· Private foundation
Vail Family 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.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k18 grants · $52k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $40k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| RAVINIA FESTIVAL | $30,000 |
| GENEVA FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| CLEARBROOK | $7,500 |
| PHILLIPS EXETER ACADEMY | $5,000 |
| NORTHFIELD MT HERMAN SCHOOL | $5,000 |
| CHURCH OF THE HOLY SPIRIT | $5,000 |
| WINNETKA COMMUNITY HOUSE | $4,000 |
| LAKE FOREST COLLEGE | $4,000 |
| HOME OF THE SPARROW | $3,000 |
| PHILLIPS ACADEMY ANDOVER | $2,500 |
| WINNETKA HISTORICAL SOCIETY | $2,500 |
| EMORY UNIVERSITY | $2,500 |
| MARTHA GRAHAM DANCE COMPANY | $2,500 |
| DOOR COUNTY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION INC | $2,000 |
| GLEN VIEW CLUB SCHOLARSHIP FOUNDATION | $1,500 |
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 (FY17–25, $37k) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 84% 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 +54% since the first grant, against +51% for the ones you funded once.
30 repeat relationships — 15 still active in FY2025, 15 since wound down; 4 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, 79% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $19k 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
RAVINIA FESTIVAL ASSOCIATION9× · 2017–2025 · $110k · revenue +54%
Lake Forest College4× · 2017–2025 · $85k · revenue +73%- CCLEARBROOK6× · 2017–2025 · $31k · revenue +97%
Funded once
- KSKELLOGG SCHOOL OF MANAGEMENTone grant, 2024 · $15k
- FWFrancis W Parker Schoolone grant, 2023 · $10k · revenue +12%
- RURush University Medical Centergraduatedone grant, 2017 · $10k · revenue +51%
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.
Undergraduate, graduate, and professional education and research across a broad array of academic domains.
Research, education and general - princeton university is a private not-for-profit, non-sectarian institution of higher learning with approximately 5,700 undergraduate and 3,300 graduate students. 2,500 students graduated in the 2024-2025…
Dickinson college provides a useful, innovative and interdisciplinary education in the liberal arts and sciences to prepare students to lead rich and fulfilling lives of engaged global citizenship
Saint xavier university, a catholic institution inspired by the heritage of the sisters of mercy, educates persons to search for truth, think critically, communicate effectively and serve wisely and compassionately in support of human…
Dartmouth College educates the most promising students and prepares them for a lifetime of learning and of responsible leadership, through a faculty dedicated to teaching and the creation of knowledge.
The University of New Haven is a student-centered comprehensive university with an emphasis on excellence in liberal arts and professional education. Our mission is to prepare our students to lead purposeful and fulfilling lives in a…
We are chicago's jesuit, catholic university - a diverse community seeking god in all things and working to expand knowledge in the service of humanity through learning, justice, and faith.
Endicott college offers students a vibrant academic environment that remains true to its founding principle of integrating professional and liberal arts with experiential learning. for more information see schedule o.
The university's goal in the coming decade is to advance learning through the integration of teaching, research and service to others. the core of this goal is to prepare graduates to engage with the world and lead lives of meaning. to do…
Manhattan university is an independent catholic instituion of higher learning that embraces qualified men and women of all faiths, cultures, and traditions. the mission of manhattan university is to provide a contemporary, person-centered…
The organization's mission is to educate students for creative occupations in diverse fields of arts and media.
To educate students to be ethical and socially responsible leaders in a global community.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Juilliard School and the most unlike its peers is Friends of the Pavillion Inc. 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 66 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) — 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 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.
31 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. 31 of the 60 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 RAVINIA FESTIVAL ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds TRUSTEES OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA ↗
- Who funds Lake Forest College ↗
- Who funds CLEARBROOK ↗
- Who funds NORTHFIELD MOUNT HERMON SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds WINNETKA COMMUNITY HOUSE INC ↗
- Who funds PHILLIPS EXETER ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds WINNETKA HISTORICAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds GLEN VIEW CLUB SCHOLARSHIP FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds GENEVA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Francis W Parker School ↗
- Who funds Rush University Medical Center ↗
- Who funds INDEPENDENCE CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds Northwestern University ↗
- Who funds University of Chicago ↗
- Who funds ACCESS MAMMOTH ↗
- Who funds DEPAUL UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds Mothers Trust Foundation ↗
- Who funds Davidson College ↗
- Who funds Emory University ↗
- Who funds GENEVA FOUNDATION OF PRESBYTERIAN HOMES ↗
- Who funds Chicago Symphony Orchestra ↗
- Who funds DOOR COUNTY COMMUNITY FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE PAVILLION INC ↗
- Who funds Home of the Sparrow 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 · Kemper Educational and Charitable Fund · Baxter International Foundation · National Philanthropic Trust · American Endowment Foundation · The Pfizer Foundation Inc · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · The Bank of America Charitable Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · American Online Giving Foundation 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 Vail 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.
- Cradles to Crayons Inc — 2% 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.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Vail Family Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Vail Family 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.