How much does Thing 123 Foundation give?

Thing 123 Foundation reported 26 grants totaling $256,796 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 2 and 24 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.

What does Thing 123 Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Youth Development (20%), Food & Nutrition (19%), Housing & Shelter (17%).

Who are Thing 123 Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: Care for Friends ($243k), Elmhurst-Yorkfield Food Pantry ($83k), Chicago Lights ($83k).

Does Thing 123 Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 29% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Thing 123 Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

Which funders back the same organizations as Thing 123 Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Imc Chicago Charitable Foundation, United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc, The Chicago Community Trust.

Where is Thing 123 Foundation based?

Thing 123 Foundation is based in IL.

Thing 123 Foundation

Thing 123 Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

Thing 123 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.

$257k

Granted FY2025still arriving

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$25k

Largest

01What it funds

0196% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.

Youth Development$295kFood & Nutrition$279kHousing & Shelter$243kEducation$161kHuman Services$115kPhilanthropy$100kHealth$72kInternational$49kOther$0

02FY2025 · 26 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k12 grants · $59k
$10k–50k14 grants · $198k

$10,000

Median grant

States reached

$3.4M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
BOOK HARVEST	$25,000
NORTHERN ILLINOIS FOOD BANK	$20,000
ELMHURST YORKFIELD FOOD PANTRY	$17,500
ST JAMES FAITH LAB	$15,796
JOSSELYN CENTER	$15,000
NOURISHING HOPE FOOD PANTRY	$15,000
SECOND HARVEST FB OF OC	$15,000
EXODUS WORLD SERVICES	$12,500
GIRL SCOUTS OF AMERICA	$12,000
GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY	$10,000
CHICAGO YOUTH PROGRAMS INC	$10,000
TRANS YOUTH EQUALITY FOUNDATION	$10,000
GAY AND LESBIAN CENTER OF OC	$10,000
CARE FOR FRIENDS	$10,000
EVERY MOM CHICAGO	$7,500

02The need

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Its human-services grants (FY17–25, $338k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 93% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

How this is measured

Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP.

Which US states its grants reach

How this is measured

US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.

03Its grantees

repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

81%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$1.2M · 26 repeat orgs$269k to everyone else

26 repeat relationships: 18 still active in FY2025, 8 since wound down; 8 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

Total granted

$1.2M

$225k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+17%

+44%

Still filing today

73%

67%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 83% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $44k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

Human ServicesFood & NutritionPhilanthropyHealthCrime & LegalEducationOther

How this is measured

First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

CF
CARE FOR FRIENDS
6× · 2020–2025 · $243k · revenue +655%
EF
ELMHURST-YORKFIELD FOOD PANTRY
7× · 2017–2025 · $83k · revenue +90%
CL
CHICAGO LIGHTS
8× · 2017–2025 · $83k · revenue +5%

Funded once

DC
DUBUQUE COMMUNITY FOUNDATION
one grant, 2018 · $100k
THE NIGHT MINISTRY
one grant, 2020 · $14k · revenue -7%
IG
Individual grant recipient
one grant, 2024 · $10k

How this is measured

Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Its field

Closest unfunded matches

The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.

A Better Chicago

A better chicago is changing how chicago fights poverty by investing in bold ideas that create opportunity for our youth.

Human Services

Thrive Chicago Nfp

Thrive chicago's mission is to prepare chicago's youth for a vibrant future by aligning efforts and outcomes from cradle to career.

Human Services

Alternatives Inc

Alternatives, inc.'s mission is to facilitate personal development,strengthen family relationships and enhance the community's well being. serving over 3,000 youth and families annually, the organization offers a range of counseling and…

Health

Chicago Youth Centers

To provide high-quality early learning and out-of-school time enrichment in under-resourced neighborhoods to holistically support children of all ages, their families, and their communities.

Youth Development

Arise Chicago

Arise chicago builds partnerships between faith communities and workers to fight workplace injustice through education, organizing, and advocating for public policy changes.

Employment

Legal Aid Chicago

At legal aid chicago, we work together to provide high quality civil legal aid to people living in poverty and other vulnerable groups.through advocacy, education, collaboration, and litigation we empower individuals, protect fundamental…

Crime & Legal

Chicago Heightening Opportunity and Potential for

Providing academic support to children experiencing homelessness in Chicago and providing resources and services to families experiencing homelessness in Chicago.

Education

Central Illinois Foodbank Inc

The Foodbank's mission is to provide food, and develop awareness of and creative solutions for food insecurity. Annually, the Foodbank distributes approximately 9.5 million pounds of food to 130 food pantries, soup kitchens, children's…

Food & Nutrition

Child Link Inc

Child Link provides foster care, family counseling, and therapy services to Chicago area adolescents who are at risk of homelessness. Child Link also refers adolescents to other agencies that are able to provide additional resources and…

Human Services

Chicago Votes

Chicago Votes is a non-partisan, non-profit organization building a more inclusive democracy by putting power in the hands of young Chicagoans. We're engaging and developing a new generation of leaders by opening the doors of government,…

Civil Rights

The Center for Youth Services Inc

We partner with youth to realize their full potential, by creating opportunities, removing barriers, and promoting racial justice.

Human Services

Chicago Family Health Center Inc

Chicago family health center will promote health, work to prevent disease and provide treatment through the delivery of quality, accessible primary healtcare that is culturally sensitive, affordable, and responsive to community and…

—

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Ucan; the most unlike its peers is All Paws On Deck. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.

04the grantee network

43 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.

Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.

How this is measured

Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 43 of the 62 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.

Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

Early backer (in before they grew)

43/43

Grantees still filing

31/43

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Other$599,168Human Services$338,412Food & Nutrition$209,123Philanthropy$116,016Religion$81,319Health$54,051International$44,434

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding

A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.

Co-funders

Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.

Imc Chicago Charitable FoundationIL17.6× affinity6 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Imc Chicago Charitable Foundation · United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc · The Chicago Community Trust · Northwestern Memorial HealthCare Group · Robert R McCormick Foundation · Orange County Community Foundation · AbbVie Foundation · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · The Lyon Family Foundation · George M Eisenberg Foundation for Charities · Dr Scholl Foundation · Synchrony Foundation

How this is measured

Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Thing 123 Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Thing 123 Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

1get no government money at all

13report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

0rely on government for over half their income

⤢ axis zoomed · 0–60%

typical government reliance, FY20–25

How this is measured

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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.

Play a game based on Thing 123’s filings →

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions

grants reported with no recipient in the public record

The regranting layer

51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer

The DAF merry-go-round

$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds

The endowment market

who holds foundation money, and what just moved

The camps

funders cluster by geography, not ideology

By state

where grant money is based, and what stays home