How much did The Pierce Family Charitable Foundation grant in FY2023?

Housing & Shelter$814kHuman Services$689kCommunity Improvement$321kHealth$250kArts & Culture$118kPhilanthropy$106kReligion$95kEducation$51kEmployment$34kOther$733k

02beneath the categories

Past the labels — and the year it shifted

Beneath the NTEE codes, this is what the grant descriptions actually say.

…and in their own words, year by year

2020

night ministryministrieshopefacilityneighborhoodbuildingtheatre

2021

equitytechnology upgradesblack girlgirl freedomsouthstrategic planningchicago independent

2022

cryptocurrencytransitionpilotimprovementfinancialdatabasestrategic planning

2023

chesedsouthchicago fairfair trade

Words distinctive to each year’s grant purposes (TF-IDF) · event-driven terms in cyan.

03FY2023 · 78 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

By grant size · FY2023

Under $10k48 grants · $110k
$10k–50k29 grants · $517k
$50k–250k1 grant · $50k

$5,000

Median grant

States reached

Total assets

Largest grants

CHICAGO CARES INC$50,000
CROSSROADS FUND$40,000
MICHAEL REESE HEALTH TRUST$40,000
CHICAGO RELIGIOUS LEADERSHIP NETWORK ON LATIN AMER$30,000
MICHAEL REESE HEALTH TRUST$25,000
COVENANT HOUSE ILLINOIS INC$25,000
CONNECTIONS FOR THE HOMELESS INC$20,500
FACING FORWARD TO END HOMELESSNESS$20,000
MATTHEW HOUSE$20,000
CHICAGO COALITION FOR THE HOMELESS$20,000
MARGARETS VILLAGE$20,000
IGNITE ORG$20,000
NEW MOMS INC$20,000
THE RENAISSANCE COLLABORATIVE INC$20,000
THE BOULEVARD OF CHICAGO INC$20,000

02The need

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 (FY20–23, $689k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14% — the area typically sits at 10%. 99% of those dollars reach neighborhoods with above-average need. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

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 line in 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, United Way ALICE — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.

Where the work is directed

The same grants, placed two ways — where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose earmarks the money.

About 6% of The Pierce Family Charitable Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked, by their stated purpose, for a different county than the recipient’s own address — money that lands at a nonprofit in one place but is meant to do its work in another.

The Pierce Family Charitable Foundationlessmore of its giving

Placed by recipient address

Recipient view: each grant at its grantee’s ZIP, mapped to a county. Directed view: each grant at the county its stated purpose names, falling back to the recipient’s county when the purpose names no place; US grants only. A county shows only if it carries the top 95% of that view’s dollars. Purposes are read from the foundation’s own 990 grant descriptions.

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.

91%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.

$2.9M · 100 repeat orgs$299k to everyone else

100 repeat relationships — 55 still active in FY2023, 45 since wound down; 13 grantees were first funded in FY2023 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

100

Total granted

$2.9M

$271k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+72%

+86%

Still filing today

82%

80%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2023, 96% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $28k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

Human ServicesHousing & ShelterArts & CultureEducationCommunity ImprovementHealthOther

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

CF
CROSSROADS FUND
4× · 2020–2023 · $145k · revenue +80%
NM
NEW MOMS INC
4× · 2020–2023 · $118k · revenue +85%
TR
THE RENAISSANCE COLLABORATIVE INC
4× · 2020–2023 · $103k · revenue +263%

Funded once

GRANTMAKERS FOR EFFECTIVE ORGANIZATIONSgraduated
one grant, 2021 · $25k · revenue +105%
MH
MERCY HOUSING LAKEFRONT
one grant, 2022 · $15k
RF
ROCKFORD FAMILY PLANNING FOUNDATION
one grant, 2022 · $13k · revenue -84%

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.

Chicago United for Equity

Connecting and amplifying the power of individuals to build a just, equitable, and inclusive city.

Civil Rights

Chicago Refugee Coalition

The Chicago Refugee Coalition is a 501c3 non-profit organization dedicated ot the alleviation of human suffering through innovative partnerships, advocacy and community empowerment.

Human Services

A Better Chicago

A better chicago is changing how chicago fights poverty by investing in bold ideas that create opportunity for our youth

Human Services

Latino Union of Chicago

Latino Union works to defend the rights and dignity of contingent workers, including the right to immigrate, work, live free of oppression and violence, and provide for oneself and one's family.

Human Services

Chicago Workers' Collaborative Nfp

To provide job skills, adult education and counseling to employed and unemployed workers.

Education

The Network Advocating Against Domestic

The Network is a group of 40+ member organizations dedicated to improving the lives of those impacted by gender-based violence through education, public policy and advocacy, and connecting community members with direct service providers.…

Human Services

Impact Grants Chicago

Impact Grants Chicago connects, engages and inspires women to improve the community of Chicago by collectively funding $100,000 grants to Chicago nonprofits that are dedicated to addressing the challenges facing the city.

Philanthropy

Chicago City Theatre Company

Develop Chicago's native talent pool in a welcoming environment that celebrates multiculturalism & ethnic diversity.

Arts & Culture

Legal Aid Chicago

To provide free civil legal services to low-income individuals, families and community groups

Crime & Legal

Chicago Heightening Opportunity and Potential for

Providing academic support to children experiencing homelessness in Chicago and providing resources and services to families experiencing homelessness in Chicago.

Education

Chicago Filmmakers

To serve independent film and digital video artists by supporting the creation and dissemination of new media arts works, and to serve Chicago audiences by screening artistically innovative, socially relevant, and diverse films and videos.

Arts & Culture

Chicago Cultural Alliance

To connect, promote and support centers of cultural heritage for a more inclusive and culturally vibrant region.

Arts & Culture

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Connections for the Homeless Inc and the most unlike its peers is Misericordia Home. 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.

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 28 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) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 7% of your money.

Closures · last 5 years

The orgs you fund almost never close — 1% lost their exemption, against 11% of the field you don’t fund.

orgs you fund

1%2/174

the rest of the field

11%

7,681/72,185

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.

06the grantee network

163 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2017–2025.

Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

157/163

Grantees still filing

124/163

Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

Housing & Shelter$813,698Human Services$688,850Other$912,356Community Improvement$320,500Health$250,300Arts & Culture$117,750Philanthropy$106,200

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.

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.

Polk Bros Foundation IncIL94.1× affinity47 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Polk Bros Foundation Inc · Cuore e Mani Foundation · United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc · John D and Catherine T Macarthur · Arie and Ida Crown Memorial · The Chicago Community Trust · Field Foundation of Illinois · Circle of Service Foundation · Lloyd a Fry Foundation · All Chicago Making Homelessness History · Forefront · Chicago Foundation for Women

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 organisation The Pierce Family Charitable 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

’20’21’22’23’24

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

5get no government money at all

0rely on government for over half their income

typical government reliance, FY20–24

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. 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.

05Through Plinth

Through Plinth

Your grantmaking, live and operational

This dossier was generated cold from public filings. In Plinth it’s a working system — every applicant assessed and every grant monitored. Here’s a taste, run on one of your grantees: CHICAGO VIDEO PROJECT.

Agentic due diligence · confidence × risk

Financial management

medium risk

~4 months of operating runway; revenue contracted over 5 filed years.

Track record & reputation

low risk

5 years of Form 990 filings, still active.

Legal standing

low risk

US 501(c)(3); EIN 363752807 on file with current IRS Form 990 filings.

Governance

Live in Plinth

Board composition & governance documents — verified live in Plinth from the applicant.

Compliance & sanctions

Live in Plinth

OFAC / UN sanctions screening — run live in Plinth at assessment.

Program capacity

Live in Plinth

Staffing, M&E and activity alignment — assessed live in Plinth from submitted proposals.

Live · Plinth’s real DD engine

Run the actual assessment on CHICAGO VIDEO PROJECT, cold from public data.

Generated live from public IRS filings + open web sources by Plinth’s agentic engine. Shown as an illustration of the product, not a formal assessment.

Post-award monitoring · continuous checks

WatchFinancial stability— Roughly 4 months of cash on hand.
WatchSustained operations— Filing through 2025; revenue contracted over the period.
On trackReliance on your funding— Your grants peaked at 19% of their budget — diversified.
Awaiting reportEvidence of delivery— Plinth collects the grantee's own monitoring reports post-award.

What you see here is static and public. In Plinth it’s operational — the full six-pillar framework on every applicant (with their own documents + live registry and sanctions checks), monitoring dashboards on every award, custom board reports, and eligibility routing for intake.

Agentic due diligenceMonitoring dashboardsCustom board reportsEligibility routing

Preview generated from this grantee’s public IRS filings and independent reporting. Pillars marked “live in Plinth” require the applicant’s submitted documents. Shown as illustration, not a formal assessment.

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPro

How do I get to The Pierce Family Charitable Foundation?

Find your warmest path to The Pierce Family Charitable Foundation through people who sit on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the introduction across shared trustees and officers.

Every link is a documented governance overlap in public IRS 990 filings — not a personal network — and each hop carries its own confidence tier. Low-confidence or distant paths are held back rather than guessed.

The Pierce Family Charitable Foundation

What you funded, over time

Past the labels — and the year it shifted

Where the money goes

Do your dollars go where the need is?

Where the work is directed

Who you back again

Backed again, and grew

Funded once

163 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2017–2025.

Government reliance of your grantees

Your grantmaking, live and operational

How do I get to The Pierce Family Charitable Foundation?

More from the funding graph

The Pierce Family Charitable Foundation

What you funded, over time

Past the labels — and the year it shifted

Where the money goes

Do your dollars go where the need is?

Where the work is directed

Who you back again

Backed again, and grew

Funded once

163 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2017–2025.

Government reliance of your grantees

Your grantmaking, live and operational

How do I get to The Pierce Family Charitable Foundation?

More from the funding graph