· Private foundation
William H & Lois J McEssy 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.
What you funded, over time
By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).
A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 91% of WILLIAM H & LOIS J MCESSY FOUNDATION’s grantee dollars fall outside its nine largest cause areas, whether because the recipient carries no IRS cause code or because its cause sits in the long tail. A chart would be mostly one residual band and misrepresent the portfolio.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- Under $10k1 grant · $5k
- $10k–50k1 grant · $25k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $50k
- $250k+5 grants · $2.0M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CATHOLIC EXTENSION | $550,000 |
| ST JOHN VIANNEY | $550,000 |
| UNIVERSITY OF ST MARY OF THE LAKE | $410,000 |
| ARCHDIOCESE OF CHICAGO | $250,000 |
| DIOCESE OF WINONA-ROCHESTER | $250,000 |
| ST NORBERT COLLEGE | $50,000 |
| ST PATRICK CHURCH | $25,000 |
| ALHEIZMER'S ASSOCIATION | $5,000 |
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.
Dollar for dollar, your grants (FY17–24) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 58% of your 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.
33 repeat relationships — 7 still active in FY2024, 26 since wound down; 1 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, 88% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $250k 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
- SPST PAUL CENTER FOR BIBLICAL THEOLOGY3× · 2020–2023 · $213k · revenue +78%
ST NORBERT COLLEGE INC7× · 2017–2024 · $75k · revenue +3%- BSBig Shoulders Fund3× · 2019–2021 · $30k · revenue +36%
Funded once
- SFST FRANCIS DE SALESone grant, 2017 · $33k
- DODIOCESE OF JOLIETone grant, 2020 · $25k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2017 · $13k
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.
St. marys university, as a catholic marianist university, fosters the formation of people in faith and educates leaders for the common good through community, integrated liberal arts and professional education, and academic excellence.
The International Catholic Jurists Forum (ICJF) was established to produce, compile, and share resources on fundamental human rights under attack in the regional and international human rights protection systems. It operates as a forum for…
Catholic answers is an apostolate dedicated to serving christ by bringing the fullness of catholic truth to the world. we help good catholics become better catholics, bring former catholics home, and lead non-catholics into the fullness of…
St. john's university is a catholic, vincentian, metropolitan, and global institution of higher education (continued on schedule o).
To foster the vitality of community through learning and the pursuit of wisdom.
To make the catholic intellectual tradition a vital part of the culture of universities. to enrich academic communities at the university of chicago, across the nation, and the world with the insights of catholic thought. to dialogue with…
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…
The institute's mission is to conduct research on key issues facing society to help both the church and society deal thoughtfully with the major issues they face globally. the institute also sponsors and conducts research and scholarship…
The purpose of the university is to further the higher education of men and women through programs of liberal, professional, and pre-professional studies leading to the conferral of the baccaluareate and master degrees in the arts and…
Loyola University New Orleans, a Jesuit and Catholic institution of higher education, welcomes students of diverse backgrounds and prepares them to lead meaningful lives with and for others; to pursue truth, wisdom, and virtue; and to work…
As the national university of the catholic church in the united states, founded and sponsored by the bishops of the country with the approval of the holy see, the catholic university of america is committed to being a comprehensive…
The corporation of saint mary's college, notre dame (saint mary's) is a catholic, residential, women's, liberal arts college offering undergraduate degrees and co-educational graduate programs. (continued in schedule o)
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is St Norbert College Inc and the most unlike its peers is American Federation of Pueri Cantores. 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 49 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.
15 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. 15 of the 47 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 IMMACULATE HEART MEDIA INC ↗
- Who funds ST PAUL CENTER FOR BIBLICAL THEOLOGY ↗
- Who funds ST NORBERT COLLEGE INC ↗
- Who funds Big Shoulders Fund ↗
- Who funds WOODLAWN FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE TIME IS NOW TO HELP INC ↗
- Who funds WORD ON FIRE CATHOLIC MINISTRIES ↗
- Who funds ILLINOIS CLUB FOR CATHOLIC WOMEN ↗
- Who funds AMERICAN FEDERATION OF PUERI CANTORES ↗
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 · Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc · National Philanthropic Trust · Morgan Stanley Global Impact Funding Trust Inc · AbbVie Foundation · Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · American Endowment Foundation · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile 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 William H & Lois J McEssy 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 William H & Lois J McEssy Foundation?
Find your warmest path to William H & Lois J McEssy 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.