· Private foundation
The Otho Sa Sprague Memorial Institute
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
- $10k–50k2 grants · $35k
- $50k–250k11 grants · $1.4M
- $250k+3 grants · $901k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| UNIVERSITY OF IL AT CHICAGO | $350,878 |
| GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY | $300,000 |
| SINAI HEALTH SYSTEM | $250,000 |
| RUSH UNIVERSITY MEDICAL CENTER | $225,000 |
| MOBILE CARE FOUNDATION | $225,000 |
| CHILDREN FIRST FUND | $210,000 |
| IWS FAMILY HEALTH | $200,000 |
| UNITED WAY OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO | $100,000 |
| MICHAEL REESE HEALTH TRUST | $100,000 |
| LAWNDALE CHRISTIAN HEALTH CENTER | $100,000 |
| COMMUNITY HEALTH | $75,000 |
| CHICAGO COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | $50,000 |
| CHICAGO COALITION TO SAVE OUR MENTAL HEALTH CENTER | $50,000 |
| ESPERANZA HEALTH CENTERS | $50,000 |
| HEALTH AND MEDICINE POLICY RESEARCH GROUP | $25,000 |
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 (FY18–24, $490k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 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 +32% since the first grant, against +26% for the ones you funded once.
36 repeat relationships — 12 still active in FY2025, 24 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, 84% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $360k 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
- IPIllinois Public Health Institute5× · 2017–2021 · $992k · revenue +319%
GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY6× · 2020–2025 · $973k · revenue +17%- MCMOBILE CARE FOUNDATION7× · 2019–2025 · $868k · revenue +175%
Funded once
- SCSwedish Covenant Hospital Foundationone grant, 2024 · $200k · revenue 0%
Ann & Robert H Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago Foundationone grant, 2024 · $120k · revenue 0%- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2022 · $100k
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.
Our mission at the university of chicago medicine is to provide superior health care through rigorous research, innovative education, and comprehensive care and healing. in partnership with our colleagues, we pursue life-changing…
Uchicago medicine network, inc. supports and encourages health and human service by providing support, directly or indirectly to ingalls memorial hospital, the university of chicago medical center, and other related tax-exempt…
Northwestern memorial healthcare is an integrated healthcare system, consisting of multiple hospitals (including northwestern memorial hospital, an academic medical center) and networks of physicians and healthcare professionals, where the…
Ann & robert h. lurie children's hospital of chicago is dedicated to the health and well-being of all children. as the pediatric teaching facility for northwestern university feinberg school of medicine, this commitment drives us to be a…
Endeavor Health Clinical Operations follows the mission of Endeavor Health to "help everyone in our communities be their best."
Endeavor Health Medical Group (EHMG) follows the mission of Endeavor Health. The mission of Endeavor Health is to "help everyone in our communities be their best." Central to this mission is a commitment to providing clinical programs and…
Edward-Elmhurst Healthcare follows the mission of Endeavor Health to "help everyone in our communities be their best."
To improve the health of the individuals and diverse communities we serve through the integration of outstanding patient care, education, research and community partnerships.
The elmhurst memorial healthcare group follows the mission of endeavor health (f/k/a ns-ee holdings). the mission of endeavor health is to "help everyone in our communities be their best." central to this mission is a commitment to…
The hospital is a catholic health care organization sponsored by the sisters of st. casimir. by our commitment to witness to the healing mission of jesus, we contribute to healthy communities and promote quality health care to all with…
Edward Hospital follows the mission of Endeavor Health to "help everyone in our communities be their best."
Swedish Covenant Health follows the mission of Endeavor Health to "help everyone in our communities be their best."
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Health and Medicine Policy Research Group and the most unlike its peers is City Tech Collaborative. 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 42 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 21% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 16% 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.
35 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. 35 of the 62 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 HEARTLAND ALLIANCE HEALTH ↗
- Who funds Illinois Public Health Institute ↗
- Who funds GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY ↗
- Who funds MOBILE CARE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SINAI HEALTH SYSTEM ↗
- Who funds LAWNDALE CHRISTIAN HEALTH CENTER ↗
- Who funds HEALTH AND MEDICINE POLICY RESEARCH GROUP ↗
- Who funds MAPSCORPS ↗
- Who funds THE THRESHOLDS ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO INC ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN FIRST FUND THE CHICAGO PUBLIC SCHOOLS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds UI LABS INC ↗
- Who funds Rush University Medical Center ↗
- Who funds American National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches ↗
- Who funds Public Health Institute of Metropolitan Chicago ↗
- Who funds PARTNERSHIP FOR A CONNECTED ILLINOIS INC ↗
- Who funds THE NIGHT MINISTRY ↗
- Who funds Swedish Covenant Hospital Foundation ↗
- Who funds City Tech Collaborative ↗
- Who funds ESPERANZA HEALTH CENTERS ↗
- Who funds City Colleges of Chicago Foundation ↗
- Who funds Ann & Robert H Lurie Children's Hospital of Chicago Foundation ↗
- Who funds Northwestern University ↗
- Who funds MICHAEL REESE HEALTH TRUST ↗
- Who funds INSTITUTE OF MEDICINE OF CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds DEPAUL UNIVERSITY ↗
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: The Chicago Community Trust · Grant Hospital of Chicago D/B/A Grant Healthcare Foundation · Polk Bros Foundation Inc · United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc · Visiting Nurse Association of Chicago (Aka) Vna Foundation · Illinois Children's Healthcare Foundation · Michael Reese Health Trust · Lloyd a Fry Foundation · Arie and Ida Crown Memorial · Circle of Service Foundation · Delta Dental of Illinois Foundation · Pritzker Family 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 Otho Sa Sprague Memorial Institute 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 Otho Sa Sprague Memorial Institute?
Find your warmest path to The Otho Sa Sprague Memorial Institute 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.