How much does The Jessica Fund give?

The Jessica Fund reported 31 grants totaling $387,435 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 19 and 29 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does The Jessica Fund fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Arts & Culture (61%), Education (13%), Philanthropy (9%).

Who are The Jessica Fund's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: Chicago Theatre Group Inc ($793k), Museum of Contemporary Art ($707k), Barnard College ($105k).

Does The Jessica Fund fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 48% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does The Jessica Fund accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it accepts unsolicited grant applications.

Which funders back the same organizations as The Jessica Fund?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles, Polk Bros Foundation Inc, California Community Foundation.

Where is The Jessica Fund based?

The Jessica Fund is based in IL.

The Jessica Fund

The Jessica Fund at a glance Mostly funded, not a grantmaker: see who funds it →

· Private foundation

The Jessica Fund

Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.

$387k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$90k

Largest

01What it funds

0196% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.

Arts & Culture$1.7MEducation$362kPhilanthropy$268kHealth$110kReligion$91kInternational$90kCivil Rights$58kHuman Services$23kOther$0

02FY2025 · 31 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k19 grants · $65k
$10k–50k10 grants · $153k
$50k–250k2 grants · $170k

$5,000

Median grant

States reached

$2.9M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART	$90,000
CHICAGO FOUNDATION FOR WOMEN	$80,000
CHICAGO THEATRE GROUP INC	$35,000
FRIENDS OF UNITED HATZALAH INC	$24,000
AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION FOUNDATION INC	$20,000
THE NEIGHBORHOOD PLAYHOUSE	$12,000
STANDWITHUS	$11,120
Individual grant recipient	$10,675
FRIENDS OF THE CHILDREN - CHICAGO	$10,000
INSTITUTE FOR MUSIC AND NEROLOGIC FUNCTION	$10,000
MAMAN NONPROFIT	$10,000
BARNARD COLLEGE	$10,000
TEMPLE SHALOM	$8,990
JUSTICE FOR CHILDREN FOUNDATION INC	$8,000
IMPACT FORUM FOUNDATION	$7,000

02The need

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Its human-services grants (FY17–25, $35k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 100% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

How this is measured

Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.

Which US states its grants reach

How this is measured

US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

91%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$2.3M · 42 repeat orgs$230k to everyone else

42 repeat relationships: 16 still active in FY2025, 26 since wound down; 14 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$2.3M

$133k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+29%

+37%

Still filing today

71%

61%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 68% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $97k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

Arts & CultureEducationHuman ServicesHealthInternationalYouth DevelopmentOther

How this is measured

First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

CT
CHICAGO THEATRE GROUP INC
8× · 2017–2025 · $793k · revenue +35%
MO
MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART
9× · 2017–2025 · $707k · revenue +0%
BARNARD COLLEGE
6× · 2017–2025 · $105k · revenue +60%

Funded once

RO
REGENTS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN
one grant, 2024 · $15k
NR
NEW ROADS SCHOOL
one grant, 2022 · $12k · revenue +9%
IG
Individual grant recipient
one grant, 2024 · $10k

How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

United States Naval Institute

Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.

—

Association of California School Administrators

The association serves its members by creating resources that enable california school administrators to develop and apply creative leadership and management skills and in turn, improve the educational process for all students.

—

Academy of Television Arts and Sciences

The Television Academy is dedicated to celebrating excellence, innovation and the advancement of the telecommunications arts and sciences through recognition, education and leadership, while fostering a diverse, inclusive and accessible…

—

The International School of San Francisco

Guided by the principles of academic rigor and diversity, the international school of san francisco offers programs of study in french and english to prepare its graduates for a world in which the ability to think critically and to…

Education

Jewish Federation Council of Greater La

Based on jewish values, the jewish federation of greater los angeles convenes and leads the community and leverages its resources to assure the continuity of the jewish people, support a secure state of israel, care for jews in need here…

Philanthropy

Ucsf Foundation Investment Company

The organization provides professional investment management services for endowed gifts and financial assets entrusted to the ucsf foundation.

Education

The Israel Innovation Fund Inc

Our vision is to reignite the zionist spirit and meet the needs of jewish civilization in the twenty-first century by connecting people around the world through the vibrancy and creativity of contemporary israeli culture.

Arts & Culture

Columbia College Chicago

The organization's mission is to educate students for creative occupations in diverse fields of arts and media.

Education

The Chicago School of Professional Psychology

The Chicago School educates the next generation of change-makers in innovative theory and culturally competent practice to strengthen the integrated health of individuals, organizations, and communities.

Education

Artis Contemporary Israeli Art Fundinc

Artis is an independent nonprofit organization that supports contemporary artists from israel whose work addresses aesthetic, social and political questions to inspire reflection and debate. www.artis.art

Arts & Culture

Chicago Public Education Fund

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.

Education

Junior Achievement of Chicago

To inspire and prepare young people to succeed in a global economy

International

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Chicago Theatre Group Inc; the most unlike its peers is The Parker Fund. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

04the grantee network

77 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 77 of the 109 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

77/77

Grantees still filing

51/77

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Arts & Culture$1,622,798Other$695,655Education$351,408International$77,870Religion$42,000Human Services$35,850Health$26,500

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

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.

Jewish Community Foundation of Los AngelesCA17.4× affinity7 shared granteesties to 10 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Jewish Community Foundation of Los Angeles · Polk Bros Foundation Inc · California Community Foundation · Arie and Ida Crown Memorial · Circle of Service Foundation · The Chicago Community Trust · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation · Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago · The Annenberg Foundation · John H Hart Foundation · The Robert Thomas Bobins Foundation

How this is measured

Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization The Jessica Fund funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Jessica Fund. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

3get no government money at all

14report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–40%

typical government reliance, FY20–25

How this is measured

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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to The Jessica Fund?

Find your warmest path to The Jessica Fund 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.

Play a game based on Jessica’s filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions

grants reported with no recipient in the public record

The regranting layer

51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer

The DAF merry-go-round

$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds

The endowment market

who holds foundation money, and what just moved

The camps

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

By state

where grant money is based, and what stays home