· Private foundation
The Weiner-Ellman Family 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.
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 $10k24 grants · $21k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $28k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Michiana Humane Society | $27,709 |
| Youth Job Center | $9,743 |
| Individual grant recipient | $2,050 |
| One Tail at a TIme | $1,103 |
| Felines and Canines | $1,030 |
| Evanston Community FDN | $1,026 |
| Food Depository | $627 |
| Evanston Animal Shelter | $624 |
| Warren W Cherry Preschool | $515 |
| Individual grant recipient | $515 |
| Kuumba Evanston | $500 |
| Urological Research Foundation | $500 |
| Curts Cafe | $500 |
| Evanston Scholars | $409 |
| The ARK | $373 |
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 (FY17–20, $1k) 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 +85% since the first grant, against +62% for the ones you funded once.
30 repeat relationships — 16 still active in FY2024, 14 since wound down; 8 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; $2k 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
- MHMICHIANA HUMANE SOCIETY INC7× · 2017–2024 · $82k · revenue +197%
- YJYOUTH JOB CENTER INC5× · 2020–2024 · $27k · revenue +29%
- WWWARREN W CHERRY PRESCHOOL8× · 2017–2024 · $9k · revenue +13%
Funded once
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2022 · $2k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2021 · $2k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2017 · $1k
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 promote public health, safety, and welfare through the improvement of the quality and quantity of drinking water and the development and furtherance of understanding of the problems relating thereto.
Animal outlook is a national animal protection organization working to end the abuse of farmed animals using a variety of strategies, including investigations, legal advocacy, corporate and food system reform, and vegan outreach.
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…
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,…
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…
Uchicago medicine network, inc. supports and encourages health and human service by providing support, directly or indirectly to ingalls memorial hospital, the university of chicago medical center, and other related tax-exempt…
Ahip is the national trade association representing the health insurance industry. ahip's members provide health care coverage, services and solutions to more than 200 million americans. we are committed to market-based solutions and…
Empowering financial professionals and consumers through world-class advocacy and education.
A nonprofit scientific research organization that develops vaccines and antibodies for hiv, tuberculosis, and emerging infectious diseases.
To drive transformational adaptation to protect communities across the country from higher seas, stronger storms, and more frequent flooding.
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.
The purpose of the water research foundation (wrf) is a definitive research organization to advance the science of all things water to better meet the evolving needs of its subscribers and the water sector. to engage exclusively in…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Health and Medicine Policy Research Group and the most unlike its peers is Equity & Empowerment for Evanston Families. 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 20. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 18% startups (under 5 years old) — 2% 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.
39 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. 39 of the 88 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 MICHIANA HUMANE SOCIETY INC ↗
- Who funds YOUTH JOB CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds WARREN W CHERRY PRESCHOOL ↗
- Who funds Evanston Community Foundation ↗
- Who funds Felines Inc ↗
- Who funds ONE TAIL AT A TIME NFP ↗
- Who funds CURT'S CAFE ↗
- Who funds EVANSTON SCHOLARS ↗
- Who funds YOUTH & OPPORTUNITY UNITED INC ↗
- Who funds GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY ↗
- Who funds PAWS CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds ANIMAL WELFARE INSTITUTE ↗
- Who funds RECOVERY ON WATER INC ↗
- Who funds CONNECTIONS FOR THE HOMELESS INC ↗
- Who funds REPRODUCTIVE FREEDOM FOR ALL ↗
- Who funds HISPANIC FEDERATION INC ↗
- Who funds STEPPENWOLF THEATRE COMPANY ↗
- Who funds INSTITUTE FOR NONPROFIT NEWS ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds INTERNATIONAL FUND FOR ANIMAL WELFARE INC ↗
- Who funds Motley Zoo Animal Rescue ↗
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: John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · The Chicago Community Trust · The Kellcie Fund · Northwestern University · AbbVie Foundation · Elizabeth Beidler Tisdahl Foundation · Evanston Community Foundation · Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago · Francis Beidler Foundation · Finnegan Family Foundation · Circle of Service Foundation · The Blackbaud Giving Fund
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 Weiner-Ellman 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.
- Hias Inc — 88% 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.