· Private foundation
William N and Ruth M Westhoff 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
By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).
A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 58% of WILLIAM N AND RUTH M WESTHOFF FAMILY 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 · FY2025
- Under $10k13 grants · $42k
- $10k–50k4 grants · $66k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $62k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| MESSIAH CHURCH | $62,150 |
| GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY | $20,000 |
| CONNECTIONS ABUSED WOMEN & CHILDREN | $20,000 |
| SALVATION ARMY | $14,500 |
| GROVES LEARNING ORGANIZATION | $11,050 |
| HOSPITALITY HOUSE | $7,000 |
| PRISM | $7,000 |
| VEAP | $7,000 |
| THE GOD'S CHILD PROJECT | $6,000 |
| IOCP | $5,000 |
| RE-MEMBER | $3,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $3,000 |
| BRIDGES TO LEARNING | $2,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $750 |
| THRIVE KENYA | $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 (FY19–25, $51k) land where the poverty rate runs at 19%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 55% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants spread fairly evenly across need levels.
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 — 12 still active in FY2025, 21 since wound down; 6 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, 91% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $15k 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
- GAGROVES ACADEMY7× · 2018–2025 · $83k · revenue +58%
- UOUNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA FOUNDATION2× · 2017–2018 · $53k · revenue +105%
- VIVEAP Inc8× · 2018–2025 · $38k · revenue +56%
Funded once
- UMUNITED METHODIST COMM ON RELIEFone grant, 2017 · $52k
- FFORAone grant, 2023 · $25k
- UMUMCOR MESSIAH CHURCHone grant, 2022 · $5k
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.
Thrive chicago's mission is to prepare chicago's youth for a vibrant future by aligning efforts and outcomes from cradle to career.
Nourishing hope provides food, mental health support, and social services to help all our neighbors thrive.
The mission of cornerhouse is to partner with families, communities, and systems - entrusted with the safety of children, youth and vulnerable adults - to reduce trauma and end abuse.
The team at kipp chicago schools is guided by a simple, yet powerful mission: to create a network of excellent schools in chicago that teach our students the character and academic skills necessary to succeed in college and beyond, and to…
A better chicago is changing how chicago fights poverty by investing in bold ideas that create opportunity for our youth.
Avivo increases well-being through recovery and career advancement while working to end homelessness.
Friends of the children - chicago has a mission of impacting generational change by empowering youth who are facing the greatest obstacles through relationships with professional mentors - 12+ years, no matter what. 92% go on to enroll in…
To inspire and prepare young people to succeed in a global economy
Advancing Nonprofits is committed to strengthening the organizational health and support long-term development of small nonprofits on Chicagos west and south sides while prioritizing Black- and Latine-led community organizations.…
Alternatives, inc.'s mission is to facilitate personal development,strengthen family relationships and enhance the community's well being. serving over 3,000 youth and families annually, the organization offers a range of counseling and…
The mission of greater minneapolis crisis nursery is to end the abuse and neglect of children and create strong and healthy families.
Volunteers of america of illinois partners with the people we serve to create transformational and lasting change in their lives through programs that support, empower, and transform.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Care for Real and the most unlike its peers is Thrive Kenya. 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 33 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 2% lost their exemption, against 15% 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.
50 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. 50 of the 89 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 GROVES ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds VEAP Inc ↗
- Who funds TRUE FRIENDS ↗
- Who funds GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY ↗
- Who funds THE URBAN ALLIANCE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN'S SURGERY INTERNATIONAL ↗
- Who funds SIMPSON HOUSING SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds Black Men Teach ↗
- Who funds My Very Own Bed ↗
- Who funds RE-MEMBER ↗
- Who funds SHARING AND CARING HANDS INC ↗
- Who funds BRIDGES TO LEARNING INC ↗
- Who funds Animal Humane Society ↗
- Who funds PAWS CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds PEOPLE RESPONDING IN SOCIAL MINISTRY ↗
- Who funds THE GOD'S CHILD PROJECT ↗
- Who funds UNITED STATES FUND FOR UNICEF ↗
- Who funds NORTHSIDE ACHIEVEMENT ZONE ↗
- Who funds THE BOND BETWEEN ↗
- Who funds StandUp for Kids ↗
- Who funds The Family Partnership ↗
- Who funds GIRLFORWARD ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO CARES 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 Minneapolis Foundation · Saint Paul & Minnesota Foundation · Ch Robinson Worldwide Foundation · Mightycause Charitable Foundation · The Richard M Schulze Family Foundation · John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation · The K Foundation · Pohlad Family Foundation · The Sauer Family Foundation · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Opus Foundation · United Way Worldwide
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 N and Ruth M Westhoff 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.