How much does The Satter Foundation give?

The Satter Foundation reported 12 grants totaling $152,000 in its FY2024 IRS filing. It funded between 7 and 86 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2023.

What does The Satter Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2018 to FY2024, its largest causes are Education (18%), Health (17%), Recreation & Sports (14%).

Who are The Satter Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2018 to FY2024: Northwestern University ($1.6M), Accelerate Institute ($700k), Gateway for Cancer Research ($624k).

Does The Satter Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2023, 29% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does The Satter Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

Which funders back the same organizations as The Satter Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include The Chicago Community Trust, The Canning Foundation, Patrick G and Shirley W Ryan Foundation.

Where is The Satter Foundation based?

The Satter Foundation is based in IL.

The Satter Foundation

The Satter Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

The Satter 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.

$152k

Granted FY2024still arriving

Grants FY2024still arriving

States reached

$50k

Largest

01What it funds

01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2018 to 2024.

Education$2.9MHealth$2.6MRecreation & Sports$2.2MPhilanthropy$1.3MEnvironment$1.2MArts & Culture$1.2MInternational$1.1MCivil Rights$1.1MOther$0

02FY2024 · 12 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2024

Under $10k6 grants · $22k
$10k–50k5 grants · $80k
$50k–250k1 grant · $50k

$10,000

Median grant

States reached

$17M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
SHIRLEY RYAN ABILITY LAB	$50,000
RENEW VENTURE LAB 2	$25,000
NEW HORIZON HOUSE	$25,000
VET JOBS	$10,000
GATEWAY FOR CANCER RESEARCH	$10,000
BRIGHT STAR COMMUNITY OUTREACH	$10,000
NORTHWESTERN MEMORIAL FOUNDATION	$5,000
PREVENT CHILD ABUSE IN AMERICA	$5,000
THE GOLDEN APPLE FOUNDATION	$5,000
INVEST FOR KIDS	$5,000
HIPPOCRATIC CANCER RESEARCH FOUNDATION	$1,000
PMC JIMMY FUND	$1,000

02The need

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Its human-services grants (FY18–24, $381k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 84% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

How this is measured

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.

Which US states its grants reach

How this is measured

US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.

Where the work is directed

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

About 10% of The Satter Foundation’s grant dollars are earmarked for a different county than the recipient’s own address.

The Satter Foundationlessmore of its giving

Placed by recipient address · 4.2% directed abroad (not shown)

How this is measured

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 funder’s own 990 grant descriptions.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

87%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$12M · 82 repeat orgs$1.7M to everyone else

82 repeat relationships: 6 still active in FY2024, 76 since wound down; 6 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$12M

$1.6M

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+33%

+39%

Still filing today

76%

52%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 50% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $76k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

EducationInternationalHealthHuman ServicesArts & CultureRecreation & SportsOther

How this is measured

First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

Northwestern University
5× · 2018–2022 · $1.6M · revenue +33%
GF
GATEWAY FOR CANCER RESEARCH
6× · 2018–2024 · $624k · revenue +131%
NAVY SEAL FOUNDATION INC
6× · 2018–2023 · $584k · revenue +26%

Funded once

NC
NATURE CONSERVANCY OF ILLINOIS
one grant, 2021 · $500k
CF
CENTER FOR APPLIED NON-VIOLENT ACTION AND STRATEGIES (CANVAS)
one grant, 2020 · $250k
TM
THE MILKEN INSTITUTEgraduated
one grant, 2018 · $100k · revenue +549%

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.

04Its field

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.

United States Naval Institute

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.

—

National Opinion Research Center

See schedule onorc at the university of chicago conducts research and data science on critical societal issues to guide decision-making and the development of programs and public policy. our experts identify relationships and trends, and…

Social Science

Central Indiana Corporate Partnership Inc

Central indiana corporate partnership (cicp) is an alliance of indiana's business and research university leaders coming together to foster long-term prosperity for the region. cicp's mission is to transform the economy of indiana in order…

Community Improvement

American Association for the Advancement of Science

Advance science, engineering, and innovation throughout the world for the benefit of all. the world's largest multidisciplinary scientific society and a leading publisher of cutting-edge research through its science family of journals,…

Science & Tech

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

The mission of mit is to advance knowledge and educate students in science, technology, and other areas of scholarship that will best serve the nation and the world in the 21st century.

Education

Chicago Public Education Fund

The chicago public education fund (the fund) is a nonprofit organization that improves public schools in chicago by investing in the talented educators who lead them.

Education

University of New Haven

The University of New Haven is a student-centered comprehensive university with an emphasis on excellence in liberal arts and professional education. Our mission is to prepare our students to lead purposeful and fulfilling lives in a…

Education

Aacsb International - the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business

Aacsb international provides quality assurance of business school programs, the latest in business education intelligence, thought leadership, and learning and development services.

Education

Boston Architectural College

The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.

—

Furman University

The primary mission of furman as a liberal arts institution is to provide a distinctive education in fine arts, humanities, social sciences, mathematics and the sciences, as well as selected professional disciplines.

Education

The George Washington University

The mission of the george washington university (gw) is to educate individuals in liberal arts, languages, sciences, learned professions, and other courses and subjects of study, and to conduct scholarly research and publish the findings…

Education

The Rand Corporation

Help improve policy and decision making through research and analysis.

Public Benefit

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Junior Achievement of Chicago; the most unlike its peers is Wildlife Conservation Society. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

05the grantee network

97 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2026.

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 2026, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 97 of the 140 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.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

96/97

Grantees still filing

71/97

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$6,958,200Recreation & Sports$1,880,000Education$1,836,000Health$1,530,000International$1,261,600Community Improvement$1,157,000Arts & Culture$855,000

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.

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.

The Chicago Community TrustIL29.1× affinity21 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: The Chicago Community Trust · The Canning Foundation · Patrick G and Shirley W Ryan Foundation · The Robert Thomas Bobins Foundation · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago · Lavin Family Foundation · Baird Foundation Inc · Stearns Family Charitable Fund · Frank Family Foundation · The Gorter Family Foundation

How this is measured

Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization The Satter Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Satter Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

4get no government money at all

17report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

typical government reliance, FY20–25

How this is measured

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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to The Satter Foundation?

Find your warmest path to The Satter 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.

Play a game based on Satter’s filings →

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