to break down barriers to als research to find effective treatments. by uniting academia, the pharma and biotech industry, government, venture capital, related nonprofits, and the als community, we aim to overcome the…
Our mission at the university of chicago medicine is to provide superior health care through rigorous research, innovative education, and comprehensive care and healing. in partnership with our colleagues, we pursue life-changing…
Operate a state-of-the-art, world-class genomic research center that creates and uses advanced genomics to understand the genetic basis of disease. for more information, see schedule o.
Leadership in the prevention, treatment, and cure of cancer through excellence, vision and cost effectiveness in patient care, outreach programs, research, and education.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Connections for the Homeless Inc and the most unlike its peers is Media Process Educational Film. 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 41 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) — 8% of your grantees by number, and just 4% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 15% 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.
24 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. 24 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 JEWISH UNITED FUND OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE & RELATED DISORDERS ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds COUNCIL FOR JEWISH ELDERLY ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN FRIENDS OF HEBREW UNIVERSITY INC ↗
- Who funds LITTLE CITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN FRIENDS OF ALYN HOSPITALINC ↗
- Who funds Jewish Community Centers of Chicago ↗
- Who funds The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum ↗
- Who funds GILDA'S CLUB CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds PARENTEACH INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds AUTISM SPEAKS INC ↗
- Who funds JANE ADDAMS RESOURCE CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds NEAR NORTH MONTESSORI SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds PANCREATIC CANCER ACTION NETWORK INC ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN LUNG ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds THE WEBER FAMILY ARTS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds HILLEL THE FOUNDATION FOR JEWISH CAMPUS LIFE ↗
- Who funds SHALVA INC ↗
- Who funds LINCOLN PARK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds CONNECTIONS FOR THE HOMELESS INC ↗
- Who funds THE JOSSELYN CENTER NFP ↗
- Who funds WINDOW TO THE WORLD COMMUNICATIONS INC ↗
- Who funds BLOOD CANCER UNITED INC ↗
- Who funds MEDIA PROCESS EDUCATIONAL FILM ↗
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: Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · Charities Aid Foundation America · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · 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 Cooper Foundation % Julie Cohen 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.