Ann & Robert H. Lurie Foundation

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OVERVIEW: The Lurie Foundation awards most of its grants to health-care centers and hospitals, favoring well-established organizations with a track record of success. Its areas of grantmaking include health, youth services, higher education and the environment.

IP TAKE: This funder’s grantees are handpicked and well-established. The Lurie Foundation does not maintain a website and does not appear to accept unsolicited proposals for funding.

PROFILE: Established in 1986, the Ann & Robert Lurie Foundation is the foundation of the investor Robert Lurie and his wife, Ann, who worked as a pediatric intensive care nurse in rural Florida and then at Children's Memorial Hospital in Chicago. Robert passed away in 1990 after a battle with colon cancer. The foundation focuses its grantmaking on health care and hospitals but also supports education and human services. To a lesser extend, it has funded environmental causes.

Although Ann Lurie has a website, the Lurie Foundation does not have an official online presence. The foundation became well-known after Ann Lurie approved a $100 million grant to fund the construction of the Ann & Robert Lurie Children's Hospital in downtown Chicago. Some of the largest Lurie grants in Chicago have included $20 million to the Children's Memorial Foundation, $10 million to maintain the Lurie Garden at Chicago's Millennium Park and $50,000 to Riders for Health. Ann has also approved smaller grants to the Greater Chicago Food Depository and Gilda's Club cancer support program.

The Lurie Foundation typically gives out only about eight to ten grants each year, which usually range in size from $50,000 to $100,000. Although the $100 million grants are the ones making news, they are rare, and most yearly giving totals top out at barely $1 million. Browse the funder’s recent tax records to learn more about foundation giving. While grantmaking does not appear to be exclusively restricted to Chicago, this is where most Lurie funds remain.

It does not appear that the foundation accepts unsolicited grant proposals from nonprofits. The best way to get in touch with the Lurie Foundation is by phone at 312-466-3222.

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