· Private foundation
The Pierce Family Charitable Foundation
Its FY2023 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 FY2020–2023.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2023
- Under $10k49 grants · $110k
- $10k–50k29 grants · $517k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $50k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| 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 |
| MARGARETS VILLAGE | $20,000 |
| MATTHEW HOUSE | $20,000 |
| LYTE COLLECTIVE | $20,000 |
| THE BOULEVARD OF CHICAGO INC | $20,000 |
| GOOD NEWS PARTNERS | $20,000 |
| IGNITE ORG | $20,000 |
| NEW MOMS INC | $20,000 |
| CHICAGO COALITION FOR THE HOMELESS | $20,000 |
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 (FY20–23, $717k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 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.
Which US states your grants reach
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.
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.
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.
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 +38% since the first grant, against +30% for the ones you funded once.
98 repeat relationships — 55 still active in FY2023, 43 since wound down; 12 grantees were first funded in FY2023 (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 FY2023, 97% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $22k 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
- MRMICHAEL REESE HEALTH TRUST4× · 2020–2023 · $190k · revenue +4%
- CFCROSSROADS FUND INC4× · 2020–2023 · $147k · revenue +167%
- NMNEW MOMS INC4× · 2020–2023 · $123k · revenue +72%
Funded once
GRANTMAKERS FOR EFFECTIVE ORGANIZATIONSone grant, 2021 · $25k · revenue +1%- MHMERCY HOUSING LAKEFRONTgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $15k · revenue +42%
- RFROCKFORD FAMILY PLANNING FOUNDATION INCone 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.
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.
Connecting and amplifying the power of individuals to build a just, equitable, and inclusive city.
Live Free Illinois is a statewide organization partnering with over 120 congregations and directly impacted individuals to build safer more equitable communities across Illinois. Operating at the intersection of criminal justice reform and…
The Chicago Refugee Coalition is a 501c3 non-profit organization dedicated ot the alleviation of human suffering through innovative partnerships, advocacy and community empowerment.
A better chicago is changing how chicago fights poverty by investing in bold ideas that create opportunity for our youth.
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.…
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.
Chicago Workers' Collaborative's mission is to promote full employment and equality for the lowest wage-earners, primarily temporary staffing workers, in the Chicago region through leadership and skills training, critical assistance and…
Chh honors every person's right to a home and health care, by bridging the housing and health care systems, to improve the lives of chicagoans experiencing homelessness.
Providing academic support to children experiencing homelessness in Chicago and providing resources and services to families experiencing homelessness in Chicago.
To promote the rights of renters to safe, accessible, and affordable housing on a non-discriminatory basis through education, outreach, supportive services, advocacy, and legal representation.
To disrupt cycles of poverty with dignified transitional housing that hoslistically connects young men to opportunities that create and sustain personal, professional and relational growth.
Advancing Nonprofits is committed to strengthening the organizational health and support long-term development of small nonprofits on Chicagos west and south sides while prioritizing Black- and Latine-led community organizations.…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Connections for the Homeless Inc and the most unlike its peers is The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. 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 29 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.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 1% lost their exemption, against 12% 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.
173 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. 173 of the 195 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 CHICAGO CARES INC ↗
- Who funds MICHAEL REESE HEALTH TRUST ↗
- Who funds CROSSROADS FUND INC ↗
- Who funds NEW MOMS INC ↗
- Who funds THE RENAISSANCE COLLABORATIVE INC ↗
- Who funds Center for Changing Lives ↗
- Who funds NORTHWEST SIDE HOUSING CENTER ↗
- Who funds MATTHEW HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds FACING FORWARD TO END HOMELESSNESS ↗
- Who funds ALL CHICAGO MAKING HOMELESSNESS HISTORY ↗
- Who funds MARGARETS VILLAGE ↗
- Who funds THE NIGHT MINISTRY ↗
- Who funds THE BOULEVARD OF CHICAGO INC ↗
- Who funds COVENANT HOUSE ILLINOIS INC ↗
- Who funds LA CASA NORTE ↗
- Who funds IGNITE ↗
- Who funds GOOD NEWS PARTNERS ↗
- Who funds SARAH'S CIRCLE ↗
- Who funds CONNECTIONS FOR THE HOMELESS INC ↗
- Who funds HOUSING OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN INC ↗
- Who funds SPANISH COALITION FOR HOUSING ↗
- Who funds THE LYTE COLLECTIVE ↗
- Who funds Latinos Progresando ↗
- Who funds FOREFRONT ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO FOUNDATION FOR WOMEN ↗
- Who funds DEBORAH'S PLACE ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO HOUSE & SOCIAL SERVICE AGENCY ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO COALITION TO END HOMELESSNESS ↗
- Who funds Center for Impact Research ↗
- Who funds GRANTMAKERS FOR EFFECTIVE ORGANIZATIONS ↗
- Who funds Illinois Community for Displaced Immigrants ↗
- Who funds Heartland Alliance for Human Needs and Rights ↗
- Who funds The Cara Program ↗
- Who funds NISGUA ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO VIDEO PROJECT ↗
- Who funds LATIN AMERICA WORKING GROUP EDUCATION FUND ↗
- Who funds University of Chicago ↗
- Who funds MERCY HOUSING LAKEFRONT ↗
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: Polk Bros Foundation Inc · Cuore e Mani Foundation · United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc · Field Foundation of Illinois · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · Arie and Ida Crown Memorial · The Chicago Community Trust · Circle of Service Foundation · All Chicago Making Homelessness History · Lloyd a Fry Foundation · 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 organization 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.
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 Pierce Family Charitable Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Pierce Family Charitable 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.