Skip to content
Plinth
Foundation DossiersMostly funded, not a grantmaker — see who funds it →
Plinth

· Private foundation

The Richard H Driehaus Foundation

Its FY2024 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

$5.2M
Granted FY2022
235
Grants FY2022
11
States reached
$200k
Largest
01What you fundRead
02Your edgeRead
03Your fieldRead
04Through PlinthRead
01What you fund
0197% classified

What you funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2020–2024.

Arts & Culture$3.5MCommunity Improvement$390kHousing & Shelter$308kPublic Benefit$294kPhilanthropy$260kReligion$216kEducation$145kEnvironment$123kOther$0
02FY2022 · 235 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

The 235 grants below total $3,838,626 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $5,162,401 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $1,323,775 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.

By grant size · FY2022

  • Under $10k111 grants · $435k
  • $10k–50k109 grants · $2.1M
  • $50k–250k15 grants · $1.3M
$11,000
Median grant
11
States reached
$387M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
FRIENDS OF HISTORIC SECOND CHURCH$200,000
LOCAL INITIATIVES SUPPORT CORPORATION$110,000
NATIONAL TRUST FOR HISTORIC PRESERVATION (NATIONAL)$100,000
THE CHICAGO COMMUNITY FOUNDATION$100,000
BETTER GOVERNMENT ASSOCIATION$100,000
NEIGHBORSPACE$100,000
ACTIVE TRANSPORTATION ALLIANCE$75,000
THIRD COAST INTERNATIONAL AUDIO FESTIVAL$75,000
CHICAGO BUNGALOW ASSOCIATION$65,000
LEAGUE OF CHICAGO THEATRES FOUNDATION$60,000
FRIENDS OF THE PARKS$60,000
CONGRESS FOR THE NEW URBANISM$60,000
LAWYERS FOR THE CREATIVE ARTS$60,000
CHICAGO ARCHITECTURE CENTER$50,000
HISTORIC PULLMAN FOUNDATION$50,000
02Your 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.

45%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.
$2.6M · 85 repeat orgs$3.2M to everyone else

And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +44% since the first grant, against +10% for the ones you funded once.

85 repeat relationships — 83 still active in FY2022, 2 since wound down; 124 grantees were first funded in FY2022 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

85
35

Total granted

$2.6M
$643k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+44%
+10%

Still filing today

69%
60%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2022, 34% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2.5M went to new ones.

50%100%’20’21’22
RenewedFirst-time

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

’20’21’22
Arts & CultureEducationCivil RightsEmploymentYouth DevelopmentRecreation & SportsOther

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

  • BG
    BETTER GOVERNMENT ASSOCIATION INC
    2× · 2021–2022 · $205k · revenue +50%
  • CC
    Chicago Cultural Alliance
    2× · 2020–2022 · $94k · revenue +43%
  • LO
    LEAGUE OF CHICAGO THEATRES FOUNDATION
    2× · 2021–2022 · $90k · revenue +64%

Funded once

  • 5C
    53rd Coast International Audio Festival
    one grant, 2021 · $75k
  • N
    NEIGHBORSPACEgraduated
    one grant, 2021 · $50k · revenue +77%
  • AW
    Arts Work Fund, a project of the Chicago Community Fun
    one grant, 2021 · $50k

Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

03Your 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.

1
Chamber Opera of Chicago
—
2
Pegasus Theatre Chicago

Pegasus Theatre Chicago is a professional theater approaching 45 years of supporting Chicagos diverse community by producing accessible, socially relevant theatre and promoting the development of new artists for the stage. Our mission is…

—
3
The Story Theatre

The Story Theatre will pose questions, rather than provide answers. We develop and produce new work that is whimsical, melancholic, mythic in vision, and intimate in scale. We are run by a governing artistic ensemble, who ensures our work…

Arts & Culture
4
Open Space Arts

Open Space Arts is a Chicago-based nonprofit dedicated to producing bold LGBTQ-focused theater and presenting independent queer cinema. The organization supports emerging and established artists while engaging audiences through live…

Arts & Culture
5
American Blues Theater Nfp

American Blues Theater is an Ensemble of artists committed to producing new and classic diverse stories that ask the question: What does it mean to be American?

Arts & Culture
6
Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival

Creating innovative puppetry performances utilizing musical, literary, and puppetry traditions.

Arts & Culture
7
Deeply Rooted Productions Inc

Reimagines and diversifies the aesthetics of contemporary dance by uniting modern, American, and African-American traditions in dance and storytelling.

Arts & Culture
8
Court Theatre Fund

To support Court Theatre, a department of the University of Chicago.

Arts & Culture
9
Remy Bumppo Theatre Company

Remy Bumppo expands and enriches our communitys view of the world, and our own, by producing both the great plays of the past and the important plays of today. As an ensemble-driven theater company, we author a more humane culture as we…

Arts & Culture
10
Free Street Theater

Free Street Theater creates afforable, inclusive and innovative theater in communities across Chicago Seeking new and effective ways to challenge racial and economic segregation through the arts.

—
11
Classical Music Chicago

Presenting free high-quality classical music performances and music education experiences in the Chicago metropolitan area for people of all ages and degrees of musical awareness so they can experience how music enriches life.

Arts & Culture
12
Know Theatre of Cincinnati

Know Theatre is a small professional theatre showcasing voices, new works, & plays that embrace the inherent theatricality of the live experience. Know Theatre seeks to be a place where artists and audiences feel welcome to take artistic…

Arts & Culture

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Urban Theater Chicago Nfp and the most unlike its peers is Collaborative Arts Institute of Chicago. 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.

← shrinkinggrowing →↓ leaning in → pulling backsteadyEnvironmental Advocacy and …Affordable Housing Developm…Urban Agriculture EducationLocal History MuseumsIndigenous Community Develo…Public Library SupportAsian American Civic & Cult…Government Accountability &…Classical Music OrchestrasFaith-Based Liberal Arts Co…Community Arts CentersChristian Outreach Ministri…Community Theater CompaniesProfessional Dance Companies
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 21 years old; the field is 20. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.

THE FIELDby orgYOUR GRANTEESby number18%2%<5yr13%10%5–10yr18%36%10–20yr15%27%20–35yr14%19%35–55yr22%5%55yr+
THE FIELDby orgYOUR MONEYby value18%1%<5yr13%4%5–10yr18%27%10–20yr15%26%20–35yr14%29%35–55yr22%13%55yr+

The field is 18% startups (under 5 years old) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.

Closures · last 5 years

The orgs you fund almost never close — 4% lost their exemption, against 12% of the field you don’t fund.

orgs you fund
4%
6/137
the rest of the field
12%
8,886/72,222

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.

03the grantee network

132 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. 132 of the 244 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.

8
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
46
Early backer (in before they grew)
126/132
Grantees still filing
86/132
Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

National Trust for Historic Preservation (National) — $200,000 · OtherNational Trust for Historic Preservation (National)FRIENDS OF HISTORIC SECOND CHURCH — $200,000 · OtherFRIENDS OF HISTORIC SECOND CHURCHCHICAGO COMMUNITY FOUNDATION — $190,000 · OtherCHICAGO COMMUNITY FOUNDATIONCHICAGO BUNGALOW ASSOCIATION — $115,000 · Other+115 more — $2,734,456 · Other+115 moreChicago Cultural Alliance — $94,200 · Arts & CultureChicago Cultural AllianceLEAGUE OF CHICAGO THEATRES FOUNDATION — $90,000 · Arts & CultureLEAGUE OF CHICAGO THEATRES FOUNDA…Oil Painters of America — $85,000 · Arts & CultureSOCIETY OF ARCHITECTURAL HISTORIANS — $80,000 · Arts & CultureThird Coast International Audio Festival — $75,000 · Arts & CultureFOUNDATION FOR CULTURAL REVIEW — $70,000 · Arts & Culture+64 more — $1,152,590 · Arts & Culture+64 moreBETTER GOVERNMENT ASSOCIATION INC — $205,000 · Public BenefitColumbia College Chicago — $60,000 · EducationTHE NEWBERRY LIBRARY — $25,000 · EducationASSOCIATION OF ARCHITECTURE ORGANIZATIONS INC — $25,000 · EducationBLOCK CLUB CHICAGO NFP — $20,000 · EducationEVERY HOUSE HAS A DOOR — $11,000 · EducationCHICAGO WOMEN IN ARCHITECTURE FOUNDATION — $10,000 · EducationGROWING HOME INC — $50,000 · EmploymentNORTH LAWNDALE EMPLOYMENT NETWORK — $20,000 · EmploymentFRIENDS OF THE PARKS — $60,000 · Recreation & SportsNEIGHBORSPACE — $50,000 · Community Improvement
Other$3,439,456Arts & Culture$1,646,790Public Benefit$205,000Education$151,000Employment$70,000Recreation & Sports$60,000Community Improvement$50,000

Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.

Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$100k$1.0M$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ your share of their budgetBETTER GOVERNMENT ASSOCIATION INC — $205,000 over 2y, 3.5% of budgetChicago Cultural Alliance — $94,200 over 2y, 15% of budgetStorycatchers — $90,000 over 3y, 1.8% of budgetLEAGUE OF CHICAGO THEATRES FOUNDATION — $90,000 over 2y, 7.4% of budgetOil Painters of America — $85,000 over 3y, 6.8% of budgetSOCIETY OF ARCHITECTURAL HISTORIANS — $80,000 over 2y, 3.7% of budgetThird Coast International Audio Festival — $75,000 over 1y, 31% of budgetACTIVE TRANSPORTATION ALLIANCE — $75,000 over 1y, 2.8% of budgetFOUNDATION FOR CULTURAL REVIEW — $70,000 over 2y, 0.9% of budgetFRIENDS OF THE PARKS — $60,000 over 1y, 8.5% of budgetColumbia College Chicago — $60,000 over 3y, 0.0% of budgetArts & Business Council of Chicago — $60,000 over 2y, 12% of budgetChicago Architecture Foundation — $50,000 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetNEIGHBORSPACE — $50,000 over 1y, 2.4% of budgetInvisible Institute — $50,000 over 2y, 1.5% of budgetHISTORIC PULLMAN FOUNDATION DBA FRIENDS OF PULLMAN — $50,000 over 1y, 7.9% of budgetGROWING HOME INC — $50,000 over 2y, 1.1% of budgetLAWYERS FOR THE CREATIVE ARTS — $50,000 over 1y, 8.8% of budgetFOREFRONT — $40,000 over 2y, 0.2% of budgetUKRAINIAN INSTITUTE OF MODERN ART — $38,000 over 2y, 6.3% of budgetLEAGUE OF CHICAGO THEATRES — $35,000 over 1y, 3.4% of budgetTHE RUTH PAGE FOUNDATION — $35,000 over 2y, 1.1% of budgetSTRAWDOG THEATRE COMPANY — $30,690 over 2y, 33% of budgetNORTHWEST SIDE HOUSING CENTER — $30,000 over 1y, 0.7% of budgetNATIONAL PRESERVATION PARTNERS NETWORK — $30,000 over 2y, 13% of budgetOPENLANDS — $30,000 over 1y, 0.4% of budgetFRIENDS OF THE CHICAGO RIVER — $30,000 over 1y, 1.7% of budgetGICHIGAMIIN INDIGENOUS NATIONS MUSEUM INC — $28,000 over 2y, 6.5% of budgetGRANTMAKERS IN THE ARTS — $27,320 over 2y, 2.7% of budgetREDTWIST THEATRE — $26,000 over 2y, 18% of budgetTHE NEWBERRY LIBRARY — $25,000 over 1y, 0.2% of budgetWoodstock Institute — $25,000 over 1y, 2.5% of budgetWATER PEOPLE THEATER GROUP NFP — $25,000 over 2y, 7.5% of budgetASSOCIATION OF ARCHITECTURE ORGANIZATIONS INC — $25,000 over 1y, 54% of budgetChicago West Community Music Center — $23,390 over 3y, 3.5% of budgetCHINATOWN MUSEUM FOUNDATION CHINESE AMERICAN MUSEUM OF CHICAGO — $23,000 over 2y, 4.4% of budgetThe Gift Theatre Company — $22,000 over 1y, 9.3% of budgetHyde Park Jazz Festival — $22,000 over 2y, 4.5% of budgetMPAACT — $21,000 over 2y, 12% of budgetFriends of Bohemian National Cemetery — $20,755 over 1y, 32% of budgetMUNTU DANCE THEATRE — $20,695 over 2y, 8.6% of budgetRivendell Theatre Ensemble — $20,200 over 1y, 4.8% of budgetBLOCK CLUB CHICAGO NFP — $20,000 over 1y, 0.4% of budgetLIVE THE SPIRIT RESIDENCY — $20,000 over 2y, 6.3% of budgetNORTH LAWNDALE EMPLOYMENT NETWORK — $20,000 over 1y, 0.3% of budgetSouth Side Community Art Center — $20,000 over 1y, 3.7% of budgetCongo Square Theatre Company — $20,000 over 1y, 1.6% of budgetTeatro Vista Theater With a View Inc — $20,000 over 1y, 1.8% of budget
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.

Gaylord and Dorothy D…Field Foundation of I…The Chicago Community…John D and Catherine …Ncrc Community Develo…Walder FoundationLloyd a Fry FoundationThe Joyce FoundationAlphawood FoundationLeague of Chicago The…Illinois Humanities C…Polk Bros Foundation …
Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley FoundationIL142.3× affinity74 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation · Field Foundation of Illinois · The Chicago Community Trust · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · Ncrc Community Development Fund Inc · Walder Foundation · Lloyd a Fry Foundation · The Joyce Foundation · Alphawood Foundation · League of Chicago Theatres Foundation · Illinois Humanities Council Inc · Polk Bros Foundation Inc

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.

04Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to The Richard H Driehaus Foundation?

Find your warmest path to The Richard H Driehaus 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.

On method. Every financial figure here is read directly from IRS e-file XML — your own 990/990-PF and the multi-year returns of the 244 grantees we resolved across every year we hold, several hundred filings in all (a different count from the grant rows on the cover, which are one fiscal year)— each linked to its source. Grantee achievements and outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III); we read these as association with sustained funding — the foundation is one of several forces — suppress low-confidence name matches rather than guess, and say so where a figure rests on a single grant or filing. Not everything on this page is a filed figure, and the difference matters. Filed is what you reported on your return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears. How we build these →

Generated from your IRS Form 990-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2022, released 2022. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Possibly out of date. A more recent filing (FY2024) is on record and reports $17M of grant expense with no grantee named in the published copy. A private foundation itemizes every grant it makes, so a return carrying none has filed its list as an attachment that the public copy does not include. The figures above are therefore from FY2022, the most recent year this funder’s grantee list reached the public record.

Source object · view filing

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions
grants reported with no recipient in the public record
The regranting layer
51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer
The DAF merry-go-round
$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds
The endowment market
who holds foundation money, and what just moved
The camps
funders cluster by geography, not ideology
By state
where grant money is based, and what stays home