· Private foundation
The Fermata Charitable 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 placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2019–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k13 grants · $38k
- $10k–50k3 grants · $45k
- $250k+1 grant · $305k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| St Paul Lutheran Church | $305,200 |
| Northern Illinois Food Bank | $20,000 |
| DuPage PADS Inc | $15,000 |
| NAMI Johnson County | $10,000 |
| NAMI DuPage Community Center | $8,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $5,000 |
| Emma Goldman Clinic | $5,000 |
| Breakthrough T1D | $4,000 |
| Misericordia Foundation | $4,000 |
| Chicago Public Media (WBEZ) | $3,000 |
| Outreach House | $2,000 |
| Roger Baldwin Foundation (ACLU) | $2,000 |
| Shelter House | $1,000 |
| SCARCE | $1,000 |
| Pancreatic Cancer Action Network | $1,000 |
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 (FY19–24, $35k) land where the poverty rate runs at 8%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 11% of those 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 +66% since the first grant, against +43% for the ones you funded once.
28 repeat relationships — 12 still active in FY2024, 16 since wound down; 5 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, 98% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $9k 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
- NINORTHERN ILLINOIS FOOD BANK6× · 2019–2024 · $122k · revenue +47%
- DPDUPAGE PADS INC6× · 2019–2024 · $81k · revenue +149%
- BCBRIDGE COMMUNITIES INC5× · 2019–2023 · $33k · revenue +140%
Funded once
- NONAMI OF DUPAGE COUNTY ILLINOISgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $8k · revenue +87%
- ACAUGUSTANA COLLEGEgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $5k · revenue +27%
- IHIOWA HARM REDUCTION CENTERone grant, 2022 · $5k
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.
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…
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…
National public radio, inc. ("npr") works collaboratively with member public radio station licensees ("member stations") to create a more informed public, one that is challenged and invigorated by a deeper understanding and appreciation of…
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…
The npr foundation ("foundation") is organized and operated exclusively for the benefit of its sole supported organization, national public radio, inc. ("npr inc."). the foundation supports npr inc. through various activities such as…
Common good iowa engages iowans to create and advocate for research-based public policy that makes life better and more equitable for all who make iowa home.
The foundation works to defend and promote the constitution of the united states, focusing especially on the first, fourth, fifth, sixth, eighth, and 14th amendments. the foundation also works to defend and promote the constitution of the…
The union works to advocate and advance a public policy agenda to support and protect the constitution of the united states and the constitution of the state of iowa. it works to maintain throughout the united states the rights of free…
Midwest dairy works with others to give consumers an excellent dairy experience increasing sales, fostering innovation, and inspiring consumer confidence of dairy products and practices.
The aids foundation of chicago mobilizes communities to create equity and justice for people living with and vulnerable to hiv and related chronic disease.
To deliver preeminent medical care and service to our patients and communities through outstanding and innovative medical leadership and practice, while participating in and supporting excellence in education and research. We achieve this…
To promote public health, safety, and welfare through the improvement of the quality and quantity of drinking water and the development and furtherance of understanding of the problems relating thereto.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Matthew 25 and the most unlike its peers is Breakthrough T1D. 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 21. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 18% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% lost their exemption, against 12% 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.
28 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. 28 of the 49 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 NORTHERN ILLINOIS FOOD BANK ↗
- Who funds DUPAGE PADS INC ↗
- Who funds BRIDGE COMMUNITIES INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL ALLIANCE ON MENTAL ILLNESS JOHNSON COUNTY ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL ALLIANCE ON MENTAL ILLNESS-IOWA INC ↗
- Who funds SCARCE ↗
- Who funds CATHERINE MCAULEY CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds THE OUTREACH HOUSE ↗
- Who funds BREAKTHROUGH T1D ↗
- Who funds THE CHICAGO SCHOLARS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION OF ILLINOIS ↗
- Who funds PANCREATIC CANCER ACTION NETWORK INC ↗
- Who funds NAMI OF DUPAGE COUNTY ILLINOIS ↗
- Who funds WOMENS HEALTH PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds The Gardenworks Project ↗
- Who funds THE ENGLERT CIVIC THEATRE INC ↗
- Who funds AUGUSTANA COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds PLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION OF AMERICA INC ↗
- Who funds UNITED AFRICAN ORGANIZATION ↗
- Who funds DOMESTIC VIOLENCE INTERVENTION PROGRAM ↗
- Who funds MISERICORDIA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO PUBLIC MEDIA INC ↗
- Who funds THE ROGER BALDWIN FOUNDATION OF ACLU INC ↗
- Who funds PRO PUBLICA INC ↗
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: Community Foundation of Johnson County · Alliant Energy Foundation Inc · GreenState Credit Union · Hawkeye Area Community Action Program Inc · Washington County Riverboat Foundation Inc · Delta Dental of Iowa Foundation · The Dupage Community Foundation · The Chicago Community Trust · Edward Jones Foundation · Network for Good · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · National Philanthropic Trust
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 Fermata Charitable 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.