· Private foundation
The Joy Box Foundation
Its FY2025 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 FY2018–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k7 grants · $17k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $33k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ROCK RIVER CHAPLAINS ASSOCIATION | $20,000 |
| STATELINE YOUTH FOR CHRIST | $12,500 |
| ROCKFORD CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS | $5,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $3,500 |
| ALASKA CHRISTIAN COLLEGE | $2,500 |
| DARE TO SERVE | $2,500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $2,000 |
| WILLOW WOMENS CENTER | $1,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $250 |
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 (FY18–25, $105k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 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.
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.
23 repeat relationships — 7 still active in FY2025, 16 since wound down; 2 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, 92% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $4k 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
- RRROCK RIVER CHAPLAINS ASSOCIATION6× · 2018–2025 · $84k · revenue +3%
- SYSTATELINE YOUTH FOR CHRIST8× · 2018–2025 · $65k · revenue +277%
- ACALASKA CHRISTIAN COLLEGE8× · 2018–2025 · $21k · revenue +31%
Funded once
- SGST GERMAIN COVENANT CHURCHone grant, 2018 · $5k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2020 · $4k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2020 · $4k
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.
To challenge young people to know christ as lord, apply god's truth in all areas of life, love others sacrifically, and achieve the highest level of knowledge and skill in order to serve god and others
Building lives on the rock.
Education
Spread the gospel to college and high school students, athletes, coaches, and faculty.
Christian growth through camping experiences.
Supporting and encouraging families worldwide to serve and share Jesus through work, worship, and the Word.
To preach the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ to the Nations
Modeling Christ through biblical counseling and biblical counseling training
Real Life Ministries invites couples to take the next step in their relationship with God, themselves and others. This is done through individual and couples counseling as well as life coaching. Real Life offers teaching and training…
The word restored means to be reestablished, refreshed, and revived. we at rcc believe that all of us have blown it, but desire something more in life than regret or mediocrity. weve discovered that more is a relationship with jesus, gods…
To show people who jesus really is
Rockbridge seminary is an accredited degree-granting institution of higher learning that exists to develop servant leaders for christian ministry through quality distance educational experiences that allow them to study and practice…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Rockford Rescue Mission Ministries and the most unlike its peers is Links Players International Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
11 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. 11 of the 48 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 ROCK RIVER CHAPLAINS ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds STATELINE YOUTH FOR CHRIST ↗
- Who funds DARE TO SERVE ↗
- Who funds ALASKA CHRISTIAN COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds RESTORATION MINISTRIESINC ↗
- Who funds ROCK RIVER VALLEY PANTRY ↗
- Who funds THE PREGNANCY CARE CENTER OF ROCKFORD ↗
- Who funds ROCKFORD RESCUE MISSION MINISTRIES ↗
- Who funds Links Players International Inc ↗
- Who funds ROCK VALLEY COLLEGE FOUNDATION ↗
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: The Kjellstrom Family Foundation · Jeffrey R Anderson Charitable Foundation · Kristin L Anderson Charitable Foundation · Tracy E Anderson Charitable Foundation · The David & Colleen Anderson Charitable Foundation · Bergstrom Inc Charitable Foundation Xxxxx2008 · Community Foundation of Northern IL · Ahlstrand Family Foundation · John T Wolf Charitable Trust II · Guy Reno Family Foundation · John & Linda Anderson Charitable Foundation · Northern Illinois Food Bank
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 Joy Box 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to The Joy Box Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Joy Box 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.