Illinois · Private foundation
Wayfarer Foundation
Its FY2024 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
- $24M
- Granted FY2024(still arriving)
- 166
- Grants FY2024
- 149
- Organizations funded FY2023
- 48%
- First-time grantees FY2023
- Median grant, FY2024
- $90,000
- Largest grant, FY2024
- $4,500,000
- Organizations funded a year
- 48 to 149
- FY2021 to FY2023
- States reached, FY2024
- 33
- Total assets, FY2024
- $28M
- Applications
- Preselected organizations only
- Per its most recent filing; check its own site
How open it is to new grantees
In FY2023, 48% of the organizations Wayfarer Foundation funded were first-time grantees, receiving 28% of its grant dollars.
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2023, 72% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $5.2M went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
How this is measured
The numbers by year
| Fiscal year | Organizations funded | To those organizations | First-time grantees |
|---|---|---|---|
| FY2024still arriving | 161 | $23M | 32% |
| FY2023 | 149 | $19M | 48% |
| FY2022 | 104 | $9.2M | 67% |
| FY2021 | 48 | $3.8M | n/a |
What it funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2021 to 2024.
Where its grants go
Grant dollars by states, across the years we hold.
Which US states its grants reach
Top grantees
Largest recipients by total granted, FY2021 to FY2024, and the share of each one’s budget the grants supplied at peak.
| Grantee | Total granted | Years | Share of their budget |
|---|---|---|---|
| National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahais of the United States | $2,950,000 | 3 | n/a |
| Mona Foundation | $1,830,000 | 4 | 25% |
| National Underground Railroad Freedom Center Inc | $1,550,000 | 4 | 11% |
| Friends of the Highwood Public Library | $1,350,000 | 3 | 32% |
| Cheyenne River Youth Project Inc | $1,228,547 | 3 | 31% |
| New Era Creative Space Inc | $1,165,000 | 4 | 55% |
| Equiticity | $1,025,000 | 4 | 34% |
| Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding | $856,500 | 4 | 20% |
| Center on Modernity in Transition | $805,000 | 3 | 91% |
| National Center for Race Amity | $803,500 | 3 | 97% |
Show all 190 grantees
What it could do for these grantees
Plus 51 recipients with no EIN on record ($11M), not named here.
Where it is load-bearing
Wayfarer Foundation supplied at least a quarter of the budget for 36 of its grantees at some point. The chart plots its 177 largest grantees; load-bearing ones sit top left.
Tap a dot to name the grantee.
How this is measured
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: Field Foundation of Illinois · Ndn Collective Inc · The Chicago Community Trust · Seventh Generation Fund for Indigenous Peoples Inc · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · Arie and Ida Crown Memorial · Polk Bros Foundation Inc · First Nations Development Institute · Circle of Service Foundation · Common Counsel Foundation · Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors Inc · The Joyce Foundation
How this is measured
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Wayfarer Foundation?
Find your warmest path to Wayfarer 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.
About Wayfarer Foundation
- How much does Wayfarer Foundation give?
- Wayfarer Foundation reported 166 grants totaling $23,912,892 in its FY2024 IRS filing. It funded between 48 and 149 organizations a year over FY2021 to FY2023.
- What does Wayfarer Foundation fund?
- By grant dollars over FY2021 to FY2024, its largest causes are Education (13%), Civil Rights (12%), Philanthropy (11%).
- Who are Wayfarer Foundation's largest grantees?
- By total granted over FY2021 to FY2024: National Spiritual Assembly of the Bahais of the United States ($3.0M), Mona Foundation ($1.8M), National Underground Railroad Freedom Center Inc ($1.6M).
- Does Wayfarer Foundation fund new organizations?
- In FY2023, 48% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.
- Does Wayfarer 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 Wayfarer Foundation?
- Its strongest co-funders, measured against what their size predicts, include Field Foundation of Illinois, Ndn Collective Inc, The Chicago Community Trust.
- Where is Wayfarer Foundation based?
- Wayfarer Foundation is based in IL.
Play a game based on Wayfarer’s filings →