· Private foundation
The Kensington Square 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 FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k1 grant · $7k
- $10k–50k17 grants · $320k
- $50k–250k5 grants · $515k
- $250k+1 grant · $275k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| WINDOW TO THE WORLD COMMUNICATIONS INC (WTTW) | $275,000 |
| COURT THEATRE | $170,000 |
| YALE UNIVERSITY | $100,000 |
| MISERICORDIA | $100,000 |
| STEPPENWOLF THEATRE | $95,000 |
| OUR LADY OF TEPEYAC HIGH SCHOOL | $50,000 |
| OLD ST PATRICK'S CHURCH | $40,000 |
| ASU FOUNDATION | $35,000 |
| GOODMAN THEATRE | $25,000 |
| CATHOLIC CHARITIES OF CHICAGO | $25,000 |
| DEPAUL COLLEGE PREP HIGH SCHOOL | $25,000 |
| DOMINICAN SISTERS OF SPRINGFIELD | $25,000 |
| HEARD MUSEUM | $20,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $20,000 |
| RUSH UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER | $15,000 |
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 (FY17–25, $141k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +19% since the first grant, against +7% for the ones you funded once.
44 repeat relationships — 24 still active in FY2025, 20 since wound down.
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, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
- STSTEPPENWOLF THEATRE COMPANY8× · 2017–2025 · $540k · revenue +59%
- TCThe Cara Program7× · 2018–2025 · $240k · revenue +111%
ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION FOR A NEW AMERICAN UNIVERSITY5× · 2017–2025 · $158k · revenue +196%
Funded once
- MUMarquette Universityone grant, 2021 · $375k · revenue +16%
- TTTIMELINE THEATREone grant, 2021 · $100k
- COCHURCH OF OUR SAVIORone grant, 2021 · $50k
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.
Chicago opera theater expands the tradition of opera as a living art form by engaging lovers of music and storytelling through innovative experiences, predominantly of new and rarely performed works.
The organization's mission is to educate students for creative occupations in diverse fields of arts and media.
The Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University ("The Auditorium"), an Illinois not-for-profit corporation, is committed to presenting the finest in international, cultural, community and educational programming to Chicago and to the…
We believe in the life-changing, transformational, revelatory power of great art and opera. Lyric Opera of Chicago exists to provide a broad, deep, and relevant cultural service to the Chicago region and the nation, and to advance the…
Saint xavier university, a catholic institution inspired by the heritage of the sisters of mercy, educates persons to search for truth, think critically, communicate effectively and serve wisely and compassionately in support of human…
The mission of the university of chicago has been to sustain at the highest level of excellence, the communication of knowledge, the creation of knowledge and the fostering of a dynamic community of scholars and students.
See Form 990, Part I, Line 1, Description of Organization Mission.
Our mission at the university of chicago medicine is to provide superior health care through rigorous research, innovative education, and comprehensive care and healing. in partnership with our colleagues, we pursue life-changing…
Lookingglass theatre company is a national leader in the creation and presentation of innovative, cutting-edge theatrical work. lookingglass interweaves movement, circus arts and narrative in original and captivating ways. guided by an…
We are chicago's jesuit, catholic university - a diverse community seeking god in all things and working to expand knowledge in the service of humanity through learning, justice, and faith.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Chicago Theatre Group Inc and the most unlike its peers is Court Theatre Fund. 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 61 years old; the field is 14. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 24% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% lost their exemption, against 16% 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.
29 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. 29 of the 57 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 VANGUARD CHARITABLE ENDOWMENT PROGRAM ↗
- Who funds STEPPENWOLF THEATRE COMPANY ↗
- Who funds PHOENIX SYMPHONY ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds Marquette University ↗
- Who funds The Cara Program ↗
- Who funds ARIZONA STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION FOR A NEW AMERICAN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds STEEP THEATRE ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN AT THE CROSSROADS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds UCAN ↗
- Who funds Chicago Architecture Foundation ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO THEATRE GROUP INC ↗
- Who funds La Rabida Children's Hospital ↗
- Who funds THE HEARD MUSEUM ↗
- Who funds THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago ↗
- Who funds GRANT PARK ORCHESTRAL ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds Chicago Symphony Orchestra ↗
- Who funds Writers Theatre Inc ↗
- Who funds Rush University Medical Center ↗
- Who funds GoodCity NFP ↗
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: John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · The Chicago Community Trust · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc · AbbVie Foundation · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · National Philanthropic Trust · Charities Aid Foundation America · American Endowment Foundation · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc
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 Kensington Square 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 Kensington Square Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Kensington Square 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.