Cme Group Foundation

CME Group Foundation operates as a tightly focused, relationship-driven funder — the philanthropic arm of the world's largest derivatives marketplace. Established in 2008 with a $16 million endowment from the Chicago Mercantile Exchange Trust, the Foundation has grown to $63.8 million in total assets as of 2024 and disburses roughly $6–6.5 million annually. Its board is composed of CME Group's most senior executives: Chairman Charles P. Carey, Vice-Chairman and CME Group CEO Terrence A. Duffy, and Secretary/Treasurer Howard J. Siegel, alongside Trustees Daniel Glickman and Terry L. Savage, with Executive Director Eva Giglio. This close corporate alignment means the Foundation's philanthropic identity is inseparable from the institution it represents — grantees here are expected to reflect and advance Chicago's financial industry heritage through workforce-relevant education.

The Foundation's giving philosophy centers on three education tiers — early childhood, K-12, and college/career success — plus a newer mental health initiative launched in 2023. Approximately 90% of grants fall within these education corridors. The Foundation explicitly prefers organizations with proven track records and makes multi-year, multi-cycle commitments: the top grantees in its portfolio have each received 2–10 grants. Scholarship America, its largest grantee partner, has accumulated $2.6 million across four grants for the Scholars Program alone.

Critically, this is an invitation-only funder. The Foundation does not accept unsolicited proposals. However, program staff have indicated they are open to hearing from mission-aligned organizations through the website's contact form. First-time applicants should initiate contact by submitting a concise organizational overview emphasizing measurable outcomes, geographic focus on Illinois/Chicago, and alignment with one of the Foundation's stated education priorities. Do not lead with a full proposal — introduce your organization and request a conversation.

The typical relationship progression moves from initial contact to Foundation-initiated invitation to submitted proposal to possible site visit to board review to notification. The Board meets several times per year, so decision timelines can span 3–6 months. Organizations must ensure they have no other active CME Group Foundation grants before pursuing a new application, as the Foundation will not fund more than one request per organization simultaneously.

CME Group Foundation has more than doubled its annual grantmaking over the past decade, growing from $3.1 million in grants paid in 2012 to $6.09 million in 2022 and $6.07 million in 2023. Total assets grew from $15.7 million in 2013 to $63.8 million in 2024 — driven by consistent contributions from CME Group Inc. ($3.44 million received in 2022, $3.56 million in 2023). The effective payout rate is approximately 10–11% of assets annually, roughly double the standard 5% minimum for private foundations.

Across 517 documented grants totaling $24.4 million in the database, the median grant size is $25,000 and the average is $47,143. Grants range from a minimum of $2,250 to a maximum of $700,000, and the largest individual grantees receive repeated, compounding awards that accumulate into seven figures. Scholarship America has received $2.6 million across 4 grants. Children First Fund (the CPS Foundation) has received $2.17 million across 10 grants for CS after-school clubs, financial education, and early childhood programming. The Chicago Public Education Fund received $1 million across 4 grants, and City Colleges of Chicago Foundation received $600,000 across 3 grants. These top-line commitments signal that the Foundation reserves its largest investments for a small cluster of high-capacity institutional partners.

Geographically, 392 of 517 documented grants (75.8%) went to Illinois organizations — confirming this is fundamentally a Chicago-focused funder. Washington DC-based grantees received 24 grants (4.6%), reflecting national policy organizations like Advance Illinois and Cambridge in America. New York received 22 grants (4.3%), California 18 (3.5%), and Massachusetts and Minnesota 15 each (2.9%).

By program area, K-12 and education systems reform receive the plurality of funding. CS4All-linked grants, financial literacy initiatives, and principal quality programs account for the largest share. Early childhood education — anchored by the Foundation's prior $11.3 million Early Math Initiative — represents approximately 25–30% of historical giving. College success and scholarships have grown sharply since 2019 and now represent an expanding share of annual grantmaking, with the Scholars Program having awarded $4.3 million to 123 students through 2025.

The following table compares CME Group Foundation against its closest asset-size peers. Note that CME Group Foundation is unusual among similarly-sized foundations — most peers are family or community foundations, while this is a focused corporate foundation with highly concentrated programmatic priorities.

CME Group Foundation stands out in this peer group in two critical ways. First, its payout rate (~10% of assets annually) is roughly double what similarly-sized private foundations typically distribute — a function of consistent annual corporate contributions augmenting investment returns. Second, its thematic focus is exceptionally narrow for its size: nearly all grantmaking flows to Chicago-area education organizations, making it one of the more geographically and programmatically concentrated funders in the $60M asset range. Organizations seeking comparable funders for portfolio diversification should also examine the Joyce Foundation, Crown Family Philanthropies, and the Searle Funds — all Chicago-based education funders with related but distinct priority areas and more accessible application processes.

The Foundation's most significant recent announcement came in August 2025, when it awarded $360,000 in new scholarships to 18 first-generation, low-income college students through its CME Group Foundation Scholars Program — $20,000 each, renewable for three years (maximum potential award $60,000 per student). The Foundation simultaneously reported 37 active scholars across 12 partner universities and a cumulative total of more than $4.3 million awarded to 123 students since the program launched in 2019. The next application window for the Scholars Program was announced to open in February 2026, administered through Scholarship America.

In May 2025, CME Group announced an additional $125,000 in awards to 25 City Colleges of Chicago graduates ($5,000 each) transferring to four-year institutions — selected from over 380 Star Scholars who completed associate degrees with a 3.0+ GPA in spring 2025. This ongoing partnership, active since 2017 and now totaling over $1 million, underscores the Foundation's sustained commitment to community college transfer pipelines.

A notable programmatic update emerged in March 2025 when findings from the Foundation's $2 million mental health initiative — launched August 2023 and the Foundation's most significant programmatic expansion in recent memory — received NPR coverage. Researchers at the Sinai Urban Health Institute surveyed nearly 900 middle and high school girls in Chicago, finding higher rates of depression and anxiety than national averages. Active grantees in this initiative include Girls Inc. of Chicago, Ladies of Virtue, and Polished Pebbles, pointing to a new category of potential grantee partners beyond the Foundation's traditional academic-institution network.

Understand and work within the invitation-only model. CME Group Foundation does not accept unsolicited grant proposals under any circumstances. However, program officers have signaled openness to initial contact via the foundation's online contact form at cmegroupfoundation.org. The appropriate first step is a brief, targeted organizational overview — not a full proposal — that establishes mission alignment, summarizes your Chicago/Illinois impact, and requests an introductory conversation. Organizations with relationships to CME Group employees, board members (Terrence Duffy, Charles Carey, Daniel Glickman, or Terry Savage), or existing grantee partners (Scholarship America, Children First Fund, University of Chicago, Northwestern) should actively leverage those connections to warm an introduction.

Frame outcomes in the Foundation's own language. For early childhood proposals, align your work directly to the KIDS assessment (Kindergarten Individual Development Survey) and demonstrate how your programming improves readiness scores for Black, Latinx, and low-income Illinois children. For K-12, reference CS4All enrollment data, financial literacy benchmarks, or college readiness rates. For college/career, explicitly name the disciplines the Foundation prioritizes: finance, computer science, IT, math, cybersecurity, data science, statistics, accounting, and financial engineering — all fields with ties to the derivatives market industry.

Budget to their overhead caps strictly. The Foundation enforces hard overhead limits: 5% for school districts, 10% for universities, 15% for nonprofits. Any budget with overhead above these thresholds will create friction. Design project budgets to reflect direct program costs prominently, and present personnel costs as program delivery, not administration.

Avoid these structural misalignments: The Foundation does not fund general operating support, capital campaigns, endowment gifts, deficit reduction, or benefit events. It will not fund organizations that have another active CME Group Foundation grant in progress. Proposals with a primarily national scope or outside Illinois are unlikely to succeed unless tied to a recognized partner with documented Chicago impact.

Time your outreach strategically. The Board meets several times annually. Initiating contact in September–October or January–February allows adequate lead time before spring and fall decision cycles. For the Scholars Program specifically, the public application window opens in February via Scholarship America — this is the one documented open-access pathway to CME Group Foundation funding.