The Walsh Foundation

The Walsh Foundation is a tightly held family foundation linked directly to The Walsh Group, one of the largest construction and engineering firms in North America. Founded in 1995, it is governed exclusively by Walsh family members — Matthew M. Walsh (CEO), Daniel J. Walsh (President), Joyce S. Walsh (Treasurer/Director), and Patricia R. Walsh (Secretary/Director) — plus a single outside director, E. Bryan Dunigan. All officers serve without compensation, and the foundation carries no formal staff. This structure tells a first-time applicant almost everything they need to know: the Walsh Foundation is a vehicle for the family's personal philanthropic commitments, not an institutional grant program.

The foundation's Catholic identity is its defining characteristic. An overwhelming share of its largest grants flow to Jesuit and Catholic institutions: St Ignatius College Prep has received $6.9 million across two recorded grants; Chicago Jesuit Academy, $1 million; Francis Xavier Warde School (a Catholic elementary school in Chicago), $1.25 million; Mercy Home for Boys and Girls (a Catholic residential care provider), $1.1 million; and Marillac St Vincent Family Services (a Catholic Charities affiliate), $2 million. Universities with Catholic ties — John Carroll University ($2 million), St Mary's College ($750,000), Loyola University's School of Social Work ($100,000) — appear throughout. Prospective grantees from outside this ecosystem should understand they are not the primary audience.

The foundation does not accept unsolicited proposals. Its database profile is marked `preselected_only: true`, and no application form, portal, or deadline exists on record. Web research confirmed that walshgroup.com offers no public grantmaking portal. The typical path to a grant runs through personal relationships: shared board memberships at Catholic institutions, Jesuit alumni networks, or introductions through the foundation's legal administrator (Madden Jiganti Moore & Sinars in Chicago).

For Catholic educational, health, and social service organizations already embedded in Chicago's philanthropic ecosystem, the Walsh Foundation represents a high-value relationship worth cultivating over years. For organizations outside that ecosystem, efforts are better directed elsewhere.

The Walsh Foundation has maintained a remarkably stable asset base — hovering between $171 million and $187 million since at least 2012 — funded entirely by investment income rather than new contributions. In FY2023 (the most recent complete 990 data), net investment income was $14.6 million, grants paid totaled $13.2 million, and total giving reached $14.5 million. FY2024 shows $186.4 million in assets and $11.7 million in disbursements, with revenue of $16.9 million. Over the five-year period from FY2019 to FY2023, annual grants paid ranged from $9.9 million to $13.2 million — a consistent 5-8% annual payout rate on assets.

Grant size analysis across 137 tracked grants reveals a sharply bifurcated portfolio. The database records a median of $25,000 and an average of $145,182 — the wide gap signals that a handful of very large anchor gifts pull the average up sharply. In the top-50 grantee data: - Mega-grants ($1M+): St Ignatius College Prep ($6.9M), Misericordia Foundation ($3.0M), Marillac St Vincent ($2.0M), John Carroll University ($2.0M), Francis Xavier Warde School ($1.25M), Mercy Home for Boys and Girls ($1.1M), Chicago Jesuit Academy ($1.0M) - Mid-tier grants ($100K–$999K): St Mary's College ($750K), Nazareth Academy ($525K), Cystic Fibrosis Foundation ($300K), Notre Dame ($300K), Mother McAuley High School ($300K), Catholic Extension Society ($220K) - Small grants ($25K–$99K): Numerous Catholic parishes, schools, and civic organizations — many receiving $50,000

Sector breakdown (estimated from grantee data): Catholic/Jesuit education dominates at roughly 55-60% of total tracked giving. Social services (Catholic-affiliated residential, family, and disability care) represent approximately 20-25%. Health-related causes (Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, Lurie Children's, Edward Hospital) account for 8-10%. Arts and media (WTTW, WFMT, WBEZ, Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, Chicago Architectural Biennial) make up the remaining 5-8%.

Geography: Illinois receives ~79% of grants (108 of 137), Indiana 8% (11 grants, linked to St Mary's College and Lalumiere in LaGrange, IN), and New York 4.4% (6 grants, including Brooklyn Academy of Music).

The Walsh Foundation occupies a narrow asset band ($186M) alongside several similarly sized private foundations, but its giving philosophy, Catholic focus, and closed application model set it apart sharply from peers.

Among this peer cohort, The Walsh Foundation is distinctive in its density of Catholic institutional giving — no peer foundation shows a comparable concentration in Jesuit and Catholic charities. The Schreiber Foundation is the closest geographic analog (Chicago-based, similar asset size, invitation-only), though its focus skews toward healthcare philanthropy. The BHP Foundation operates globally with a corporate-origin mission tied to natural resources. S Mark Taper Foundation is a California institution with a civic and arts emphasis. The Walsh Foundation's payout of approximately 6-8% annually falls in line with or slightly above peer-group norms, reflecting a genuine commitment to deploying capital rather than growing the endowment.

The Walsh Foundation maintains a deliberately low public profile. No press releases, program announcements, or grant award communications were found on walshgroup.com for 2025 or 2026. The 2025 Walsh Group news archive covers corporate construction achievements — project completions, safety awards, employee promotions — with no foundation-specific content.

The most current financial data (FY2024 990, updated January 4, 2026, per Candid/ProPublica) confirms $186.4 million in total assets, $16.9 million in revenue (primarily investment returns: 71.5% from asset sales, 27.6% from dividends), and approximately $11.7 million in charitable disbursements. This represents a modest decline from FY2023's $14.5 million in total giving, which was the foundation's highest recorded annual giving in the available dataset.

Leadership remains unchanged: the Walsh family controls all governance positions. Matthew M. Walsh (CEO) and Daniel J. Walsh (President) are co-chairs of The Walsh Group, the construction firm that underlies the foundation's wealth. E. Bryan Dunigan continues as the sole outside director, having served across multiple recorded filing years.

The most recent notable large grants from the grantee dataset (capturing FY2022-2023 activity) include Misericordia Foundation ($1.51M in a single cycle), Frances Xavier Warde School ($1M), and John Carroll University ($1M). Misericordia — a Chicago organization serving adults with developmental disabilities — has emerged as the second-largest cumulative grantee behind St Ignatius College Prep, suggesting sustained strategic investment in disability services alongside education.

Because The Walsh Foundation operates on an invitation-only basis with no public application process, conventional grant-seeking tactics — submitting an LOI through a portal, responding to an RFP, attending foundation webinars — do not apply here. Success requires a fundamentally different approach: relationship cultivation within the Catholic philanthropic ecosystem that the Walsh family inhabits.

Know the gatekeeper institutions. St Ignatius College Prep (a Jesuit high school on Chicago's Near West Side) is the Walsh Foundation's single largest cumulative grantee at $6.9 million. Board membership, alumni engagement, or collaborative programming with St Ignatius, Chicago Jesuit Academy, Loyola University, or John Carroll University creates the kind of shared institutional context that opens conversations with Walsh Foundation trustees.

Catholic social service alignment matters. Misericordia Foundation ($3.0M), Marillac St Vincent Family Services ($2.0M), and Mercy Home for Boys and Girls ($1.1M) represent the foundation's major social service grantees — all of them Catholic-mission organizations serving children, families, or persons with disabilities in Chicago. Organizations in these sectors that operate with an explicit Catholic identity or that partner with Catholic Charities of Chicago have a more natural entry point.

Engage through the legal intermediary. The foundation's registered address is c/o Madden Jiganti Moore & Sinars, 190 S LaSalle St, Suite 1700. This Chicago law firm serves as the administrative contact. A referral through an attorney or civic leader with ties to this firm may be more productive than direct foundation outreach.

Contact information on record: Email HR@walshgroup.com (the foundation's contact email in the database) and phone 312-563-5400. These connect to Walsh Group corporate offices — use them only if you have a warm introduction to establish credibility first.

Frame your mission in Catholic social teaching language. Words like subsidiarity, solidarity, preferential option for the poor, and whole-person care resonate with Catholic philanthropic culture. Secular equity or DEI language, absent Catholic framing, is unlikely to align.

Target grant size realistically. While mega-grants exist, most Walsh Foundation grants outside the top-tier relationships appear to run $25,000–$100,000. First-time grantees should position asks in this range to reduce barrier to entry.