How much does Walter and Karla Goldschmidt Foundation give?

Walter and Karla Goldschmidt Foundation reported 151 grants totaling $3,118,850 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 108 and 133 organizations a year over FY2020 to FY2024.

What does Walter and Karla Goldschmidt Foundation fund?

By grant dollars over FY2020 to FY2025, its largest causes are Arts & Culture (23%), Education (20%), Food & Nutrition (13%).

Who are Walter and Karla Goldschmidt Foundation's largest grantees?

By total granted over FY2020 to FY2025: Greater Chicago Food Depository ($1.1M), Northwestern University ($1.0M), Food & Friends Inc ($979k).

Does Walter and Karla Goldschmidt Foundation fund new organizations?

In FY2024, 13% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.

Does Walter and Karla Goldschmidt Foundation accept unsolicited applications?

Its most recent filing reports that it accepts unsolicited grant applications.

Which funders back the same organizations as Walter and Karla Goldschmidt Foundation?

Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation, The Chicago Community Trust, Lloyd a Fry Foundation.

Where is Walter and Karla Goldschmidt Foundation based?

Walter and Karla Goldschmidt Foundation is based in IL.

Walter and Karla Goldschmidt Foundation

Walter and Karla Goldschmidt Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

Walter and Karla Goldschmidt Foundation

Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.

$3.1M

Granted FY2025still arriving

151

Grants FY2025still arriving

States reached

$254k

Largest

01What it funds

0198% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2020 to 2025.

Arts & Culture$3.8MEducation$3.3MFood & Nutrition$2.2MYouth Development$1.9MRecreation & Sports$1.0MCivil Rights$675kCrime & Legal$660kEnvironment$620kOther$0

02FY2025 · 151 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

Under $10k99 grants · $224k
$10k–50k31 grants · $783k
$50k–250k19 grants · $1.6M
$250k+2 grants · $504k

$3,000

Median grant

States reached

$44M

Total assets

Largest grants
Recipient	Amount
NORTHWESTERN UNIVERSITY	$253,500
FOOD & FRIENDS	$250,000
CHICAGO PUBLIC MEDIA	$200,000
GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY	$200,000
WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY IN STLOUIS	$175,000
WRITERS THEATRE	$100,000
HYDE PARK ART CENTER	$85,000
SABEW	$83,000
ROGER BALDWIN FOUNDATION OF ACLU INC	$75,000
CHICAGO BOTANIC GARDEN	$75,000
PRITZKER COLLEGE PREP	$75,000
INJUSTICE WATCH	$70,000
CHICAGO SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA	$65,000
THE ART INSTITUTE OF CHICAGO	$56,000
PROJECT LIFELINE	$50,000

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 (FY20–25, $176k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 99% 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.

95%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.

$15M · 149 repeat orgs$866k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +33% since the first grant, against +1% for those funded once.

149 repeat relationships: 117 still active in FY2025, 32 since wound down; 25 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

149

Total granted

$15M

$720k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+33%

+1%

Still filing today

77%

42%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 95% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $146k went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

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

Arts & CultureEducationEnvironmentAnimalsHealthHuman ServicesOther

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

GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY
6× · 2020–2025 · $1.1M · revenue +17%
Northwestern University
6× · 2020–2025 · $1.0M · revenue +33%
FF
FOOD & FRIENDS INC
6× · 2020–2025 · $979k · revenue +86%

Funded once

BG
BOYS & GIRLS CLUB OF AMERICA
one grant, 2020 · $100k
SO
SOCIETY OF AMERICAN BUSINESS EDITING AND WRITING
one grant, 2024 · $83k
CO
CHAPTER ONE NFP
one grant, 2023 · $50k

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.

Museum of Arts and Design

To collect, display and interpret objects in craft art and design.

Arts & Culture

American Museum of Natural History

The museum's mission statement is: "to discover, interpret, and disseminate - through scientific research and education - knowledge about human cultures, the natural world, and the universe."

Arts & Culture

United States Naval Institute

Provide an independent forum for those who dare to read, think, speak, and write to advance the professional, literary, and scientific understanding of sea power and other issues critical to global security.

—

The Brooklyn Institute of Arts and Sciences

The mission of the brooklyn institute of arts and sciences, d/b/a brooklyn museum (the "museum") is to bring people together through art and experiences that inspire celebration, compassion, courage, and the will to act. (see schedule o).

Arts & Culture

Boston Architectural College

The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.

—

The Jewish Museum

The mission of the jewish museum is to collect, preserve, exhibit and interpret art and jewish culture. see schedule o for more information.

Arts & Culture

New York Botanical Garden

The new york botanical garden is a museum of plants and a scientific research center devoted to the study of plants and their uses. it is the garden's mission to improve public understanding of the natural world, horticulture, and the…

Environment

Children's Museum of Oak Park

To spark curiosity and creativity in all young children through positive, play-based learning experiences.

Arts & Culture

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

See schedule osfmoma believes the art of our time is vital and shares it with passion and purpose, and that art and the creative process can open minds and help build a better world. for that reason, we assemble unparalleled collections,…

Arts & Culture

Asian Art Museum Foundation of San Francisco

The asian art museum celebrates, preserves, and promotes asian and asian american art and cultures for local and global audiences. we provide a dynamic forum for exchanging ideas, inviting collaboration, and fueling imagination to deepen…

Arts & Culture

The Frick Collection

The Frick Collection (the "Collection") operates an internationally recognized art museum and library program for the inspiration and enjoyment of the public and for the advancement of the study of fine arts and kindred subjects.

—

National Academy of Design

The mission of the national academy of design is to promote the fine arts in america through exhibition and education.

Education

How this is measured

The grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Museum of Contemporary Art; the most unlike its peers is Ventura Audubon Society. 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

160 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. 160 of the 230 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)

158/160

Grantees still filing

111/160

Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Education$4,077,300Other$5,201,162Arts & Culture$3,070,005Health$1,205,500Food & Nutrition$1,186,540Recreation & Sports$1,023,025Youth Development$520,000

Showing the 200 largest grantees by grant value.

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.

John D and Catherine T Macarthur FoundationIL31.9× affinity18 shared granteesties to 11 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · The Chicago Community Trust · Lloyd a Fry Foundation · Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago · Polk Bros Foundation Inc · Arie and Ida Crown Memorial · Circle of Service Foundation · The Sidley Austin Foundation · United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc · Terra Foundation for American Art · Field Foundation of Illinois · Greater Washington Community 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 Walter and Karla Goldschmidt Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Walter and Karla Goldschmidt Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24’25

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

5get no government money at all

48report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)

1rely on government for over half their income

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.

05Through Plinth

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to Walter and Karla Goldschmidt Foundation?

Find your warmest path to Walter and Karla Goldschmidt 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.

Play a game based on Walter and Karla Goldschmidt’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