· Public charity
The Service Club of Chicago
THE SERVICE CLUB OF CHICAGO is a group dedicated to raising funds for other charitable organizations in the chicagoland area.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k15 grants · $91k
- $10k–50k25 grants · $425k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CHICAGO CHILDREN'S ADVOCACY CENTER | $40,000 |
| RESTORING THE PATH | $39,215 |
| HOLY TRINITY HIGH SCHOOL | $25,000 |
| HELPING HAND CENTER | $25,000 |
| MARYVILLE ACADEMY | $21,358 |
| SOS CHILDREN'S VILLAGES ILLINOIS | $21,193 |
| AVENUES TO INDEPENDENCE | $20,337 |
| BOYS HOPE GIRLS HOPE OF ILLINOIS | $17,000 |
| CIRCLE URBAN MINISTRIES | $16,838 |
| PEOPLE'S MUSIC SCHOOL INC | $15,588 |
| A SAFE HAVEN FOUNDATION | $15,502 |
| A RED ORCHID THEATRE | $15,014 |
| LUTHERAN SOCIAL SERVICES OF ILLINOIS | $14,672 |
| WILLOW HOUSE | $13,477 |
| LAWRENCE HALL | $13,470 |
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 (FY17–24, $390k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 85% 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 +81% since the first grant, against +28% for the ones you funded once.
20 repeat relationships — 19 still active in FY2024, 1 since wound down; 21 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (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 FY2024, 57% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $220k 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 CHILDREN'S ADVOCACY CENTER3× · 2020–2024 · $61k · revenue +96%- RTRESTORING THE PATH2× · 2018–2024 · $42k · revenue +307%
- HIHOPE IGNITES CHICAGO3× · 2020–2024 · $41k · revenue +45%
Funded once
- YMYoung Mens Educational Networkgraduatedone grant, 2018 · $32k · revenue +42%
- GCGARDEN CENTER SERVICESgraduatedone grant, 2017 · $25k · revenue +72%
- LPLINCOLN PARK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETYone grant, 2018 · $25k · revenue +16%
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.
A better chicago is changing how chicago fights poverty by investing in bold ideas that create opportunity for our youth.
Providing academic support to children experiencing homelessness in Chicago and providing resources and services to families experiencing homelessness in Chicago.
Child Link provides foster care, family counseling, and therapy services to Chicago area adolescents who are at risk of homelessness. Child Link also refers adolescents to other agencies that are able to provide additional resources and…
To enrich the lives of our community through dance education and performance while developing Chicago's native talent pool in a welcoming environment that celebrates multiculturalism & ethnic diversity.
Chicago childrens museum is a place where families and caregivers with infants and children are encouraged to create, explore, and discover together through play. the museum features three vibrant floors of exhibits and activities that…
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.
To help people with developmental disabilities meet life's challenges and reach their highest potential.
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…
Tutoring chicago delivers the power of education through one-to-one tutoring.
Serving recently arrived migrants and asylum seekers in the Chicagoland area and is committed to upholding the dignity and human rights of immigrants.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is New Moms Inc and the most unlike its peers is The Silver Lining Foundation Inc. 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 36 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) — 1% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 2% lost their exemption, against 16% 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.
166 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. 166 of the 180 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 CHILDREN'S ADVOCACY CENTER ↗
- Who funds RESTORING THE PATH ↗
- Who funds HOPE IGNITES CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds Young Mens Educational Network ↗
- Who funds AVENUES TO INDEPENDENCE ↗
- Who funds CIRCLE URBAN MINISTRIES ↗
- Who funds The People's Music School ↗
- Who funds Porchlight Music Theatre Chicago ↗
- Who funds GARDEN CENTER SERVICES ↗
- Who funds HELPING HAND CENTER ↗
- Who funds LINCOLN PARK ZOOLOGICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds THE CHICAGO LIGHTHOUSE FOR PEOPLE WHO ARE BLIND OR VISUALLY IMPAIRED ↗
- Who funds FREE WRITE ARTS & LITERACY NFP ↗
- Who funds SOUTHWEST CHICAGO HOMELESS SERVICES ↗
- Who funds WELL OF MERCY INC ↗
- Who funds Lawrence Hall ↗
- Who funds LUTHERAN SOCIAL SERVICES OF ILLINOIS ↗
- Who funds PRIMO CENTER FOR WOMEN & CHILDREN ↗
- Who funds UNION LEAGUE BOYS AND GIRLS CLUBS ↗
- Who funds Maryville Academy ↗
- Who funds A JUST HARVEST ↗
- Who funds ONE FAMILY ILLINOIS ↗
- Who funds OUR PLACE OF NEW TRIER TOWNSHIP ↗
- Who funds Enlace Chicago ↗
- Who funds MATTHEW HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds GARY COMER YOUTH CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds THE CHICAGO HIGH SCHOOL FOR THE ARTS ↗
- Who funds UNITING VOICES ↗
- Who funds Apparel Industry Board Inc ↗
- Who funds A Red Orchid Theatre ↗
- Who funds LITTLE CITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds COUNCIL FOR JEWISH ELDERLY ↗
- Who funds Center for Independence through Conductive Education Inc ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO YOUTH PROGRAMS INC ↗
- Who funds MARKLUND CHILDRENS HOME ↗
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 · United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc · The Chicago Community Trust · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · George M Eisenberg Foundation for Charities · Helen V Brach Foundation · WP & HB White Foundation · Dr Scholl Foundation · The a Montgomery Ward Foundation · Fifth Third Chicagoland Foundation · Arie and Ida Crown Memorial · Lloyd a Fry 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 Service Club of Chicago 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.
- Best Buddies International Inc — 4% of income from government
- The Bottom Line Inc — 0% of income from government
- Shriners Hospitals for Children — 0% of income from government
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.