· Public charity
United Way of Northwest Illinois Inc
To improve lives by mobilizing the caring power of communities around the world to advance the common good.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 9 grants below total $209,928 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $225,501 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $15,573 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 · FY2025
- Under $10k2 grants · $13k
- $10k–50k7 grants · $197k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| RAMP | $45,000 |
| AMITY SOCIETY | $40,000 |
| DOLLYWOOD FOUNDATION | $35,928 |
| BOYS & GIRLS CLUB | $30,000 |
| VOICES | $18,600 |
| FACC | $16,000 |
| TYLER'S JUSTICE CENTER FOR CHILDREN | $11,400 |
| YMCA OF NORTHWEST ILLINOIS | $7,000 |
| NICAA | $6,000 |
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 (FY17–25, $684k) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 92% 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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +23% since the first grant, against +20% for the ones you funded once.
22 repeat relationships — 9 still active in FY2025, 13 since wound down.
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Median revenue growth · since first grant
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2025, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 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
- ASAMITY SOCIETY OF FREEPORT INC9× · 2017–2025 · $382k · revenue +99%
- TBTHE BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF FREEPORT AND STEPHENSON COUNTY9× · 2017–2025 · $320k · revenue +41%
THE DOLLYWOOD FOUNDATION5× · 2021–2025 · $284k · revenue +91%
Funded once
- NINorthern Illinois Center for Nonprofit Excellenceone grant, 2021 · $55k · revenue +15%
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2020 · $30k
- AMART MUSEUMone grant, 2020 · $17k
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.
Providing Social Services to Families including Child Care
Our mission is to improve the health of our communities, working together with those we serve.
To foster stronger communities by providing individuals with accessible, professional counseling and mental health care that empowers them to thrive
A safe place is the leading advocate for eliminating domestic violence & human trafficking in northern illinois.
To enrich the quality of life within the diverse population of northwest rockford.
To assist children who have been victims of abuse
Strengthen United Way movement in Illinois
To foster low income housing, develop and promote affordable homeownership and rental opportunities, support community develpment, social services, and educational opportunities for individuals and families throughout menard county and the…
To promptly and efficiently promote and provide a wide array of programs to meet the needs of the elderly, their families and those who care for them in a confidential and professional manner.
Provide mental health services.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Children's Home & Aid Society of Ill and the most unlike its peers is Rockin Appalachian Mom Project 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 50 years old; the field is 24. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 17% startups (under 5 years old) — 0% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.0% lost their exemption, against 9% 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.
28 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. 28 of the 38 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 AMITY SOCIETY OF FREEPORT INC ↗
- Who funds THE BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB OF FREEPORT AND STEPHENSON COUNTY ↗
- Who funds THE DOLLYWOOD FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds VOICES OF STEPHENSON COUNTY ↗
- Who funds FREEPORT AREA CHURCH COOPERATIVE ↗
- Who funds REGIONAL ACCESS & MOBILIZATION PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds CONTACT OF NORTHERN ILLINOIS ↗
- Who funds YOUNG MENS CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION OF FREEPORT ILLINOIS ↗
- Who funds JANE ADDAMS INC ↗
- Who funds Tyler's Justice Center for Children ↗
- Who funds Northern Illinois Center for Nonprofit Excellence ↗
- Who funds Stephenson County Senior Center DBA Senior Resource Center ↗
- Who funds ROCKIN APPALACHIAN MOM PROJECT INC ↗
- Who funds NORMAN C SLEEZER YOUTH HOME ↗
- Who funds Riverview Center Inc ↗
- Who funds FREEPORT REGIONAL HEALTH CARE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds MOTHER HUBBARD'S KIDDIE CUPBOARD ↗
- Who funds NORTHWESTERN ILLINOIS COMMUNITY ACTION AGENCY ↗
- Who funds KING'S DAUGHTER'S CHILDRENS HOME ↗
- Who funds GIRL SCOUTS OF NORTHERN ILLINOIS ↗
- Who funds American National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches ↗
- Who funds PUBLIC HEALTH FOUNDATION OF NORTHWEST IL ↗
- Who funds MALCOLM EATON ENTERPRISES ↗
- Who funds CARPENTER'S PLACE INC ↗
- Who funds ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION ASSN OF ILLINOIS ↗
- Who funds CHILDREN'S HOME & AID SOCIETY OF ILL ↗
- Who funds UNITED WAY OF ROCK RIVER VALLEY ↗
- Who funds THE LIAM FOUNDATION ↗
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: Community Foundation of Northern IL · Northern Illinois Food Bank · United Way of Rock River Valley · Bergstrom Inc Charitable Foundation Xxxxx2008 · Enterprise Holdings Foundation · American Online Giving Foundation Inc · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · 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 Northwest Illinois 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.