· Private foundation
The William F O'Connor Foundation
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2021–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k19 grants · $60k
- $10k–50k7 grants · $90k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $110k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| WTTW CHANNEL 11 | $110,000 |
| THE BRIDGE FUND | $25,000 |
| ST COLETTA'S OF ILLINOIS FOUNDATION | $15,000 |
| READING POWER INC | $10,000 |
| MISSION OF OUR LADY OF MERCY-MERCY HOME FOR BOYS AND GIRLS | $10,000 |
| CHICAGO JESUIT ACADEMY | $10,000 |
| CLUB OF HEARTS INC | $10,000 |
| ST PATRICK HIGH SCHOOL | $10,000 |
| HAZELDEN BETTY FORD | $7,500 |
| LOYOLA ACADEMY | $7,000 |
| BIG SHOULDERS FUND | $5,000 |
| CHICAGO HISTORY MUSEUM | $5,000 |
| MISERICORDIA FAMILY ASSOCIATION | $5,000 |
| THE MANNA FOOD PROJECT | $5,000 |
| LITTLE SISTERS OF THE POOR | $5,000 |
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 (FY21–25, $125k) 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.
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.
28 repeat relationships — 23 still active in FY2025, 5 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, 95% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $13k 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
- TCThe Corporation of Saint Mary's College Notre Dame3× · 2021–2023 · $36k · revenue +15%
- COCLUB OF HEARTS INC2× · 2024–2025 · $25k · revenue +9%
MISERICORDIA FOUNDATION5× · 2021–2025 · $25k · revenue +680%
Funded once
- MHMERCY HOME FOR BOYS AND GIRLSone grant, 2021 · $5k
- OLOUR LADY OF MERCY PARISHone grant, 2021 · $5k
- ICIMMACULATE CONCEPTION CHURCHone grant, 2021 · $5k
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 foundation for catholic secondary education exists to financially support education programs of catholic central high school and west catholic high through tuition assistance, faculty enhancement and program/facilities
Notre dame schools will engage students from preschool through high school in an exceptional catholic education. we will focus on loving, respecting, and educating all to discover and develop their god-given talents. we will challenge our…
The mission of misericordia home is to support children and adults with intellectual and developmental disabilities who choose our community by providing the highest quality residential, training, and employment services. we provide the…
As an affiliate of commonspirit health, we make the healing presence of god known in our world by improving the health of the people we serve, especially those who are vulnerable, while we advance social justice for all.
Raise money to support marist high school
The primary purpose of the chicago home for incurables, ("the home"), is to provide financial support to the university of chicago for the operation of patient care facilities and funding of research of incurable diseases at the university…
Cardinal stritch university is a comprehensive, coeducational, institution offering educational programs leading to associate, baccalaureate, masters and doctoral degrees in a variety of disciplines provided through its three colleges:…
College of the holy cross is a private, jesuit, catholic, liberal arts college (see schedule o).
The university of dayton is a top-tier independent, catholic research educational institution founded in 1850. the primary exempt purpose is providing post secondary education through undergraduate, graduate, doctoral and continuing…
St. marys university, as a catholic marianist university, fosters the formation of people in faith and educates leaders for the common good through community, integrated liberal arts and professional education, and academic excellence.
Through our exceptional health care services, we reveal the healing presence of god.
The benedictine foundation (formerly benedictine health system foundation) was established to coordinate, encourage, motivate and support the fund development activity effort within benedictine health system and its supported organizations.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Misericordia Foundation and the most unlike its peers is Blood Cancer United Inc. 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 54 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) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 15% 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.
18 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. 18 of the 42 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 MAYO CLINIC ↗
- Who funds GRAND HAVEN AREA COMMUNITY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds ST COLETTAS OF ILLINOIS FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds The Corporation of Saint Mary's College Notre Dame ↗
- Who funds CLUB OF HEARTS INC ↗
- Who funds MISERICORDIA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Big Shoulders Fund ↗
- Who funds BLOOD CANCER UNITED INC ↗
- Who funds READING POWER INC ↗
- Who funds THE MANNA FOOD PROJECT INC DBA - THE MANNA FOOD PROJECT ↗
- Who funds DUNEBROOK INC ↗
- Who funds HOPE IGNITES CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds Bear Necessities Pediatric Cancer Foundation ↗
- Who funds BONITA SPRINGS ASSISTANCE OFFICE INC ↗
- Who funds DESERT COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds NORTH SHORE ART LEAGUE ↗
- Who funds PALETTE AND CHISEL ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS ↗
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: AbbVie Foundation · The Chicago Community Trust · Baird Foundation Inc · Arthur J Gallagher Foundation · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · Charities Aid Foundation America · National Philanthropic Trust · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving 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 William F O'Connor 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
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Find your warmest path to The William F O'Connor 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.