· Private foundation
Wohlers Family Foundation the Northern Trust
Its FY2024 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2019–2024.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2024
- $10k–50k5 grants · $135k
- $50k–250k14 grants · $1.5M
- $250k+1 grant · $260k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| AVENUES TO INDEPENDENCE | $260,000 |
| CHICAGO LIGHTHOUSE FOR THE BLIND | $210,000 |
| FISHER HOUSE FOUNDATION INC | $200,000 |
| MAYO FOUNDATION | $200,000 |
| THE SEEING EYE | $150,000 |
| GUIDING EYES FOR THE BLIND | $150,000 |
| ASPCA | $100,000 |
| SHEDD AQUARIUM | $100,000 |
| LURIE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL | $75,000 |
| MOTE MARINE LABORATORY | $70,000 |
| LSSI | $56,874 |
| PRENTICE WOMEN'S HOSPITAL | $54,711 |
| CHICAGO COALITION FOR THE HOMELESS | $50,000 |
| BEST FRIENDS ANIMAL SOCIETY | $50,000 |
| MUSEUM OF SCIENCE AND INDUSTRY | $50,000 |
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 (FY24–24, $150k) land where the poverty rate runs at 9%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 0% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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.
14 repeat relationships — 4 still active in FY2024, 10 since wound down; 16 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2024, 28% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $1.4M 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
- MFMAYO FOUNDATION3× · 2020–2024 · $825k
- CLCHICAGO LIGHTHOUSE FOR THE BLIND4× · 2020–2024 · $820k
- FHFISHER HOUSE FOUNDATION3× · 2020–2023 · $600k
Funded once
- LCLURIE CHILDREN'S HOSPITAL FOR RESEARCHone grant, 2020 · $75k
- BFBEST FRIENDS FOR SANCTUARYone grant, 2023 · $50k
- CCCHICAGO CHILDREN'S MUSEUMone grant, 2020 · $28k
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.
Lincoln park zoo is dedicated to connecting people with nature by providing a free, family-oriented wildlife experience in the heart of chicago and by advancing the highest quality of animal care, horticulture, education, science and…
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."
Dogs Inc mission is to transform lives by creating and nurturing extraordinary partnerships between people and dogs.
World animal protection is a global organization working to end factory farming and wildlife exploitation. we expose cruel systems, promote animal-friendly alternatives, and influence policy change. for over 75 years, we've been rewriting…
Anti-Cruelty is a private, nonprofit organization which was established in 1899 and is chartered in Illinois. Anti-Cruelty builds a healthy and happy community where pets and people thrive together.
To inspire conservation leadership by connecting people with wildlife and nature.
Founded in 1877, american humane association, dba american humane society (american humane) is committed to ensuring the safety, welfare and well-being of animals. our leadership programs are first to serve in promoting and nurturing the…
To prevent cruelty to animals, we promote enacting and enforcing good public policies. enacting good laws depends upon electing good lawmakers, and we remind voters which candidates care about and support animal issues.
The Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) is a world-renowned center for biological discovery and training that is notably affiliated with more than 60 Nobel Prize winners. Research is conducted by full-time faculty as well as hundreds of the…
Inspiring communities to save wildlife for future generations.
The friends are dedicated to the rescue, protection, and adoption of companion animals in need while inspiring the human-animal bond. we meet our mission by:-saving 100% of healthy and treatable animals.-providing high-quality animal care…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is The Seeing Eye Inc and the most unlike its peers is Mote Marine Laboratory Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
14 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. 14 of the 33 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 AVENUES TO INDEPENDENCE ↗
- Who funds FISHER HOUSE FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds GUIDING EYES FOR THE BLIND INC ↗
- Who funds THE SEEING EYE INC ↗
- Who funds THE AMERICAN SOCIETY FOR THE PREVENTION OF CRUELTY TO ANIMALS ↗
- Who funds SHEDD AQUARIUM SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds MOTE MARINE LABORATORY INC ↗
- Who funds BEST FRIENDS ANIMAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds Kenneth C Griffin Museum of Science and Industry ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO COALITION TO END HOMELESSNESS ↗
- Who funds BLUEPATH SERVICE DOGS INC ↗
- Who funds FACE AUTISM INC ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO HORTICULTURAL SOCIETY ↗
- Who funds Adaptive Adventures ↗
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 set of overlaps that mostly run through you, not between each other.
Open a dossier: 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 Wohlers Family Foundation the Northern Trust 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, a single department, or state — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Mote Marine Laboratory Inc — 4% 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.
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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.