· Private foundation
The Lefkofsky Family 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 it funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2018 to 2024.
Where the money goes
Grants by size, and the largest recipients.
How this is measured
By grant size · FY2023
- Under $10k25 grants · $74k
- $10k–50k29 grants · $515k
- $50k–250k16 grants · $1.8M
- $250k+6 grants · $2.7M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Steppenwolf Theatre Company | $1,050,000 |
| Jewish United Fund | $500,000 |
| University of Wisconsin Foundation | $333,334 |
| American Brain Tumor Association | $333,334 |
| Anti-Defamation League | $250,000 |
| Gateway for Cancer Research | $250,000 |
| Northwestern University | $200,000 |
| Friends of Israel Defence Forces | $175,000 |
| Art Institute of Chicago | $175,000 |
| Peer Health Exchange | $166,667 |
| Friends of Israel Defence Forces | $166,667 |
| Museum of Contemporary Art | $135,000 |
| Lake Forest Academy | $125,000 |
| Ylabs | $100,000 |
| Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center | $100,000 |
Does the money reach high-need areas?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.
Its human-services grants (FY18–19, $92k) 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.
How this is measured
Which US states its grants reach
How this is measured
Who it funds again
Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.
99 repeat relationships: 37 still active in FY2023, 62 since wound down; 30 grantees were first funded in FY2023 (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 FY2023, 79% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $1.1M went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
How this is measured
Backed again, and grew
- JUJEWISH UNITED FUND OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO2× · 2018–2019 · $500k · revenue +34%
Northwestern University2× · 2018–2019 · $400k · revenue +33%- MOMUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART2× · 2018–2019 · $332k · revenue +21%
Funded once
- MPMILLENNIUM PARK FOUNDATIONgraduatedone grant, 2018 · $900k · revenue +340%
- UOUniversity of Michigangraduatedone grant, 2018 · $353k · revenue +195%
- KCKenneth C Griffin Museum of Science and Industryone grant, 2019 · $300k · revenue -1%
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.
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.
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 organization's mission is to educate students for creative occupations in diverse fields of arts and media.
To inspire and prepare young people to succeed in a global economy
The chicago psychoanalytic institute transforms the lives of individuals, families and communities, using psychoanalytic knowledge to help them grow and thrive.
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…
The mission of mit is to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century.
Lake Forest Graduate School of Management's mission is to bring the real world to business education and leadership development.
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.
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.
The University of New Haven is a student-centered comprehensive university with an emphasis on excellence in liberal arts and professional education. Our mission is to prepare our students to lead purposeful and fulfilling lives in a…
Help improve policy and decision making through research and analysis.
Advance science, engineering, and innovation throughout the world for the benefit of all. the world's largest multidisciplinary scientific society and a leading publisher of cutting-edge research through its science family of journals,…
How this is measured
93 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. 93 of the 305 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.
Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee
Showing the 200 largest grantees by grant value.
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.
- Who funds STEPPENWOLF THEATRE COMPANY ↗
- Who funds MILLENNIUM PARK FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds JEWISH UNITED FUND OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds Northwestern University ↗
- Who funds University of Michigan ↗
- Who funds MUSEUM OF CONTEMPORARY ART ↗
- Who funds Kenneth C Griffin Museum of Science and Industry ↗
- Who funds THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds WHITNEY MUSEUM OF AMERICAN ART ↗
- Who funds JOHNS HOPKINS UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds University of Chicago ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN FIRST FUND THE CHICAGO PUBLIC SCHOOLS FOUNDATION ↗
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.
Open a dossier: The Chicago Community Trust · Polk Bros Foundation Inc · Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago · The Irving Harris Foundation · Lloyd a Fry Foundation · Robert R McCormick Foundation · Arie and Ida Crown Memorial · Joseph & Bessie Feinberg Foundation · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation · Gates Foundation · Best Portion Foundation
How this is measured
How much its grantees rely on government
Each dot is one organization The Lefkofsky Family Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Lefkofsky Family Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.
- Johns Hopkins University: 12% of income from government
- Sandy Hook Promise Foundation: 0% of income from government
How this is measured
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to The Lefkofsky Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Lefkofsky Family 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.
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