· Private foundation
The Irving Harris 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 FY2020–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k128 grants · $338k
- $10k–50k82 grants · $2.0M
- $50k–250k112 grants · $9.3M
- $250k+15 grants · $11M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| STAIRWAY FUND | $1,333,333 |
| COYDOG FOUNDATION | $1,000,000 |
| GOLDMAN SACHS AND CO LLC | $1,000,000 |
| JEWISH FEDERATION OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO | $1,000,000 |
| FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND | $1,000,000 |
| COYDOG FOUNDATION | $1,000,000 |
| MAKO FOUNDATION | $1,000,000 |
| FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND | $750,000 |
| HARRIS THEATER FOR MUSIC AND DANCE | $500,000 |
| THE BARACK OBAMA FOUNDATION | $400,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO - HARRIS SCHOOL OF PUBLIC POLICY STUDIES | $400,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO - ARTS PUBLIC LIFE | $333,333 |
| START EARLY | $300,000 |
| HEALTHCONNECT ONE | $250,000 |
| THIRD SECTOR NEW ENGLAND INC (TSNE) | $250,000 |
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 (FY20–24, $6.3M) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 83% 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.
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.
Where the work is directed
The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.
About 5% of The Irving Harris Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another.
Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.
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 +30% since the first grant, against +20% for the ones you funded once.
259 repeat relationships — 196 still active in FY2024, 63 since wound down; 52 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, 80% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $3.7M 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
- MRMEADOWS ROAD FOUNDATION (FKA COYDOG FOUNDATION)4× · 2020–2024 · $8.0M · revenue +19% · 58% of their budget
- MAMUSIC AND DANCE THEATER CHICAGO INC5× · 2020–2024 · $3.0M · revenue +22%
- EIErikson Institute5× · 2020–2024 · $2.6M · revenue +41%
Funded once
- HTHARRIS THEATER FOR MUSIC AND DANCEone grant, 2022 · $395k
- TMTSNE MISSIONWORKS BUILD INITIATIVEone grant, 2021 · $375k
- UBUCSF BENIOFF CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL OAKLAND PDNone grant, 2021 · $205k
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…
The chicago psychoanalytic institute transforms the lives of individuals, families and communities, using psychoanalytic knowledge to help them grow and thrive.
The chicago bar foundation brings the legal community together through advocacy, funding, and innovation to improve access to justice for people in need and to make the legal system more fair, equitable, and effective.
Advancing Nonprofits is committed to strengthening the organizational health and support long-term development of small nonprofits on Chicagos west and south sides while prioritizing Black- and Latine-led community organizations.…
To inspire and prepare young people to succeed in a global economy
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…
To achieve parity in economic opportunity for people of color by advancing multiracial leadership in corporate governance, expanding the talent pipline for executive-level management, and growing minority businesses.
Alternatives, inc.'s mission is to facilitate personal development,strengthen family relationships and enhance the community's well being. serving over 3,000 youth and families annually, the organization offers a range of counseling and…
The aids foundation of chicago mobilizes communities to create equity and justice for people living with and vulnerable to hiv and related chronic disease.
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…
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 chicago public education fund (the fund) is a nonprofit organization that improves public schools in chicago by investing in the talented educators who lead them.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Health and Medicine Policy Research Group and the most unlike its peers is Mako 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 32 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 2% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.5% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
373 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.
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 2017–2026, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 373 of the 475 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
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
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 MEADOWS ROAD FOUNDATION (FKA COYDOG FOUNDATION) ↗
- Who funds JEWISH FEDERATION OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds MUSIC AND DANCE THEATER CHICAGO INC ↗
- Who funds Erikson Institute ↗
- Who funds THIRD SECTOR NEW ENGLAND INC ↗
- Who funds START EARLY ↗
- Who funds HEALTHCONNECT ONE ↗
- Who funds FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ↗
- Who funds THE BARACK OBAMA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds University of Chicago ↗
- Who funds JUILLIARD SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds THE STAIRWAY FUND ↗
- Who funds ALLIANCE FOR EARLY SUCCESS FKA BIRTH TO FIVE POLICY ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN FRIENDS OF HEBREW UNIVERSITY INC ↗
- Who funds ZERO TO THREE NATIONAL CENTER FOR INFANTS TODDLERS AND FAMILIES ↗
- Who funds MAKO FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR AMERICAN PROGRESS ↗
- Who funds NEO Philanthropy Inc ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Illinois Action for Children ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO ABORTION FUND ↗
- Who funds NEW VENTURE FUND ↗
- Who funds NEW ISRAEL FUND ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL ASIAN PACIFIC AMERICAN WOMEN'S FORUM ↗
- Who funds FAMILY VALUES WORK A MULTI-STATE CONSORTIUM ↗
- Who funds Repro TLC ↗
- Who funds PROTEUS FUND INC ↗
- Who funds JEWISH BOARD OF FAMILY & CHILDREN'S SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds SOUTHWEST HUMAN DEVELOPMENT INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN FRIENDS OF REICHMAN UNIVERSITY INC ↗
- Who funds Groundswell Fund ↗
- Who funds LATINO POLICY FORUM ↗
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: Polk Bros Foundation Inc · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · Arie and Ida Crown Memorial · Pritzker Family Foundation · Circle of Service Foundation · Field Foundation of Illinois · United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc · Chicago Foundation for Women · Lloyd a Fry Foundation · Robert R McCormick Foundation · The Joyce Foundation · The Chicago Community 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 Irving Harris 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.
- Child Trends Inc — 50% of income from government
- Save the Children Federation Inc — 30% of income from government
- Finding Common Purpose Inc — 23% of income from government
- Boston Medical Center Corporation — 23% of income from government
- Children's Hospital Corporation — 10% of income from government
- Third Sector New England Inc — 3% of income from government
- Resist Inc — 2% of income from government
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 Irving Harris Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Irving Harris 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.