· Private foundation
The Smith Family 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 FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k2 grants · $6k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $75k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $100k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| DEMOCRACY MATTERS FOUNDATION | $100,000 |
| ILLINOIS BAR FOUNDATION | $35,000 |
| FRANCIS W PARKER SCHOOL | $15,000 |
| HORIZONS FOR YOUTH | $15,000 |
| LITTLE CITY FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| MISERICORDIA HOME | $5,000 |
| ANTI-CRUELTY SOCIETY | $1,000 |
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 (FY17–25, $23k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 67% 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 +33% since the first grant, against +14% for the ones you funded once.
17 repeat relationships — 4 still active in FY2025, 13 since wound down; 3 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, 91% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $16k 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
Northwestern University3× · 2020–2024 · $150k · revenue +33%- IBIllinois Bar Foundation3× · 2017–2025 · $46k · revenue +151%
- FWFrancis W Parker School4× · 2021–2025 · $35k · revenue +31%
Funded once
- NSNORTHWESTERN SCHOLARSHIP FUNDone grant, 2017 · $30k
THE HOWARD UNIVERSITYgraduatedone grant, 2019 · $25k · revenue +38%- LULOYOLA UNIVERSITY SCHOOL OF LAWone grant, 2020 · $25k
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 institute's mission, as set out in its certificate of incorporation, is to promote the clarification and simplification of the law and its better adaptation to social needs, to secure the better administration of justice, and to…
Mitchell hamline school of law is an independent law school that advances its mission through a combination of legal education, public service, and community engagement. it is dedicated to preparing students to practice law, while also…
PILI engages, inspires and empowers those advancing equal access to justice.
The only law school in Rhode Island, Roger Williams University School of Law offers future attorneys a rigorous, hands-on legal education in a supportive, personalized environment. Preparing students for success in the public and private…
Illinois college is a co-educational institution of higher education learning providing a four-year educational program leading to the baccalaureate degree. illinois college is a community committed to the highest standards of scholarship…
To advance the practice of higher education attorneys for the benefit of the institutions they serve.
California western school of law is an independent, aba/aals and wasc senior college and university commission (wscuc) accredited s.d. law school that prepares graduates for the practice of law through a carefully sequenced program of…
The chicago psychoanalytic institute transforms the lives of individuals, families and communities, using psychoanalytic knowledge to help them grow and thrive.
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.
Provide post-secondary education leading to a baccalaureate degree. Program service expenditures are made in conjunction with the operation of a liberal arts college spread over 107 acres with approximately 63 educational and support…
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.
Enhance the ability of actec members to provide the most efficient and highest quality services to their clients; develop qualified trust and estate counselors; improve and reform probate, trust and tax laws, procedures, and standards of…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Aspen Institute Inc and the most unlike its peers is Dillon Foundation. 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 55 years old; the field is 20. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 18% 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 12% 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.
30 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. 30 of the 54 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 DEMOCRACY MATTERS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Northwestern University ↗
- Who funds LOYOLA UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds Illinois Bar Foundation ↗
- Who funds Francis W Parker School ↗
- Who funds NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL CENTER FOR STATE COURTS ↗
- Who funds THE HOWARD UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds THE ASPEN INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds Horizons for Youth ↗
- Who funds ENVIRONMENTAL LAW AND POLICY CENTER OF THE MIDWEST ↗
- Who funds GREATER ORGANIZATION FOR LESS FORTUNATE ↗
- Who funds LITTLE CITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds ILLINOIS WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds Pioneer Center for Human Services ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL CIVIL JUSTICE INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds SHRIVER CENTER ON POVERTY LAW ↗
- Who funds ILLINOIS EQUAL JUSTICE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MISERICORDIA HOME ↗
- Who funds WORKING IN THE SCHOOLS INC ↗
- Who funds Urban Ministries of Durham Inc ↗
- Who funds PRAIRIE STATE LEGAL SERVICES INC ↗
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: United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc · AbbVie Foundation · The Chicago Community Trust · Synchrony Foundation · Arthur J Gallagher Foundation · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Charities Aid Foundation America · National Philanthropic Trust · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · American Endowment Foundation · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust 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 Smith Family 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 Smith Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to The Smith Family 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.