· Private foundation
The Weasel Fund
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 FY2020–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k7 grants · $29k
- $10k–50k13 grants · $222k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $50k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| THE MONTESSORI SCHOOL OF ENGLEWOOD | $50,000 |
| THE NATURE CONSERVANCY | $30,000 |
| DONALD DANFORTH PLANT SCIENCE CENTER | $30,000 |
| CHICAGO INTERNATIONAL PUPPET THEATER FESTIVAL | $25,000 |
| GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY | $25,000 |
| PLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION OF AMERICA INC | $20,000 |
| ZENO MOUNTAIN FARM | $17,000 |
| ASPIRE OF ILLINOIS | $15,000 |
| THE SELDOMS | $10,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $10,000 |
| AUDIENCE ARCHITECTS NFP | $10,000 |
| HUBBARD STREET DANCE CHICAGO | $10,000 |
| DEEPLY ROOTED DANCE THEATER | $10,000 |
| KHECARI DANCE THEATER | $10,000 |
| NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR WOMEN | $7,500 |
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 (FY20–24, $93k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 100% 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 +36% since the first grant, against +16% for the ones you funded once.
29 repeat relationships — 19 still active in FY2024, 10 since wound down; 1 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, 96% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $10k 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
- DDDONALD DANFORTH PLANT SCIENCE CENTER4× · 2020–2024 · $115k · revenue +9%
GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY5× · 2020–2024 · $103k · revenue +17%
PLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION OF AMERICA INC5× · 2020–2024 · $78k · revenue +40%
Funded once
- CDChicago Dancemakers Forumgraduatedone grant, 2020 · $20k · revenue +181%
- LPLUCKY PLUSH PRODUCTIONSone grant, 2022 · $10k · revenue -48%
- SCSHRIVER CENTER ON POVERTY LAWone grant, 2020 · $5k · revenue -5%
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.
Visceral Dance Chicago is a contemporary company dedicated to providing a comprehensive environment designed to cultivate dance education, creation and performance for choreographers, dancers, and artists.
To build a foundation for the individual artistic growth of dancers and choreographers, providing a laboratory from which early career artists propel themselves and the art form to a new level through training, collaboration, mentorship,…
To use multiple artistic forms (primarily dance and music) and the combined talents of our diverse company to convey intense personal narratives. We are proudly and visibly multicultural, exploring the intersection of heritage, culture,…
The Auditorium Theatre of Roosevelt University ("The Auditorium"), an Illinois not-for-profit corporation, is committed to presenting the finest in international, cultural, community and educational programming to Chicago and to the…
The chicago theatre group is committed to producing both classic and contemporary works giving full voice to a wide range of artists and visions. by dedicating itself to three guiding principles - quality, equity, and community - the…
Chicago opera theater expands the tradition of opera as a living art form by engaging lovers of music and storytelling through innovative experiences, predominantly of new and rarely performed works.
South Chicago Dance Theatre (SCDT) is a multicultural organization seamlessly fusing classical and contemporary dance styles as well as preserving historic dance work. With Choreographic Diplomacy at the heart of the organization, the…
Pegasus Theatre Chicago is a professional theater approaching 45 years of supporting Chicagos diverse community by producing accessible, socially relevant theatre and promoting the development of new artists for the stage. Our mission is…
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.
Ballet Chicago is a professional track school of ballet that creates exceptional dancers. It makes classical ballet training accessible to all. Its founders Daniel Duell and Patricia Blair carry on George Balanchines legacy by providing…
Constellation is a performing arts presenter with an emphasis on forward- thinking practices, particularly in the areas of jazz, improvised, experimental, and contemporary classical music.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Chicago Dancemakers Forum and the most unlike its peers is Lucky Plush Productions. 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 31 years old; the field is 18. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% 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.
29 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. 29 of the 44 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 DONALD DANFORTH PLANT SCIENCE CENTER ↗
- Who funds GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY ↗
- Who funds PLANNED PARENTHOOD FEDERATION OF AMERICA INC ↗
- Who funds ASPIRE OF ILLINOIS ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival ↗
- Who funds HUBBARD STREET DANCE CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds THE SELDOMS ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL ORGANIZATION FOR WOMEN INC ↗
- Who funds Deeply Rooted Productions Inc ↗
- Who funds BARD COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds SPECIAL OLYMPICS INC ↗
- Who funds Invest for Kids Inc ↗
- Who funds The National Public Housing Museum ↗
- Who funds Chicago Dancemakers Forum ↗
- Who funds Audience Architects NFP dba See Chicago Dance ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN INDIAN COLLEGE FUND ↗
- Who funds LINKS HALL INC ↗
- Who funds RED CLAY DANCE COMPANY INC ↗
- Who funds LUCKY PLUSH PRODUCTIONS ↗
- Who funds LOVE SERVE REMEMBER FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO FOUNDATION FOR WOMEN ↗
- Who funds SHRIVER CENTER ON POVERTY LAW ↗
- Who funds SUSTAINABILITY INSTITUTE INC ↗
- Who funds EDGAR MILLER LEGACY ↗
- Who funds Columbia College Chicago ↗
- Who funds THE YOUNG CENTER FOR IMMIGRANT CHILDRENS RIGHTS ↗
- Who funds NATURAL RESOURCES DEFENSE COUNCIL 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: The Chicago Community Trust · Gaylord and Dorothy Donnelley Foundation · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · Ncrc Community Development Fund Inc · The Martha Struthers Farley and Donald C · Walder Foundation · New England Foundation for the Arts Incorporated · Elizabeth F Cheney Foundation · Lloyd a Fry Foundation · Polk Bros Foundation Inc · 3arts Inc · Alphawood 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 Weasel Fund 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 Weasel Fund?
Find your warmest path to The Weasel Fund 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.