· Private foundation
The Leonard and Joan 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 $10k55 grants · $140k
- $10k–50k8 grants · $117k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $52k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS CHICAGO | $51,600 |
| PART I LN 25 CASH BASIS CONTR ADJUS | $30,512 |
| SEASON OF CONCERN | $20,600 |
| INTERNATIONAL VOICES PROJECT | $15,000 |
| MUSIC THEATER WORKS | $10,500 |
| AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION FOUN | $10,350 |
| SAVE THE CHILDREN FEDERATION INC | $10,220 |
| INTERNATIONAL ESSENTIAL TREMOR FOUN | $10,010 |
| Individual grant recipient | $10,000 |
| ALBANY PARK THEATER PROJECT | $7,575 |
| LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO | $7,000 |
| LUNGEVITY | $5,332 |
| CHICAGO READER | $5,311 |
| NATIONAL MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS SOCIETY | $5,300 |
| AMERICAN BRAIN TUMOR ASSOCIATION | $5,289 |
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 (FY20–25, $29k) 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 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.
73 repeat relationships — 58 still active in FY2025, 15 since wound down; 4 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, 95% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $14k 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
- SOSeason of Concern8× · 2018–2025 · $204k · revenue +29%
- ANAmerican National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches8× · 2017–2025 · $38k · revenue +46%
- MTMusic Theatre Works Inc8× · 2017–2025 · $32k · revenue +220%
Funded once
University of Illinois Foundationgraduatedone grant, 2021 · $50k · revenue +57%- DUDEPAUL UNIVERSITYone grant, 2021 · $50k · revenue +11%
- THTHE HYPOCRITESone grant, 2017 · $45k
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.
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…
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 chicago theatre group is committed to producing both classic and contemporary works giving full voice to a wide range of artists and visions. by dedicating itself to three guiding principles - quality, equity, and community - the…
To create vivid, entertaining theatrical experiences that invigorate and engage people of all ages and identities by illuminating the complexity, ambiguity, and wonder of our world. shared humanity and unforgettable stories - now this is…
Stages makes plays and tells stories that invite everyone to live more deeply and love more boldly.
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,…
Wp theater is the nation's oldest and largest theater company dedicated to developing, producing, and promoting the work of women+ at every stage of their careers. for over four decades we have served as leaders of a global movement…
ATC's mission is to create world-class theatre about what it means to be alive today - inspiring curiosity and creativity, sparking empathy and joy - bringing all Arizonans together.
The adler planetarium ('adler') is a not-for-profit cultural institution whose mission is to connect people to the universe and each other under the sky we all share. it aspires to be the world's premier center for engaging in astronomy…
To create rousing, visceral, enlightening theatre experiences that galvanize diverse artists and audiences to engage with our world in unexpected and often challenging ways.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Black Ensemble Theater Corporation and the most unlike its peers is Savoy Aires. 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 38 years old; the field is 20. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 18% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 1% lost their exemption, against 12% 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.
64 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. 64 of the 101 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 Season of Concern ↗
- Who funds LOYOLA UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds University of Illinois Foundation ↗
- Who funds DEPAUL UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds Storycatchers ↗
- Who funds THE HYPOCRITES ↗
- Who funds American National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches ↗
- Who funds Music Theatre Works Inc ↗
- Who funds Save The Children Federation Inc ↗
- Who funds Albany Park Theater Project ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL MULTIPLE SCLEROSIS SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds American Brain Tumor Association ↗
- Who funds THE NATIONAL ALLIANCE FOR MUSICAL THEATRE INC ↗
- Who funds SOUTHERN POVERTY LAW CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO PUBLIC MEDIA INC ↗
- Who funds International Rescue Committee INC ↗
- Who funds BLACK ENSEMBLE THEATER CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds SAVOY AIRES ↗
- Who funds LUNGEVITY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds UNITED STATES FUND FOR UNICEF ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Howard Brown Health Center ↗
- Who funds WORLD WILDLIFE FUND INC ↗
- Who funds ONE ACRE FUND ↗
- Who funds ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE & RELATED DISORDERS ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL INC ↗
- Who funds Rheumatology Research 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: Lloyd a Fry Foundation · Ncrc Community Development Fund Inc · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · The Chicago Community Trust · The Shubert Foundation Inc · Prince Foundation · Bayless Family Foundation · Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation · Field Foundation of Illinois · Polk Bros Foundation Inc · Walder Foundation · Frederick Henry Prince Testamentary Trust
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 Leonard and Joan 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.
- Save the Children Federation Inc — 30% of income from government
- Americares Foundation Inc — 0% of income from government
- Wounded Warrior Project Inc — 0% of income from government
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.