· Public charity
United Way of Lee County Inc
To optimize collective resources supporting human service programs -focusing on education, health, financial stability, and basic needs -that improve the quality of life in lee county
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2023.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 21 grants below total $358,100 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $394,417 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $36,317 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2023
- Under $10k4 grants · $31k
- $10k–50k17 grants · $327k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| OPEN SESAME CHILDREN'S LEARNING CENTERS | $28,000 |
| HOPE OF OGLE COUNTY | $27,688 |
| LEE COUNTY COUNCIL ON AGING | $27,000 |
| SINNISSIPPI CENTERS INC (SCI) | $25,000 |
| LUTHERAN SOCIAL SERVICES OF ILLINOIS | $24,681 |
| VILLAGE OF PROGRESS | $22,294 |
| DIXON FAMILY YMCA | $21,000 |
| SHINING STAR CHILDREN'S ADVOCACY CENTER | $19,119 |
| TEEN TURF INC | $19,000 |
| ROCK RIVER CENTER | $17,288 |
| LEE COUNTY CASA | $17,144 |
| KREIDER SERVICES INC | $17,000 |
| FOCUS HOUSE | $14,313 |
| DIXON PADS SHELTER | $14,000 |
| LIFESCAPE COMMUNITY SERVICES | $12,437 |
Do your dollars go where the need is?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, then read against the area’s typical level.
Your human-services grants (FY17–23, $311k) land where the poverty rate runs at 11%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 76% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty linein the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP; grantee ZIP can differ from where services are delivered.
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are actually delivered. Need from public data — U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.
Who you back again
Which organizations you funded more than once, and which you funded a single time. Each grantee is matched to its own filings.
24 repeat relationships — 14 still active in FY2023, 10 since wound down; 7 grantees were first funded in FY2023 (too recent to call).
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2023, 69% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $110k went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
First-time = a grantee’s first year in your filing window; renewed = funded in an earlier year too. As a portfolio matures the renewed share naturally climbs — once funded, an org stays “renewable” — so the signal is the years that buck it (a new-grantee intake wave). The earliest year is left-censored: relationships that predate the data read as “new.” Theme is the grantee’s IRS cause.
Backed again, and grew
- LCLEE COUNTY COUNCIL ON AGING7× · 2017–2023 · $155k · revenue +10%
- SCSINNISSIPPI CENTERS INC7× · 2017–2023 · $153k · revenue +205%
- DFDIXON FAMILY YMCA7× · 2017–2023 · $132k · revenue +21%
Funded once
- HOHOME OF HOPE OF THE ROCK RIVER VALLEY2× · 2017–2020 · $15k
- ARAMERICAN RED CROSS2× · 2017–2020 · $11k
- GFGOOD FELLOWS2× · 2017–2020 · $6k
Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
The map has a center of gravity: the average direction from the rest of the sector toward the organizations the foundation funds — the shape of its giving. Scoring every nonprofit along that direction surfaces the ones that look most like the portfolio. These are the closest matchesthat aren’t grantees — a resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.
Provide medical and other suport services to patients and their families.
Helping individuals live with dignity through the final stage of life.
Care of terminally ill
Adult day health care provided to older and disabled adults living in davidson county. enable caregivers to work, do chores, or rest. activities, meals, transportation, and stimulation provided.
To provide comprehensive outpatient mental health services to over 5400 individuals and their families in a consumer driven person centered delivery system. Approximately 15% of our staff members are our clients who are involved in a…
Christian care communities enhances the journey of life for those we serve. recognizing the unique needs of each individual christian care offers an array of housing and care options including independent living. 24-hour skilled nursing…
To promote independent and meaningful living for older adults through direct services and programs in the home and community.
To provide decent and affordable housing to low and moderate income persons.
To provide housing and end of life care and support to terminally ill individuals.
Provide counseling, nursing, transportation, and other services as needed to terminally ill patients and their families. patients are recommended by physicians, and pay only if they have insurance.
At the sheffield care center our mission, through dedicated teamwork, is to provide all who enter our doors with a clean, comfortable, home-like atmosphere where honesty, dignity, respect and genuine compassion for one another prevails.
Residential care home for elderly and handicapped.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Village of Progress Inc and the most unlike its peers is Teen Turf Inc. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 40 years old; the field is 25. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 15% startups (under 5 years old) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 6% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 8% of the field you don’t fund.
Age = years since IRS exemption (a founding proxy). “Closed” = auto-revocation for 3 years of non-filing — a floor on closure, not proof, and bigger established orgs lapse least. Association, not causation.
22 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.
Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue from every source. Association, dated; never a causal claim.
Counted here: distinct organizations you funded across 2017–2025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 22 of the 36 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile; the rest are funded organizations whose filings we could not track year by year.
Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee
Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing
Go grantee by grantee — a decade per org, and how each moved after you funded them
A decade per grantee — revenue shaded, your grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.
- Who funds LEE COUNTY COUNCIL ON AGING ↗
- Who funds SINNISSIPPI CENTERS INC ↗
- Who funds DIXON FAMILY YMCA ↗
- Who funds Teen Turf Inc ↗
- Who funds KREIDER SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds LUTHERAN SOCIAL SERVICES OF ILLINOIS ↗
- Who funds OPEN SESAME CHILD CARE CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds YOUNG WOMEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF THE SAUK VALLEY ↗
- Who funds LIFESCAPE COMMUNITY SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds CASA - 15TH JUDICIAL CIRCUIT ↗
- Who funds DIXON PADS SHELTER ↗
- Who funds HOPE OF OGLE COUNTY ↗
- Who funds VILLAGE OF PROGRESS INC ↗
- Who funds DIXON HABITAT FOR HUMANITY INC ↗
- Who funds ROCK RIVER CENTER INC ↗
- Who funds FOUNDATION FOR FOCUS HOUSE ↗
- Who funds HOPE CANCER WELLNESS CENTERS ↗
- Who funds Goodfellows Of Lee County ↗
- Who funds HUB CITY SENIOR CITIZENS INC ↗
- Who funds ROCKFORD SEXUAL ASSAULT COUNSELING INC ↗
- Who funds SERENITY HOSPICE AND HOME ↗
The grantmakers whose grantees overlap with yours far more than size alone predicts. Each orbits closer the stronger the alignment; the arcs between them show where they also fund each other. Here it reads as a tightly interlocked camp — most of these funders back each other's grantees too.
Open a dossier: United Way of Rock River Valley · William & Beverly Burkardt Family Foundation Nfp · Rochelle Area Community Foundation · United Way of Whiteside County · The Etnyre Foundation · Dillon Foundation · Do It Best Foundation Inc · The Covia Foundation · Amazonsmile Foundation
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. A research starting point: overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.
Government reliance of your grantees
Every dot is one organization United Way of Lee County Inc funds. Left–right is the share of its income from government; up–down is the share from you. Bigger dots raise more. Filter to federal or a single department — and drag the year to watch it move.
Government income is each org’s traced federal awards (USASpending — grants and contracts) plus state payments (open checkbooks) as a share of its total revenue (IRS Form 990); the self-reported government-grant line (990 line 1e) is carried for cross-check: a grantee that reports government grants we could not trace to a source is left off the chart rather than shown as receiving none. An association, not a claim that your grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first — a floor, not a census; state records exist for 9 states, so a grantee outside them shows no state figure (dimmed) rather than a false zero. Federal award amounts are obligations, which can span years, so a single-year share is indicative. 990 filings lag 12–24 months.