Skip to content
Ask

Funding · Illinois · Community development

Who funds community development in Illinois

Community development funding in Illinois is unusually spread out: no single organization draws even 12%, though Iff leads, and the money reaches 1,151 groups.

$1.2B
granted
1,151
organizations
55%
from in-state

The short version

Largest funders of community development in Illinois

The funders giving the most to community development organizations in Illinois, in-state and out. Pick one for its dossier.

1The Chicago Community Trust$180M2Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund$100M3Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc$65M4National Philanthropic Trust$53M5John D and Catherine T Macarthur Foundation$46M6The Commercial Club Foundation$31M7Robert R McCormick Foundation$29M8United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc$26M9Sue Ling Gin Foundation Trust$21M10Jpmorgan Chase Foundation$20M

Community development organizations in Illinois that draw the most

Sized by grant dollars received. Pick one to see exactly who funds it.

1,141 other community development organizations$802M
Iff$98MInner-City Muslim Action Network$52M

How to find community development funders in Illinois

  1. 1
    Start with the funders already active in Illinois

    The funders giving the most to community development in Illinois are The Chicago Community Trust, Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund, Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc. A funder already writing community development checks in your state is the warmest place to begin.

  2. 2
    See who funds organizations like yours

    Open the community development organizations on this page that resemble yours in size or work, and look at who funds them. Shared funders are the strongest signal of fit.

  3. 3
    Add the out-of-state funders reaching in

    45% of community development money in Illinois comes from funders elsewhere, so national community development funders are worth approaching even if they are not based in Illinois.

Questions and answers

How do I find funders for a community development nonprofit in Illinois?
Start with the funders already giving to community development in Illinois, currently The Chicago Community Trust, Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund, Gs Donor Advised Philanthropy Fund for Wealth Management Inc. Then look at who funds the community development organizations on this page that resemble yours, and add the national funders reaching into Illinois from out of state.
Who is the largest community development funder in Illinois?
The Chicago Community Trust gives the most to community development organizations in Illinois, $180M across the 2022 and 2023 filings.
How much grant money goes to community development in Illinois?
$1.2B reached 1,151 community development organizations in Illinois, from 2,080 funders. 55% came from funders also based in Illinois.
How recent is this data?
It is read from IRS Form 990 and 990-PF e-file filings for fiscal years 2022 and 2023, the two years with complete coverage. US charity filings lag 12 to 24 months.

More from the funding graph

The unnamed billions
grants reported with no recipient in the public record
The regranting layer
51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer
The DAF merry-go-round
$9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds
The endowment market
who holds foundation money, and what just moved
The camps
funders cluster by geography, not ideology
State money flows
the interactive map of money crossing state lines

Each grant is placed by its stated purpose and the recipient's mission, falling back to the recipient's IRS activity category where that is unclear; location is the recipient's state on its most recent filing. Grant figures are read from IRS Form 990 and 990-PF e-file XML for fiscal years 2022 and 2023, among recipients resolved by EIN. Source: IRS Form 990 downloads.