How much does The Leonard and Joan Foundation give?

The Leonard and Joan Foundation reported 64 grants totaling $278,282 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 21 and 61 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does The Leonard and Joan Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Health (19%), Arts & Culture (19%), Education (16%).

Who are The Leonard and Joan Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: Season of Concern ($204k), Loyola University of Chicago ($107k), The Board of Trustees of the University of Illinois ($102k).

Does The Leonard and Joan Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 5% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does The Leonard and Joan Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

Which funders back the same organizations as The Leonard and Joan Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Lloyd a Fry Foundation, Ncrc Community Development Fund Inc, John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation.

Where is The Leonard and Joan Foundation based?

The Leonard and Joan Foundation is based in IL.

The Leonard and Joan Foundation

The Leonard and Joan Foundation at a glance

· 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.

$278k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$52k

Largest

01What it funds

0197% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.

Health$387kArts & Culture$385kEducation$330kPhilanthropy$218kInternational$88kCivil Rights$71kYouth Development$49kPublic Safety & Disaster$38kOther$0

02FY2025 · 64 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k55 grants · $140k
$10k–50k8 grants · $117k
$50k–250k1 grant · $52k

$2,575

Median grant

States reached

$7.0M

Total assets

Largest grants
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

02The need

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Its 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 its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

How this is measured

Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.

Which US states its grants reach

How this is measured

US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

88%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$1.5M · 73 repeat orgs$198k to everyone else

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

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$1.5M

$184k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+29%

+34%

Still filing today

64%

55%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 95% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $14k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

Arts & CultureHealthInternationalEnvironmentHuman ServicesEducationOther

How this is measured

First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

SO
Season of Concern
8× · 2018–2025 · $204k · revenue +29%
AN
American National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches
8× · 2017–2025 · $38k · revenue +46%
MT
Music Theatre Works Inc
8× · 2017–2025 · $32k · revenue +220%

Funded once

University of Illinois Foundationgraduated
one grant, 2021 · $50k · revenue +57%
DU
DEPAUL UNIVERSITY
one grant, 2021 · $50k · revenue +11%
TH
THE HYPOCRITES
one grant, 2017 · $45k

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.

04Its field

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.

Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University Inc

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…

Arts & Culture

Lyric Opera of Chicago

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…

Arts & Culture

Chicago Opera Theater

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.

Arts & Culture

Chicago Theatre Group Inc

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…

Arts & Culture

Chicago Shakespeare Theater

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…

Arts & Culture

Stages

Stages makes plays and tells stories that invite everyone to live more deeply and love more boldly.

Arts & Culture

Music and Dance Theater Chicago Inc

Arts & Culture

American Association for the Advancement of Science

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,…

Science & Tech

Women's Project & Productions Inc

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…

Arts & Culture

Arizona Theatre Company

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.

Arts & Culture

The Adler Planetarium

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…

Arts & Culture

Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company Inc

To create rousing, visceral, enlightening theatre experiences that galvanize diverse artists and audiences to engage with our world in unexpected and often challenging ways.

Arts & Culture

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Black Ensemble Theater Corporation; 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.

04the grantee network

64 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. 64 of the 101 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.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

62/64

Grantees still filing

46/64

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$884,447Education$207,000Philanthropy$204,404Arts & Culture$137,538Health$95,677International$88,072Human Services$47,425

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.

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.

Lloyd a Fry FoundationIL29.8× affinity12 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

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

How this is measured

Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization The Leonard and Joan Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Leonard and Joan Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

1get no government money at all

15report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–50%

typical government reliance, FY20–25

How this is measured

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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

Play a game based on Leonard and Joan’s filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions

grants reported with no recipient in the public record

The regranting layer

51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer

The DAF merry-go-round

$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds

The endowment market

who holds foundation money, and what just moved

The camps

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

By state

where grant money is based, and what stays home