· Private foundation
The Sarah Spencer Foundation
Its FY2022 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 FY2018–2022.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CHICAGO ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY | $155,059 |
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 (FY18–18, $5k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 95% 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 +80% since the first grant, against +35% for the ones you funded once.
7 repeat relationships — 1 still active in FY2022, 6 since wound down.
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 FY2022, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
Chicago Zoological Society2× · 2020–2022 · $165k · revenue +80%- MFMAYMONT FOUNDATION3× · 2018–2020 · $40k · revenue +130%
- HRHISTORIC RICHMOND FOUNDATION3× · 2018–2020 · $15k · revenue +10%
Funded once
- TFTHE FIRST TEEone grant, 2018 · $50k
- RWREVEILLE WEEKDAY SCHOOLone grant, 2018 · $10k
OPPORTUNITY INTERNATIONAL INC D/B/A OPPORTUNITY INTERNATIONAL-USone grant, 2018 · $10k · revenue -44%
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.
The Detroit Historical Society tells Detroit's stories and why they matter through its exhibits, programs, outreach, and the preservation and dissemination of its artifacts and collections.
The npr foundation ("foundation") is organized and operated exclusively for the benefit of its sole supported organization, national public radio, inc. ("npr inc."). the foundation supports npr inc. through various activities such as…
The new york botanical garden is a museum of plants and a scientific research center devoted to the study of plants and their uses. it is the garden's mission to improve public understanding of the natural world, horticulture, and the…
Be a catalyst! Ignite our community's passion for nature and science.
Lincoln park zoo is dedicated to connecting people with nature by providing a free, family-oriented wildlife experience in the heart of chicago and by advancing the highest quality of animal care, horticulture, education, science and…
Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.
Finance impacts everyone. as a socially relevant organization, the museum of american finance seeks to improve understanding of the influence of financial institutions and capital markets on the u.s. and global economies, and on…
To enrich life through discovery, education, and the conservation of plants and the natural environment.
Eastern national promotes the public's understanding and support of america's national parks and other public trust partners by providing quality educational experiences, products and services.
The organization's mission is to conserve and promote new england's native plants to ensure healthy, biologically diverse landscapes.
To enrich life by perpetuating tropical plants, ecosystems and cultural heritage through discovery, scientific research, conservation, and education.
Agu's mission is to advance and support an inclusive community of earth and space scientists and partners dedicated to discovery and solutions to societal challenges. agu seeks to catalyze discovery and solutions to scientific and societal…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Field Museum of Natural History and the most unlike its peers is The Adler Planetarium. 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 59 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) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 15% 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.
21 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. 21 of the 31 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 Zoological Society ↗
- Who funds JOHN F KENNEDY CENTER FOR THE PERFORMING ARTS ↗
- Who funds MAYMONT FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds HISTORIC RICHMOND FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds OPPORTUNITY INTERNATIONAL INC D/B/A OPPORTUNITY INTERNATIONAL-US ↗
- Who funds TRUSTEES OF DEERFIELD ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds The YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago ↗
- Who funds Bon Secours Richmond Healthcare Foundation ↗
- Who funds ELAWA FARM FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds A JUST HARVEST ↗
- Who funds THE MENOKIN FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO COALITION TO END HOMELESSNESS ↗
- Who funds Kenneth C Griffin Museum of Science and Industry ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN CIVIL LIBERTIES UNION FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds FIELD MUSEUM OF NATURAL HISTORY ↗
- Who funds SHEDD AQUARIUM SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds METROSQUASH NFP ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds THE ADLER PLANETARIUM ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL PUBLIC RADIO INC ↗
- Who funds Gorton Community Center ↗
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 · Sheffield Foundation · National Philanthropic Trust · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile 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 Sarah Spencer 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 Sarah Spencer Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Sarah Spencer 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.