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Plinth

· Private foundation

The McDermott 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.

$36k
Granted FY2025still arriving
14
Grants FY2025still arriving
8
States reached
$15k
Largest
01What you fund
0191% classified

What you funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY20202025.

Religion$69kArts & Culture$57kHealth$54kEducation$41kPhilanthropy$19kHuman Services$9kEnvironment$5kRecreation & Sports$3kOther$0
02FY2025 · 14 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

By grant size · FY2025

  • Under $10k13 grants · $21k
  • $10k–50k1 grant · $15k
$1,000
Median grant
8
States reached
$264k
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
Kenilworth Union Church$15,000
Chicago Symphony Orchestra$5,000
Rush University$5,000
Wake Forest University$2,000
University of Chicago$2,000
Evanston Community Foundation$1,000
Dartmouth University$1,000
Washington State University$1,000
HPFF$1,000
Hawaii Public Radio$500
Georgia Institute of Technology$500
DePauw University$500
Bucknell University$500
Individual grant recipient$500
02The need
03

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.

show:

Your human-services grants (FY21–21, $10k) land where the poverty rate runs at 7%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 0% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.

area typical 9%SPUR Foundation: $10k → 7%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

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

NH
WA
ID
IL
MI
IN
PA
VA
MD
NC
DC
HI
GA

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.

03Your edge
repeat funding

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.

80%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.
$204k · 27 repeat orgs$52k to everyone else

And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +33% since the first grant, against +13% for the ones you funded once.

27 repeat relationships — 12 still active in FY2025, 15 since wound down.

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

27
16

Total granted

$204k
$52k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+33%
+13%

Still filing today

56%
50%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.

50%100%’20’21’22’23’24’25
RenewedFirst-time

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

’20’21’22’23’24’25
EducationArts & CultureHealthEnvironmentRecreation & SportsAnimalsOther

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

  • RU
    Rush University Medical Center
    6× · 2020–2025 · $27k · revenue +30%
  • CS
    Chicago Symphony Orchestra
    4× · 2020–2025 · $20k · revenue +71%
  • WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY
    4× · 2022–2025 · $12k · revenue +18%

Funded once

  • PP
    Planned Parenthood
    one grant, 2020 · $25k
  • IG
    Individual grant recipient
    one grant, 2020 · $10k
  • WT
    WINDOW TO THE WORLD COMMUNICATIONS INC
    one grant, 2020 · $5k · revenue +16%

Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Your field

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.

1
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

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.

Education
2
William Marsh Rice University

As a leading research university with a distinctive commitment to undergraduate education, Rice University aspires to path breaking research, unsurpassed teaching, and contributions to the betterment of our world. It seeks to fulfill this…

Education
3
Columbia College Chicago

The organization's mission is to educate students for creative occupations in diverse fields of arts and media.

Education
4
Trustees of Tufts College

Education and Research

Education
5
Marine Biological Laboratory

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…

Science & Tech
6
University of New Haven

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…

Education
7
Vanderbilt University

See Disclosure Above.

Education
8
Williams College

Williams College strives to achieve educational excellence by fostering a community of learning in collaboration with students, faculty, staff, devoted alumni and parents.

Education
9
University of Miami

See Form 990, Part I, Line 1, Description of Organization Mission.

Education
10
The Trustees of Princeton University

Research, education and general - princeton university is a private not-for-profit, non-sectarian institution of higher learning with approximately 5,700 undergraduate and 3,300 graduate students. 2,500 students graduated in the 2024-2025…

Education
11
President and Fellows of Harvard College

Undergraduate, graduate, and professional education and research across a broad array of academic domains.

Education
12
Case Western Reserve University

Case Western Reserve University is an independent, research-oriented university with broadly based strengths in health, including medicine, nursing and dentistry; in engineering; in the arts and sciences; and in law, management and social…

Education

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Northwestern University and the most unlike its peers is Wake Forest University. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.

← shrinkinggrowing →↓ leaning in → pulling backsteadyFaith-Based Liberal Arts Co…Community Health CentersCancer Support OrganizationsCommunity Arts OrganizationsLand Conservation Organizat…Government Accountability R…Community FoundationsClassical Music Ensembles
the sector your giving your giving is ahead of the sector the sector’s ahead of you· dot size = how much the theme matters to each side
Ordered by the change in your giving — leaning in on top, pulling back at the bottom. The bar between the two dots is how out of step you are with the sector. Hover any row for detail.

Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.

Your grantees are a median of 66 years old; the field is 20. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.

THE FIELDby orgYOUR GRANTEESby number18%0%<5yr13%3%5–10yr18%10%10–20yr15%13%20–35yr14%19%35–55yr22%55%55yr+
THE FIELDby orgYOUR MONEYby value18%0%<5yr13%1%5–10yr18%39%10–20yr15%11%20–35yr14%7%35–55yr22%42%55yr+

The field is 18% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.

Closures · last 5 years

The orgs you fund almost never close 0.0% lost their exemption, against 12% of the field you don’t fund.

orgs you fund
0.0%0/32
the rest of the field
12%
8,891/72,327

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.

04the grantee network

27 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 20172025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 27 of the 47 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.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
2
Early backer (in before they grew)
27/27
Grantees still filing
22/27
Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

KENILWORTH UNION CHURCH — $68,000 · OtherKENILWORTH UNION CHURCHPlanned Parenthood — $25,000 · OtherPlanned ParenthoodIndividual grant recipient — $10,000 · OtherIndividual grant recipientTHE SALVATION ARMY — $7,000 · OtherWASHINGTON STATE UNIVERSITY — $6,000 · Other+21 more — $29,663 · Other+21 moreChicago Symphony Orchestra — $20,000 · Arts & CultureChicago Symphony …Lyric Opera of Chicago — $10,000 · Arts & CultureLyric Opera of Ch…SUN VALLEY SUMMER SYMPHONY INC — $6,000 · Arts & CultureSUN VALLEY SUMMER…WINDOW TO THE WORLD COMMUNICATIONS INC — $5,000 · Arts & CultureWINDOW TO THE WOR…WINNETKA COMMUNITY HOUSE INC — $1,500 · Arts & Culture+1 more — $500 · Arts & CultureWAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY — $12,000 · EducationWAKE FOREST UNIVE…University of Chicago — $5,500 · EducationUniversity of Chi…Trustees of Dartmouth College — $5,500 · EducationTrustees of Dartm…THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO — $5,000 · EducationTHE ART INSTITUTE…SUN VALLEY WRITERS' CONFERENCE INC — $4,800 · EducationSUN VALLEY WRITER…Bucknell University — $3,500 · EducationBucknell Universi…DePauw University — $3,500 · EducationDePauw UniversityTHE WINNETKA PUBLIC SCHOOLS FOUNDATION — $1,500 · Education+1 more — $1,000 · EducationRush University Medical Center — $27,000 · HealthRush Univer…CYSTIC FIBROSIS FOUNDATION — $1,000 · Health+1 more — $500 · HealthSPUR COMMUNITY FOUNDATION INC — $10,000 · Human ServicesEvanston Community Foundation — $5,500 · PhilanthropyNorthwestern University — $3,000 · Recreation & Sports
Other$145,663Arts & Culture$43,000Education$42,300Health$28,500Human Services$10,000Philanthropy$5,500Recreation & Sports$3,000

Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ your share of their budgetRush University Medical Center — $27,000 over 6y, 0.0% of budgetChicago Symphony Orchestra — $20,000 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetWAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY — $12,000 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetLyric Opera of Chicago — $10,000 over 5y, 0.0% of budgetSPUR COMMUNITY FOUNDATION INC — $10,000 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetSUN VALLEY SUMMER SYMPHONY INC — $6,000 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetUniversity of Chicago — $5,500 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetEvanston Community Foundation — $5,500 over 6y, 0.0% of budgetTrustees of Dartmouth College — $5,500 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetTHE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO — $5,000 over 5y, 0.0% of budgetWINDOW TO THE WORLD COMMUNICATIONS INC — $5,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetSUN VALLEY WRITERS' CONFERENCE INC — $4,800 over 1y, 0.1% of budgetBucknell University — $3,500 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetDePauw University — $3,500 over 5y, 0.0% of budgetNorthwestern University — $3,000 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetOPENLANDS — $2,500 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetHAWAII PUBLIC RADIO — $2,500 over 5y, 0.0% of budgetTHE WINNETKA PUBLIC SCHOOLS FOUNDATION — $1,500 over 3y, 0.6% of budgetWINNETKA COMMUNITY HOUSE INC — $1,500 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetCHICAGO HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY — $1,200 over 4y, 0.0% of budgetHADLEY INSTITUTE FOR THE BLIND AND VISUALLY IMPAIRED — $1,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetSHEDD AQUARIUM SOCIETY — $1,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetCYSTIC FIBROSIS FOUNDATION — $1,000 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetALZHEIMER'S DISEASE & RELATED DISORDERS ASSOCIATION INC — $500 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetTHE NATURE CONSERVANCY — $500 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetNORTHLIGHT THEATRE INC — $500 over 1y, 0.0% of budgetWORLD WILDLIFE FUND INC — $100 over 1y, 0.0% of budget
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 Rush University Medical Center
  • Who funds Chicago Symphony Orchestra
  • Who funds WAKE FOREST UNIVERSITY
  • Who funds Lyric Opera of Chicago
  • Who funds SPUR COMMUNITY FOUNDATION INC
  • Who funds SUN VALLEY SUMMER SYMPHONY INC
  • Who funds University of Chicago
  • Who funds Evanston Community Foundation
  • Who funds Trustees of Dartmouth College
  • Who funds THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO
  • Who funds WINDOW TO THE WORLD COMMUNICATIONS INC
  • Who funds SUN VALLEY WRITERS' CONFERENCE INC
  • Who funds Bucknell University
  • Who funds DePauw University
  • Who funds Northwestern University
  • Who funds OPENLANDS
  • Who funds HAWAII PUBLIC RADIO
  • Who funds THE WINNETKA PUBLIC SCHOOLS FOUNDATION
  • Who funds WINNETKA COMMUNITY HOUSE INC
  • Who funds CHICAGO HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY
  • Who funds HADLEY INSTITUTE FOR THE BLIND AND VISUALLY IMPAIRED
  • Who funds SHEDD AQUARIUM SOCIETY
  • Who funds CYSTIC FIBROSIS FOUNDATION
  • Who funds ALZHEIMER'S DISEASE & RELATED DISORDERS ASSOCIATION INC

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.

The Chicago Community TrustIL12.4× affinity4 shared granteesties to 9 of 9Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: The Chicago Community Trust · American Endowment Foundation · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · 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 McDermott 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.

2024
202122232425
no gov · 10%0%1%3%5%your share of their income ↑0%10%20%30%40%share of the org’s income from government
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    1get no government money at all
    2report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–40%
    typical government reliance, FY2025

    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.

    On method. Every financial figure here is read directly from IRS e-file XML — your own 990/990-PF and the multi-year returns of the 47 grantees we resolved across every year we hold, several hundred filings in all (a different count from the grant rows on the cover, which are one fiscal year)— each linked to its source. Grantee achievements and outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III); we read these as association with sustained funding — the foundation is one of several forces — suppress low-confidence name matches rather than guess, and say so where a figure rests on a single grant or filing. Not everything on this page is a filed figure, and the difference matters. Filed is what you reported on your return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears. How we build these →

    Generated from your IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2025, released 2025. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Source object · view filing

    More from the funding graph