· Private foundation
The Knowles 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
- $10k–50k7 grants · $177k
- $50k–250k17 grants · $1.3M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MERIT SCHOOL OF MUSIC | $187,500 |
| LYRIC OPERA OF CHICAGO | $100,000 |
| RAY GRAHAM ASSOCIATION | $100,000 |
| GIGI'S PLAYHOUSE INC | $100,000 |
| FRIENDS OF THE CHICAGO RIVER | $75,000 |
| LOYOLA UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER | $75,000 |
| ELMHURST MEMORIAL HOSPITAL | $75,000 |
| CHICAGO ARCHITECTURE CENTER | $75,000 |
| ADLER PLANETARIUM | $70,000 |
| MERIT SCHOOL OF MUSIC | $68,000 |
| SHIRLEY RYAN ABILITY LAB | $50,000 |
| HINSDALE JUNIOR WOMANS CLUB | $50,000 |
| RAY GRAHAM ASSOCIATION | $50,000 |
| GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY | $50,000 |
| SHEDD AQUARIUM SOCIETY | $50,000 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY20–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 82% of your 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.
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 +34% since the first grant, against +9% for the ones you funded once.
22 repeat relationships — 19 still active in FY2024, 3 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 FY2024, 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
- MSMERIT SCHOOL OF MUSIC5× · 2020–2024 · $666k · revenue ×16
- LOLyric Opera of Chicago5× · 2020–2024 · $475k · revenue +34%
- LULOYOLA UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER5× · 2020–2024 · $450k · revenue +6%
Funded once
- TSTHE SERVICE CLUB OF CHICAGOone grant, 2020 · $15k · revenue +9%
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 inspire conservation leadership by connecting people with wildlife and nature.
The Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) is a world-renowned center for biological discovery and training that is notably affiliated with more than 60 Nobel Prize winners. Research is conducted by full-time faculty as well as hundreds of the…
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.
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…
With the Chicago Symphony Orchestra at its core, the mission of the Chicago Symphony Orchestra Association is to enrich, inspire and transform lives through music, community engagement and education - locally, nationally and…
The music institute of chicago ("music institute") leads people toward a lifelong engagement with music, by providing widely accessible resources for high quality music teaching, performing, and service activities.
The Chicago History Museum strives to be a destination for learning, inspiration, and civic engagement. Through dynamic exhibitions, tours, programs, digital resources, and special events, the Museum connects people to Chicago's history…
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.
The driehaus museum engages and inspires the global community through exploration and ongoing conversations in art, architecture, and design of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. its permanent collection and temporary…
The organization's mission is to educate students for creative occupations in diverse fields of arts and media.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Chicago Architecture Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Hinsdale Junior Woman's Club. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
20 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. 20 of the 23 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 MERIT SCHOOL OF MUSIC ↗
- Who funds Lyric Opera of Chicago ↗
- Who funds LOYOLA UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER ↗
- Who funds RAY GRAHAM ASSOCIATION FOR PEOPLE WITH DISABILITIES ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE CHICAGO RIVER ↗
- Who funds Chicago Architecture Foundation ↗
- Who funds Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago ↗
- Who funds THE ADLER PLANETARIUM ↗
- Who funds FOUNDATION FOR HEARING AND SPEECH RESOURCES ↗
- Who funds FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY ↗
- Who funds Kenneth C Griffin Museum of Science and Industry ↗
- Who funds GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY ↗
- Who funds SHEDD AQUARIUM SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds HINSDALE JUNIOR WOMAN'S CLUB ↗
- Who funds LINCOLN PARK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds ALLIANCE FOR THE GREAT LAKES ↗
- Who funds Special Children's Charities ↗
- Who funds THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds Northwestern University ↗
- Who funds THE SERVICE CLUB OF CHICAGO ↗
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: National Philanthropic Trust · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile Foundation
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 Knowles 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 Knowles Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Knowles 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.