Funders › Illinois

Blowitz-Ridgeway Foundation

Chicago, IL · EIN 36-2488355. Reported 389 grants totalling $5,321,850 to 171 recipients across tax years 2020-2024. This foundation did not tell the IRS it funds only preselected organizations.

Does this foundation accept applications?

Yes -- on its own tax return. Form 990-PF asks every private foundation whether it makes grants only to organizations it selects itself. Of the 91,758 foundations in our data that made a grant and answered, 78% said yes -- and applying to those is wasted effort. Blowitz-Ridgeway Foundation did not check that box on its most recent filing, which puts it in the minority that is at least open to being approached.

How big are its grants?

The median grant is $15,000. Half of everything it gave fell between $10,000 and $15,000; the smallest was $2,150 and the largest $20,000. If you are asking for materially more than the top of that range, you are asking the wrong foundation.

Every organization it funded

This is the complete list from its filings, largest first. Recipients are grouped by name and state as they were written on the returns, so an organization entered under two different names appears twice. Years funded is the number of separate tax years in which that name received money.

104 of 171 (61%) received money in more than one year over the 5 years we hold.

Measured the way we measure every foundation -- what share of one year's grantees are funded again the next -- this one retains 52%, across 4 year-to-year transitions. The median foundation retains about 67%, so this one is less consistent than most. This measures how often it paid the same organizations again. It says nothing about whether it would consider a new one.

What the money was for

Taken verbatim from the purpose field of its filings. This is the closest thing to a statement of what this foundation cares about, in its own words.

• Center on Halsted (formerly Horizons Community Services) $20,000 · 2022
  For the Behavioral Health Services, which provides LGBTQ+ community in Chicago with comprehensive bilingual (English/Spanish) therapeutic short-term and long-term individual, group family and relationship therapies, and crisis support in Chicago.
• Community Health $20,000 · 2022
  For General Operating Support of this free health care center which provides uninsured and low-income individuals in Chicago with primary, dental, specialty care, medication, mental health, and lab services, as well as health education, Telehealth, etc.
• Connections for the Homeless $20,000 · 2022
  For General Operating Support. Programs and services include eviction prevention, daytime drop-in centers, shelter, housing, advocacy, and expanded services for homeless individuals and families in Evanston and surrounding north suburban Cook County.
• Franciscan Outreach Association $20,000 · 2022
  For General Operating Support. They provide emergency shelter, transitional housing, rapid rehousing, case management, meals, financial assistance, access to health care, and more, for individuals who are homeless.
• Heartland Alliance $20,000 · 2022
  For General Operating Support of the Kovler Center, which provide critical trauma-informed services to individuals, unaccompanied children, and families affected by forced migration, now residing in Chicago and surrounding Cook County suburbs.
• Kan-Win (korean American Women in Need) $20,000 · 2022
  For General Operating Support. Programs include multi-lingual crisis hotline, legal clinic, advocacy, transitional housing, emergency hotel stay, counseling, art therapy, support groups, childrens program, transportation, community education/outreach.

What kind of organizations it funds

By the activity category the IRS assigns each recipient, for the 182 grants where we could match the recipient to a registered organization. The categories are the IRS's. The match, made from the name and address on the return, is ours.

Giving by year

Tax years, not calendar years, and the most recent year is usually incomplete -- filings arrive about a year late, so a low final year means late paperwork rather than a foundation winding down.

Where its money goes

99% of its giving went to organizations in Illinois. If your organization is based elsewhere, look in the recipient list for grants to your area before writing.

Funders that support the same organizations

These funders gave to organizations this one also funded -- some private foundations, some community foundations and other grantmaking charities. Shared grantees are a sign of overlapping priorities and nothing more: they do not show that any of these funders would consider a new organization. Each page says what its filings show.

How to approach this foundation

1. Check you are its size. The median grant is $15,000. A request many times that size asks for something it has rarely or never given.
2. Check you are in its geography. Its giving is concentrated in Illinois.
3. Read the recipient list above for organizations like yours. If nothing on it resembles your work, that is a real answer, and a cheap one to get.
4. Look up the current filing before writing. The 990-PF names the foundation's officers and, where one exists, its application procedure. We link it below.

Related guides

Where these numbers come from

Everything above is taken from Blowitz-Ridgeway Foundation's own Form 990-PF filings, which the IRS publishes in bulk. We used 5 returns (tax years 2020-2024). Grant figures are from its returns. Matching recipients to registered organizations, their IRS classifications, the retention rate and the funders that support the same organizations are our own calculations, described in how we build this.

Address of record on the latest return: 200 W Madison Street 300, Chicago, IL, 60606. This is the address the foundation gave the IRS; many small foundations file through an accountant or a bank trust department, so it may not be where post to a programme officer should go.

EIN 36-2488355 · See the original filings on ProPublica · How we build this

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