· Private foundation
William R Johnson 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
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k13 grants · $54k
- $10k–50k16 grants · $214k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| NICASA BEHAVIORAL HEALTH | $26,000 |
| DANNY DID FOUNDATION | $22,576 |
| Individual grant recipient | $20,000 |
| CARMEL CATHOLIC HIGH SCHOOL | $20,000 |
| TOBY KEITH FOUNDATION | $15,000 |
| NIGHT MINISTRY | $10,000 |
| CATHOLIC CHARITIES LAKE COUNTY ILLINOIS | $10,000 |
| MERCY HOME FOR BOYS AND GIRLS OF CHICAGO | $10,000 |
| LOYOLA ACADEMY | $10,000 |
| VINCE LOMBARDI CANCER FOUNDATION | $10,000 |
| CORNERSTONE EDUCATONAL SERVICES | $10,000 |
| CHRISTMAS STORE OF CLEVELAND CO | $10,000 |
| SOUTH SHORE DRILL TEAM | $10,000 |
| COOL MINISTERIES | $10,000 |
| OMNI YOUTH SERVICES | $10,000 |
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.
Your human-services grants (FY17–25, $200k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 61% of those 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +52% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
34 repeat relationships — 23 still active in FY2025, 11 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, 92% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $23k 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
- DDDANNY DID FOUNDATION9× · 2017–2025 · $142k · revenue +176%
THE NIGHT MINISTRY9× · 2017–2025 · $78k · revenue +11%- FOFRANCISCAN OUTREACH9× · 2017–2025 · $59k · revenue +134%
Funded once
MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INCone grant, 2023 · $20k · revenue +1%- WHWORLD HUNGER FOUNDATIONgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $10k · revenue +106%
- CFCENTER FOR MISSING & EXPLOITEDone grant, 2024 · $7k
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.
In 34 cities across five countries, covenant house builds bridges to hope for young people facing homelessness and survivors of human trafficking. we meet their immediate needs for food, clothing, protection, and medical and mental health…
A safe place is the leading advocate for eliminating domestic violence & human trafficking in northern illinois.
Inter-faith program providing shelter and supportive services to homeless persons. compassion, hospitality and dignity are key characteristics of the pads program.
Provides housing and support services to individuals and families impacted by hiv/aids
New hope house northwest is a volunteer-driven food pantry dedicated to providing emergency food assistance to individuals and families in need. the pantry serves chicago's far northwest side, norridge, and harwood heights residents,…
Child Link provides foster care, family counseling, and therapy services to Chicago area adolescents who are at risk of homelessness. Child Link also refers adolescents to other agencies that are able to provide additional resources and…
Live Free Illinois is a statewide organization partnering with over 120 congregations and directly impacted individuals to build safer more equitable communities across Illinois. Operating at the intersection of criminal justice reform and…
To enhance the quality of life for children and families by inspiring hope and empowerment and growth within all whom we serve.
Shelter's mission is to end the cycle of child abuse by providing a comprehensive network of support to children, their families, and our community to create safe, health, and nurturing homes.
Nourishing hope provides food, mental health support, and social services to help all our neighbors thrive.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Night Ministry and the most unlike its peers is Y-Not Project Ltd. 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 34 years old; the field is 18. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 20% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 3% lost their exemption, against 14% 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.
24 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. 24 of the 55 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 DANNY DID FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds THE NIGHT MINISTRY ↗
- Who funds FRANCISCAN OUTREACH ↗
- Who funds ILLINOIS FIRE SAFETY ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds OMNI YOUTH SERVICES INCORPORATED ↗
- Who funds THE TOBY KEITH FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds Vince Lombardi Cancer Foundation Inc ↗
- Who funds WHEELING HELPING HANDS ↗
- Who funds NICASA NFP ↗
- Who funds MEDECINS SANS FRONTIERES USA INC ↗
- Who funds COVENANT HOUSE ↗
- Who funds ELCA OUTREACH CENTER ↗
- Who funds WORLD HUNGER FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Pediatric Brain Tumor Foundation of the United States Inc ↗
- Who funds COOL MINISTRIES ↗
- Who funds THE HELPING PAW PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds CODE PLATOON NFP ↗
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: AbbVie Foundation · Motorola Solutions Foundation · Baxter International Foundation · The Blackbaud Giving Fund · Helen V Brach Foundation · Trustmark Foundation · United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc · Arthur J Gallagher Foundation · The Chicago Community Trust · United Way Worldwide · The Pfizer Foundation Inc · Baird Foundation Inc
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 R Johnson 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.
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.
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Find your warmest path to William R Johnson Family 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.