· Private foundation
The Potter's Clay 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.
What it funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.
Where the money goes
Grants by size, and the largest recipients.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k1 grant · $5k
- $10k–50k8 grants · $165k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| THE NIGHT MINISTRY | $30,000 |
| CONNECTIONS FOR THE HOMELESS | $30,000 |
| GREATER CHIC FOOD | $25,000 |
| HOWARD BROWN HEALTH CENTER | $25,000 |
| PLANNED PARENTHOOD | $25,000 |
| OPEN COMMUNITIES | $10,000 |
| OPENING DOORS | $10,000 |
| GRAND AVENUE CLUB | $10,000 |
| KINSHIP COMMUNITY FOOR CENTER | $5,000 |
Does the money reach high-need areas?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.
Its human-services grants (FY17–25, $288k) 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 its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
How this is measured
How this is measured
Who it funds again
Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.
Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +64% since the first grant, against 0% for those funded once.
11 repeat relationships: 7 still active in FY2025, 4 since wound down; 2 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, 91% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $15k went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
How this is measured
Backed again, and grew
THE NIGHT MINISTRY9× · 2017–2025 · $275k · revenue +11%- HBHoward Brown Health Center9× · 2017–2025 · $210k · revenue +169%
- CFCONNECTIONS FOR THE HOMELESS INC9× · 2017–2025 · $205k · revenue +370%
Funded once
- COCITY OF NEW VIENNAone grant, 2019 · $25k
- ODOPEN DOORSone grant, 2021 · $10k
DIVERSE AND RESILIENT INCone grant, 2024 · $10k · revenue 0%
How this is measured
Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
Closest unfunded matches
The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.
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.
Chicago Coalition to End Homelessness (CCH) builds community power and advances racial equity through organizing, advocacy, legal assistance, and education to prevent and end homelessness because housing is a human right.
Strive to improve the health and well being of migrant and seasonal farmworkers and other medically vulnerable populations by providing quality accessable, affordable, and culturally responsive health care within the community we serve.
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…
A better chicago is changing how chicago fights poverty by investing in bold ideas that create opportunity for our youth.
The mission of goodwill is to create opportunities for individuals with barriers to enhance their lives. barriers include physical or mental disabilities, lack of education and job preparation, socio-economic disadvantages, and others.…
Provide affordable, high-quality health services and remove inequities to improve the lives of all.
To provide decent, safe and sanitary housing that is affordable to low and moderate-income persons and to stabilize and strengthen communities by improving the local housing stock. the corporation shall administer programs that revitalize…
To give members the ability to control their financial destiny by providing members with the means to satisfy their needs for financial services in a comfortable family-like environment. in doing so, the credit union strives to maintain…
Respond now connects those in need with health, hunger, and housing services in the chicago southland.
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.
Operate homes for the aged and to conduct charitable and benevolent enterprises
How this is measured
11 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.
Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.
How this is measured
Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 11 of the 16 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.
Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.
Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee
Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing
Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding
A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.
- Who funds THE NIGHT MINISTRY ↗
- Who funds Howard Brown Health Center ↗
- Who funds CONNECTIONS FOR THE HOMELESS INC ↗
- Who funds Planned Parenthood of Illinois ↗
- Who funds GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY ↗
- Who funds OPENING DOORS ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO COMMUNITY BOND FUND ↗
- Who funds OPEN COMMUNITIES ↗
- Who funds Young Mens Christian Assoc McGaw Inc ↗
- Who funds DIVERSE AND RESILIENT INC ↗
- Who funds GRAND AVENUE CLUB INC ↗
Co-funders
Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.
Open a dossier: American Endowment Foundation · Network for Good · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Amazonsmile Foundation
How this is measured
How much its grantees rely on government
Each dot is one organization The Potter's Clay Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Potter's Clay Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.
How this is measured
Play a game based on Potter's Clay’s filings →