Illinois · Public charity
The Experimental Station
THE EXPERIMENTAL STATION was organized to promote, encourage and foster innovative educational and cultural initiatives of all genres, including but not limited to art and design, innovative educational models, food, and alternative media and journalism.
- $1.5M
- Granted FY2024(still arriving)
- 30
- Itemized grants FY2024
- 53
- Organizations funded FY2023
- 60%
- First-time grantees FY2023
- Itemized, FY2024
- $1.3M
- The rest is grants the schedule does not break out
- Median grant, FY2024
- $20,000
- Largest grant, FY2024
- $177,500
- Organizations funded a year
- 18 to 56
- FY2018 to FY2023
- States reached, FY2024
- 3
- Total assets, FY2024
- $1.6M
How open it is to new grantees
In FY2023, 60% of the organizations The Experimental Station funded were first-time grantees, receiving 57% of its grant dollars.
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2023, 43% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $856k went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
How this is measured
The numbers by year
| Fiscal year | Organizations funded | To those organizations | First-time grantees |
|---|---|---|---|
| FY2024still arriving | 30 | $1.3M | 20% |
| FY2023 | 53 | $1.5M | 60% |
| FY2022 | 56 | $1.6M | 63% |
| FY2021 | 30 | $720k | 27% |
| FY2020 | 42 | $967k | 83% |
| FY2019 | 32 | $222k | 63% |
| FY2018 | 18 | $434k | n/a |
What it funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2018 to 2024.
Top grantees
Largest recipients by total granted, FY2018 to FY2024, and the share of each one’s budget the grants supplied at peak.
| Grantee | Total granted | Years | Share of their budget |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chicago's Green City Market Program | $345,000 | 3 | 12% |
| The Land Connection Foundation Inc | $291,792 | 4 | 12% |
| Cermak Produce No 7 Inc | $266,825 | 2 | n/a |
| City Bureau Nfp | $251,155 | 1 | 15% |
| One Stop Foods & Liquor Inc | $213,839 | 2 | n/a |
| A&S Supermercado Inc Aka Mi Mexico | $197,105 | 2 | n/a |
| City of Evanston | $175,375 | 7 | n/a |
| Logan Square Chamber of Commerce | $157,000 | 5 | 15% |
| Sugar Beet Food Co-Op | $149,338 | 2 | n/a |
| Rock River Development Partnership Inc a Not-For-Profit Corporation | $142,222 | 4 | 24% |
Show all 76 grantees
| Grantee | Total granted | Years | Share of their budget |
|---|---|---|---|
| Chicago's Green City Market Program | $345,000 | 3 | 12% |
| The Land Connection Foundation Inc | $291,792 | 4 | 12% |
| Cermak Produce No 7 Inc | $266,825 | 2 | n/a |
| City Bureau Nfp | $251,155 | 1 | 15% |
| One Stop Foods & Liquor Inc | $213,839 | 2 | n/a |
| A&S Supermercado Inc Aka Mi Mexico | $197,105 | 2 | n/a |
| City of Evanston | $175,375 | 7 | n/a |
| Logan Square Chamber of Commerce | $157,000 | 5 | 15% |
| Sugar Beet Food Co-Op | $149,338 | 2 | n/a |
| Rock River Development Partnership Inc a Not-For-Profit Corporation | $142,222 | 4 | 24% |
| Devcorp North Dba Rogers Park Business Alliance | $135,223 | 6 | 3% |
| Neighborhood Co-Op Grocery | $115,528 | 2 | n/a |
| Village of Skokie | $105,701 | 5 | n/a |
| Food Works | $102,240 | 4 | 45% |
| Common Ground Food Co-Op | $102,219 | 2 | n/a |
| Top Box Foods | $100,000 | 1 | 4% |
| Black Oaks Center for Sustainable Renewable Living | $98,965 | 1 | 21% |
| Farmers Market of Carbondale | $97,000 | 4 | n/a |
| Urban Growers Collective Inc | $91,000 | 3 | 2% |
| Chicago Horticultural Society | $87,000 | 4 | 0% |
| Star Farm Chicago | $76,000 | 3 | 16% |
| Albertson's Company Inc | $68,324 | 1 | n/a |
| Peoria Riverfront Association | $62,524 | 3 | 47% |
| Run a Way Buckers Club Inc | $59,500 | 1 | 36% |
| Alton Main Street Inc | $59,000 | 4 | 15% |
| Fresher Together | $55,402 | 1 | n/a |
| The Urban Canopy | $54,000 | 2 | n/a |
| Downtown Springfield Inc | $51,000 | 3 | 7% |
| Glenview Park District | $49,389 | 4 | n/a |
| Illinois Dept of Agriculture | $48,500 | 6 | n/a |
| Woodstock Farmers Market | $45,000 | 1 | n/a |
| Lincoln Square Ravenswood Chamber of Com | $34,430 | 2 | 2% |
| Chicago Market - a Community Co-Op | $33,800 | 1 | n/a |
| Andersonville Development Corp Nfp | $33,000 | 1 | 49% |
| Morgan Food LLC | $32,126 | 2 | n/a |
| The Wicker Park & Bucktown Chamber of Commerce | $32,000 | 3 | 3% |
| Uptown Farmers Market Nfp | $32,000 | 1 | n/a |
| Inner-City Muslim Action Network | $31,482 | 2 | 0% |
| Northbrook Farmers Market Association | $31,362 | 2 | n/a |
| Demange Farms | $30,000 | 1 | n/a |
| City of Bloomington | $29,000 | 3 | n/a |
| Illinois Stewardship Alliance | $23,000 | 2 | 2% |
| Dekalb Chamber of Commerce Inc | $20,500 | 3 | 2% |
| Terripin Farms | $20,000 | 1 | n/a |
| Dill Pickle Food Co-Op | $19,371 | 2 | n/a |
| South Side Weekly Nfp | $18,533 | 1 | 1% |
| Goshen Market Foundation | $18,500 | 2 | 10% |
| Garfield Park Community Council | $18,200 | 2 | 1% |
| Village of Oak ParkHealth | $18,000 | 1 | n/a |
| Rantoul Farmers Market | $18,000 | 1 | n/a |
| Presence Chicago Hospitals Network | $16,000 | 1 | 0% |
| Northcenter Chamber of Commerce | $15,500 | 1 | 5% |
| Burst Into Books | $15,500 | 1 | 5% |
| Yellow Banana Illinois LLC | $15,000 | 1 | n/a |
| Memorial Health System | $15,000 | 1 | n/a |
| Invisible Institute | $14,074 | 1 | 1% |
| Neighborspace | $13,497 | 1 | 1% |
| Town Square Market | $12,933 | 2 | n/a |
| City of Palos Heights | $12,000 | 1 | n/a |
| Plant Chicago NFP | $12,000 | 1 | 3% |
| Kankakee Development Corporation | $12,000 | 1 | n/a |
| Ujamaa Cooperative | $11,000 | 1 | n/a |
| East Edgewater Chamber of Commerce | $10,500 | 1 | 3% |
| Qc Farmers Market | $10,000 | 1 | n/a |
| City of Aurora Illinois | $10,000 | 1 | n/a |
| Chicago Patchwork Farms | $10,000 | 1 | n/a |
| Galesburg Farmers' Market | $10,000 | 1 | n/a |
| Global Garden Refugee Training Farm | $9,749 | 1 | 17% |
| Grow Greater Englewood Inc | $7,000 | 1 | 0% |
| Downtown Neighborhood Assoc of Elgin | $7,000 | 1 | 2% |
| Batavia Mainstreet | $7,000 | 1 | 2% |
| McHenry County Food Cooperative | $6,778 | 1 | n/a |
| Peoria Grown | $6,000 | 1 | 3% |
| Communityon LLC | $6,000 | 1 | n/a |
| Gary Comer Youth Center Inc | $5,570 | 1 | 0% |
| Main Street of Sterling Inc | $5,375 | 1 | 2% |
Plus 78 recipients with no EIN on record ($2.1M), not named here.
Where it is load-bearing
The Experimental Station supplied at least a quarter of the budget for 4 of its grantees at some point. The chart plots its 39 largest grantees; load-bearing ones sit top left.
Tap a dot to name the grantee.
How this is measured
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: Forefront · Builders Vision Foundation · Field Foundation of Illinois · The Lumpkin Family Foundation · The Chicago Community Trust · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc · The Morton Arboretum · Reva and David Logan Foundation · Illinois Stewardship Alliance · Walter S Mander Foundation · Openlands
How this is measured
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to The Experimental Station?
Find your warmest path to The Experimental Station 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.
About The Experimental Station
- How much does The Experimental Station give?
- The Experimental Station reported 30 itemized grants totaling $1,267,324, out of $1,485,767 in total grant expense reported on the return in its FY2024 IRS filing. It funded between 18 and 56 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2023.
- What does The Experimental Station fund?
- By grant dollars over FY2018 to FY2024, its largest causes are Food & Nutrition (77%), Community Improvement (8%), Arts & Culture (7%).
- Who are The Experimental Station's largest grantees?
- By total granted over FY2018 to FY2024: Chicago's Green City Market Program ($345k), The Land Connection Foundation Inc ($292k), Cermak Produce No 7 Inc ($267k).
- Does The Experimental Station fund new organizations?
- In FY2023, 60% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.
- Which funders back the same organizations as The Experimental Station?
- Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Forefront, Builders Vision Foundation, Field Foundation of Illinois.
- Where is The Experimental Station based?
- The Experimental Station is based in IL.
Play a game based on Experimental Station’s filings →