· Private foundation
The Sidley Austin 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 you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2019–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k203 grants · $568k
- $10k–50k75 grants · $1.5M
- $50k–250k13 grants · $1.1M
- $250k+2 grants · $911k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| PUBLIC COUNSEL | $517,408 |
| LEGAL AID SOCIETY | $393,750 |
| LEGAL AID CHICAGO | $150,000 |
| KABOOM INC | $101,500 |
| UNITED WAY OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO INC | $100,000 |
| NORTHWESTERN MEMORIAL FOUNDATION | $100,000 |
| NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY | $100,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF MIAMI | $100,000 |
| LEGAL AID SOCIETY OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA | $90,000 |
| NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE AND EDUCATIONAL FUND INC | $75,000 |
| BUSINESS COUNCIL FOR INTERNATIONAL UNDERSTANDING INC | $75,000 |
| COMMERCIAL CLUB CIVIC COMMITTEE CHARITABLE FOUNDATION | $60,000 |
| METROPOLITAN FAMILY SERVICES | $50,000 |
| KIND INC | $50,000 |
| HNBA VIA - VISION IN ACTION - FUND | $50,000 |
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 (FY19–25, $1.5M) land where the poverty rate runs at 15%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 98% 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.
Which US states your grants reach
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 +30% since the first grant, against +13% for the ones you funded once.
383 repeat relationships — 191 still active in FY2025, 192 since wound down; 54 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, 93% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $278k 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
- TLTHE LEGAL AID SOCIETY7× · 2019–2025 · $2.2M · revenue +44%
- LALEGAL AID CHICAGO7× · 2019–2025 · $1.4M · revenue +79%
- UWUNITED WAY OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO INC7× · 2019–2025 · $910k · revenue +1%
Funded once
- CHCHILDREN'S HOSPITAL FOUNDATIONone grant, 2020 · $100k · revenue -30%
- LOLyric Opera of Chicagoone grant, 2019 · $100k · revenue -1%
- NMNorthwestern Memorial HealthCareone grant, 2021 · $75k · 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.
To attract, recruit, advance, and retain attorneys of color in the twin cities through education and collaboration with member organizations.
To provide meaningful access to high quality, civil legal services in the pursuit of justice for as many low income persons and members of vulnerable populations throughout colorado as possible.
Ala is the catalyst for growth by providing: diverse educational experiences, engaged peer communities, strategic solutions, dynamic resources, and trusted networks.
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.
To advance the practice of higher education attorneys for the benefit of the institutions they serve.
Empowering college admission counseling professionals through education, advocacy, and community.
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,…
The american arbitration association ("aaa") is dedicated to effective, efficient and economical methods of dispute resolution through education, technology and solutions-oriented service.
The bar association of san francisco champions equal access to justice and promotes humanity, excellence, and diversity in the legal profession. we provide legal services to disadvantaged and underserved individuals in san francisco. we…
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…
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
American gas association's (the association) mission is to develop and advocate for informed, innovative, and durable policy that fulfills our nation's energy needs, environmental aspirations and economic potential. we are committed to…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Her Justice Inc and the most unlike its peers is Recoverychick. 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.
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 37 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 1% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.4% lost their exemption, against 13% 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.
804 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. 804 of the 888 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
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
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 THE LEGAL AID SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds LEGAL AID CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO INC ↗
- Who funds LEGAL AID SOCIETY OF THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA ↗
- Who funds EQUAL JUSTICE WORKS ↗
- Who funds PUBLIC COUNSEL ↗
- Who funds THE TRUSTEES OF COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY IN THE CITY OF NEW YORK ↗
- Who funds NAACP LEGAL DEFENSE & EDUC FUND INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL VETERANS LEGAL SERVICES PROGRAM INC ↗
- Who funds KABOOM INC ↗
- Who funds YOUTH RENEWAL FUND ↗
- Who funds Metropolitan Family Services ↗
- Who funds LEGAL SERVICES CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds JEWISH UNITED FUND OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds LAWYERS ALLIANCE FOR NEW YORK ↗
- Who funds Chicago Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law Inc ↗
- Who funds SPONSORS FOR EDUCATIONAL OPPORTUNITY INC ↗
- Who funds Northwestern University ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN'S LAW CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds THE TEAK FELLOWSHIP INC ↗
- Who funds MELANOMA RESEARCH ALLIANCE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE CHICAGO BAR FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO VOLUNTEER LEGAL SERVICES FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Heartland Alliance for Human Needs and Rights ↗
- Who funds The Rand Corporation ↗
- Who funds NEW YORK CARES INC ↗
- Who funds University of Miami ↗
- Who funds THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA BAR FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE WASHINGTON LEGAL CLINIC FOR THE HOMELESS INC ↗
- Who funds HER JUSTICE INC ↗
- Who funds WORLD BUSINESS CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds ASSOCIATION OF THE BAR OF THE CITY OF NEW YORK FUND INC ↗
- Who funds Public Interest Law Initiative ↗
- Who funds BREAD FOR THE CITY INC ↗
- Who funds BROADWAY HOUSING COMMUNITIES INC ↗
- Who funds BROOKLYN ACADEMY OF MUSIC INC ↗
- Who funds New York Lawyers for the Public Interest Inc ↗
- Who funds HNBA VIA-VISION IN ACTION-FUND ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN LAW INSTITUTE ↗
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: Katten Muchin Rosenman Foundation Inc · Perkins Coie Foundation · Equal Justice Works · Weil Gotshal & Manges Foundation Inc · The Morrison & Foerster Foundation · The Gibson Dunn & Crutcher Foundation · Quinn Emanuel Foundation · United Way Miami Inc · The Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati Foundation · Littler Mendelson Foundation Inc Attn Tax Manager · Mc Dermott Will and Emery Charitable Foundation · 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.
Government reliance of your grantees
Every dot is one organization The Sidley Austin 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.
- Disability Rights Maryland Inc dba Maryland Disability Law Center Inc — 49% of income from government
- United Way of Massachusetts Bay Inc — 23% of income from government
- Volunteer Lawyers for Justice in — 9% of income from government
- President and Fellows of Harvard College — 7% of income from government
- University of Miami — 5% of income from government
- Sharsheret Inc — 4% 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.