· Private foundation
The Mill Foundation
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2019–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k13 grants · $74k
- $10k–50k5 grants · $50k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| BOYS & GIRLS CLUB | $10,000 |
| NORTHWEST COMMUNITY CENTER | $10,000 |
| PATRIOTS' GATEWAY COMMUNITY CENTER | $10,000 |
| ROCKFORD RESCUE MISSION | $10,000 |
| CASA OF WINNEBAGO COUNTY | $10,000 |
| THE MUSIC ACADEMY OF ROCKFORD | $9,000 |
| NORTHWEST CHRISTIAN COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT | $8,900 |
| DISCOVERY CENTER MUSEUM | $8,000 |
| NORTHERN ILLINOIS FOOD BANK | $8,000 |
| REMEDIES RENEWING LIVES | $8,000 |
| ROCKFORD BARBELL | $7,200 |
| BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA-BLACKHAWK AREA COUNCIL | $7,000 |
| HABITAT FOR HUMANITY | $4,000 |
| KEN-ROCK COMMUNITY CENTER | $3,600 |
| YMCA OF ROCK RIVER VALLEY | $3,000 |
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.
Your human-services grants (FY19–25, $91k) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 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.
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 +31% since the first grant, against +25% for the ones you funded once.
24 repeat relationships — 15 still active in FY2025, 9 since wound down; 3 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, 85% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $19k 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
- PGPATRIOTS' GATEWAY COMMUNITY CENTER6× · 2019–2025 · $83k · revenue +92%
- BGBOYS & GIRLS CLUB ASSOCIATION OF ROCKFORD3× · 2019–2022 · $55k · revenue +91%
- WCWINNEBAGO COUNTY CASA3× · 2019–2022 · $55k · revenue +303%
Funded once
- CSCHILDREN'S SAFE HARBOR INCone grant, 2021 · $10k · revenue +25%
- RPROCKFORD PARK DISTRICT - WASHINGTON PARKone grant, 2022 · $10k
- LDLIFE DECISIONS INCgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $8k · revenue +105%
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.
Rockford regional health council is a not-for-profit social service corporation organized under the laws of the state of illinois for the purpose of improving community health through data gatering and analysis, education and advocacy.
To provide nurturing and educational childcare services.
Residential rehabilitation for mentally and emotionally disabled adults.
To challenge young people to know christ as lord, apply god's truth in all areas of life, love others sacrifically, and achieve the highest level of knowledge and skill in order to serve god and others
It is the mission of this corporation to provide quality care for children between the ages of six weeks and twelve years whose parents are employed or in training.
North kent connect is a christian organization committed to improving the lives of all people in northern kent county by providing access to basic needs and promoting economic independence.
Provide a safe place for youth in the community to foster relationships with one another and become caring adults
Rock river valley blood center, in partnership with our community, is dedicated to providing safe, high value blood products and services to people in need.
At community action we provide access and opportunity for those we serve and those who support our efforts. through innovative programs and strong community partnerships we eliminate barriers, establishing clear pathways to economic…
To educate men & women to lead responsible lives by means of a curriculum grounded in liberal arts learning and complemented and extended by professional and practical experience, through the total academic and co-curricular experience,…
To provide analysis and commentary on cultural, economic, political, and educational issues through a published monthly opinion magazine and to operate continuing adult educational conferences in american and european literature and…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Northwest Community Center and the most unlike its peers is Life Decisions Inc. 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.
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 43 years old; the field is 23. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 19% startups (under 5 years old) — 5% of your grantees by number, and just 8% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 10% 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.
24 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. 24 of the 36 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 NORTHWEST COMMUNITY CENTER ↗
- Who funds PATRIOTS' GATEWAY COMMUNITY CENTER ↗
- Who funds BOYS & GIRLS CLUB ASSOCIATION OF ROCKFORD ↗
- Who funds WINNEBAGO COUNTY CASA ↗
- Who funds ROCKFORD RESCUE MISSION MINISTRIES ↗
- Who funds KEN-ROCK COMMUNITY CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds BLACKHAWK AREA COUNCIL OF BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA INC ↗
- Who funds REMEDIES RENEWING LIVES ↗
- Who funds ROCK HOUSE KIDS ↗
- Who funds NORTHERN ILLINOIS FOOD BANK ↗
- Who funds DISCOVERY CENTER MUSEUM OF ROCKFORD INC ↗
- Who funds YOUTH SERVICES NETWORK INC ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF ROCK RIVER VALLEY ↗
- Who funds YMCA OF ROCK RIVER VALLEY ↗
- Who funds THE PREGNANCY CARE CENTER OF ROCKFORD ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN'S SAFE HARBOR INC ↗
- Who funds LIFE DECISIONS INC ↗
- Who funds THE LITERACY COUNCIL ↗
- Who funds GIRL SCOUTS OF NORTHERN ILLINOIS ↗
- Who funds Rockford Barbell ↗
- Who funds ROCKFORD SEXUAL ASSAULT COUNSELING INC ↗
- Who funds HOPE REIGNS RANCH ↗
- Who funds ROCKFORD PROMISE ↗
- Who funds CARPENTER'S PLACE 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.
Open a dossier: Community Foundation of Northern IL · The Kjellstrom Family Foundation · United Way of Rock River Valley · Bergstrom Inc Charitable Foundation Xxxxx2008 · Kristin L Anderson Charitable Foundation · Ralph J Baudhuin Foundation · Tracy E Anderson Charitable Foundation · The David & Colleen Anderson Charitable Foundation · Northern Illinois Food Bank · Guy Reno Family Foundation · Ahlstrand Family Foundation · SwedishAmerican Health 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 Mill 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 Mill Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Mill 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.