· Private foundation
Tinberg Foundation
Its FY2024 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 FY2019–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k11 grants · $20k
- $10k–50k8 grants · $145k
- $50k–250k4 grants · $270k
- $250k+1 grant · $323k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| WRITER'S THEATRE | $323,000 |
| COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION | $100,000 |
| NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY | $60,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO | $60,000 |
| CHICAGO PUBLIC MEDIA | $50,000 |
| INGENUITY | $45,000 |
| ERIKA'S LIGHTHOUSE | $25,000 |
| CHICAGO BOTANIC GARDENS | $20,000 |
| UC REGENTS | $15,000 |
| DOCTORS WITHOUT BORDERS | $10,000 |
| STEPPENWOLF THEATRE | $10,000 |
| COURT THEATRE | $10,000 |
| THE GOODMAN THEATRE | $10,000 |
| NORTH SHORE ART LEAGUE | $7,500 |
| EAGLE VALLEY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION | $2,500 |
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 (FY20–23, $4k) 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.
35 repeat relationships — 19 still active in FY2024, 16 since wound down; 3 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, 86% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $103k 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
- WTWriters Theatre Inc6× · 2019–2024 · $674k · revenue +50%
University of Chicago6× · 2019–2024 · $271k · revenue +25%- CPCHICAGO PUBLIC MEDIA INC6× · 2019–2024 · $218k · revenue +6%
Funded once
- STSHAKESPEARE THEATREone grant, 2019 · $15k
- NFNORTHSHORE FOUNDATIONone grant, 2020 · $5k
- HFHOLY FAMILY MINISTREISone grant, 2019 · $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 organization's mission is to educate students for creative occupations in diverse fields of arts and media.
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…
Chicago sun-times serves the public interest by strengthening the well-being of our local communities and our democracy through independent local journalism.
To create vivid, entertaining theatrical experiences that invigorate and engage people of all ages and identities by illuminating the complexity, ambiguity, and wonder of our world. shared humanity and unforgettable stories - now this is…
Central indiana corporate partnership (cicp) is an alliance of indiana's business and research university leaders coming together to foster long-term prosperity for the region. cicp's mission is to transform the economy of indiana in order…
The chicago public education fund (the fund) is a nonprofit organization that improves public schools in chicago by investing in the talented educators who lead them.
The chicagoland chamber of commerce combines the power of people, with our legacy of leadership and business advocacy, to drive a dynamic economy. we focus on delivering value for our members, making chicagoland a world-class place to live…
The mission of the lincoln park conservancy is to preserve and enhance the inspiring beauty of chicago's largest and most visited park for current and future generations. we believe that beauty matters. that it has the transformative power…
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…
National public radio, inc. ("npr") works collaboratively with member public radio station licensees ("member stations") to create a more informed public, one that is challenged and invigorated by a deeper understanding and appreciation of…
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.
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.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Chicago Public Media Inc and the most unlike its peers is Court Theatre Fund. 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 48 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) — 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 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.
35 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. 35 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 Writers Theatre Inc ↗
- Who funds University of Chicago ↗
- Who funds INGENUITY INCORPORATED CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO PUBLIC MEDIA INC ↗
- Who funds Northwestern University ↗
- Who funds Erikas Lighthouse A Beacon of Hope for Adolescent Depression ↗
- Who funds COLORADO STATE UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds STEPPENWOLF THEATRE COMPANY ↗
- Who funds WINDOW TO THE WORLD COMMUNICATIONS INC ↗
- Who funds The People's Music School ↗
- Who funds BUILD INC ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds EAGLE VALLEY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SEED SAVERS EXCHANGE INC ↗
- Who funds WINNETKA HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO THEATRE GROUP INC ↗
- Who funds NORTH SHORE ART LEAGUE ↗
- Who funds PUBLIC BROADCASTING OF COLORADO INC ↗
- Who funds COUNSELING CENTER OF THE NORTH SHORE INC ↗
- Who funds LINCOLN PARK VILLAGE INC ↗
- Who funds GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY ↗
- Who funds ALLIANCE FOR THE GREAT LAKES ↗
- Who funds AFRICAN LEADERSHIP FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
- Who funds THE WETLANDS INITIATIVE ↗
- Who funds WINNETKA COMMUNITY HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds NATIONAL PARK FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Wellness House ↗
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: Kemper Educational and Charitable Fund · The Chicago Community Trust · Ross Family Foundation · John D and Alexandra Nichols Family Foundation · Frank Family Foundation · Sheila Reynolds Berner Foundation · Charles H and Beverly E Shaw Foundation · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · Ncrc Community Development Fund Inc · The Winnetka Club · Center Street Foundation · Bundy Family 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 Tinberg 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 Tinberg Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Tinberg 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.