· Private foundation
Virginia Lee Shirley Private 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 it funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.
Where the money goes
Grants by size, and the largest recipients.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k17 grants · $69k
- $10k–50k19 grants · $328k
- $50k–250k2 grants · $105k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CAN DO CANINES | $55,000 |
| RAVINIA | $50,000 |
| SOUTH SUBURBAN HUMANE SOCIETY | $30,000 |
| ST MARY'S SCHOOL AND CATHOLIC CHURCH | $30,000 |
| DEAF UNITY - UNITED ADVOCATES AGAINST VIOLENCE | $25,000 |
| LURIE CHILDREN'S FOUNDATION | $25,000 |
| ST PETER'S CATHOLIC CHURCH | $25,000 |
| ABRAHAM LINCOLN PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY FOUNDATION | $25,000 |
| DUKE LAW SCHOOL ANNUAL FUND | $25,000 |
| BISHOP MCNAMARA CATHOLIC SCHOOL | $20,000 |
| SALVATION ARMY | $20,000 |
| HADLEY INSTITUTE FOR THE BLIND | $12,500 |
| YOUTH GUIDANCE | $10,000 |
| CIVIC LEADERSHIP FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| MENTOR TEACHER BROTHER INC | $10,000 |
Does the money reach high-need areas?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.
Its human-services grants (FY17–25, $37k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 59% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
How this is measured
Which US states its grants reach
How this is measured
Who it funds again
Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.
Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +38% since the first grant, against +18% for those funded once.
50 repeat relationships: 25 still active in FY2025, 25 since wound down; 13 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, 72% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $142k went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
How this is measured
Backed again, and grew
- CDCAN DO CANINES9× · 2017–2025 · $440k · revenue +61%
- CUCOLGATE UNIVERSITY8× · 2017–2024 · $185k · revenue +80%
- SSSOUTH SUBURBAN HUMANE SOCIETY9× · 2017–2025 · $137k · revenue +92%
Funded once
- TNTHE NORA PROJECTone grant, 2024 · $25k · revenue -28%
- RURUSH UNIVERSITY - HEARING RESEARCHone grant, 2019 · $10k
- GHGIANNAS HOUSE PREGNANCY RESOURCE CENTERone grant, 2022 · $10k · revenue +18%
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.
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.
The GI Research Foundation works to treat, prevent, and cure digestive diseases. In collaboration with the physicians and scientists at the University of Chicago Digestive Diseases Center, we fund innovative clinical and laboratory…
The chicago bar foundation brings the legal community together through advocacy, funding, and innovation to improve access to justice for people in need and to make the legal system more fair, equitable, and effective.
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…
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.
Chicago canine rescue foundation finds permanent homes for homeless dogs in our community with a specific emphasis on assisting the most vulnerable animals, who without our help, would have no other options. while in our care, they are…
The Foundation, a 501(c)(3) charitable organization, is an independent and separate nonprofit entity from the University of Illinois. Our mission is to encourage and administer private gifts and serve the UI System by working closely with…
The chicago psychoanalytic institute transforms the lives of individuals, families and communities, using psychoanalytic knowledge to help them grow and thrive.
The Network is a group of 40+ member organizations dedicated to improving the lives of those impacted by gender-based violence through education, public policy and advocacy, and connecting community members with direct service providers.…
Chh honors every person's right to a home and health care, by bridging the housing and health care systems, to improve the lives of chicagoans experiencing homelessness.
The Chicago School educates the next generation of change-makers in innovative theory and culturally competent practice to strengthen the integrated health of individuals, organizations, and communities.
The aids foundation of chicago mobilizes communities to create equity and justice for people living with and vulnerable to hiv and related chronic disease.
To give members the ability to control their financial destiny by providing members with the means to satisfy their needs for financial services in a comfortable family-like environment. in doing so, the credit union strives to maintain…
How this is measured
39 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. 39 of the 78 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.
Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee
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.
- Who funds CAN DO CANINES ↗
- Who funds COLGATE UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds LINCOLN PRESIDENTIAL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds SOUTH SUBURBAN HUMANE SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds CIVIC LEADERSHIP FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO THEATRE GROUP INC ↗
- Who funds THE H FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Rush University Medical Center ↗
- Who funds JEWISH UNITED FUND OF METROPOLITAN CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds DEAF UNITY INC ↗
- Who funds THE KALO FOUNDATION OF PARK RIDGE ↗
- Who funds GS DONOR ADVISED PHILANTHROPY FUND FOR WEALTH MANAGEMENT INC ↗
- Who funds Mentor Teacher Brother INC ↗
- Who funds EVERYTOWN FOR GUN SAFETY ACTION FUND INC ↗
- Who funds OPEN DOOR REPERTORY COMPANY ↗
- Who funds THE NORA PROJECT ↗
- Who funds THE NATURE CONSERVANCY ↗
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.
Open a dossier: The Chicago Community Trust · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc · Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago · AbbVie Foundation · Jpmorgan Chase Foundation · Arthur J Gallagher Foundation · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · Baird Foundation Inc · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · The Blackbaud Giving Fund
How this is measured
How much its grantees rely on government
Each dot is one organization Virginia Lee Shirley Private Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Virginia Lee Shirley Private Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.
How this is measured
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