· Public charity
United Way of Will County
To unite will county communities and resources to empower people and create positive sustainable change through an extensive network of corporate partnerships, community members, and funded partners.
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 39 grants below total $1,005,000 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $1,256,236 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $251,236 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 $10k4 grants · $33k
- $10k–50k29 grants · $547k
- $50k–250k6 grants · $426k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CATHOLIC CHARITIES | $92,500 |
| BOYS AND GIRLS CLUB | $86,500 |
| TRINITY SERVICES | $74,500 |
| GREATER JOLIET YMCA | $63,000 |
| STEPPING STONE | $59,000 |
| WARREN SHARPE COMMUNITY CENTER | $50,500 |
| GUARDIAN ANGEL | $49,000 |
| UNITED CEREBRAL PALSY-CENTER FOR DISABILITY SERVICES | $37,500 |
| SPANISH COMMUNITY CENTER | $36,000 |
| WILLGRUNDY MEDICAL CLINIC | $34,500 |
| EASTER SEALS JOLIET REGION | $30,000 |
| AMERICAN RED CROSS | $29,000 |
| SENIOR SERVICES CENTER WILL COUNTY | $25,000 |
| AGAPE | $24,500 |
| WILL COUNTY HABITAT FOR HUMANITY | $21,500 |
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, $3.0M) land where the poverty rate runs at 7%, against an area that typically sits at 9%. 0% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-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 +46% since the first grant, against 0% for the ones you funded once.
54 repeat relationships — 28 still active in FY2025, 26 since wound down; 9 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).
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, 91% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $95k 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
- CCCATHOLIC CHARITIES OF THE DIOCESE OF JOLIET9× · 2017–2025 · $1.4M · revenue +68%
- GWGeorge Werden Buck Boys & Girls Club9× · 2017–2025 · $1.1M · revenue +10% · 37% of their budget
- YMYOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION JOLIET9× · 2017–2025 · $904k · revenue +82%
Funded once
- DRDISABILITY RESOURCES CENTERone grant, 2023 · $18k
- LFLambs Fold Women's Centerone grant, 2017 · $14k
- PFPLAY FOR RINGS INC NFPone grant, 2018 · $10k
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.
Administering an array of critical, intensive therapeutic interventions and/or facilitation services to emotionally and behaviorally disturbed clients for whom DCFS is legally responsible in order to stabilize their traditional or home of…
Providing Social Services to Families including Child Care
Our central Illinois organization provides programs and services to adults with disabilities; enriching their quality of life, promoting social change, and optimizing their potential for independence.
To foster stronger communities by providing individuals with accessible, professional counseling and mental health care that empowers them to thrive
Provide Counselors in Child Abuse Situations
To assist children who have been victims of abuse
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.
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…
The provision of holistic emotional and behavioral health services for individuals, families and communities with an emphasis on recovery and optimal functioning.
To enhance the quality of life for children and families by inspiring hope and empowerment and growth within all whom we serve.
Our mission is to provide community-centered mental health services that empower individuals and families to build resilience and lead lives filled with meaning, connection, and hope.
To enhance the quality of life of the older person, support theirindependence, encourage their involvement in the community, provide analternative to loneliness and isolation and provide a community focalpoint where older persons come…
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Catholic Charities of the Diocese of Joliet and the most unlike its peers is Braidwood Area Healthy Community Coalition. 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 35 years old; the field is 12. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 26% startups (under 5 years old) — 2% of your grantees by number, and just 0% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 2% lost their exemption, against 16% 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.
56 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. 56 of the 70 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 CATHOLIC CHARITIES OF THE DIOCESE OF JOLIET ↗
- Who funds George Werden Buck Boys & Girls Club ↗
- Who funds YOUNG MEN'S CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION JOLIET ↗
- Who funds TRINITY SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds CENTER FOR CORRECTIONAL CONCERNS ↗
- Who funds STEPPING STONES INC ↗
- Who funds SPANISH COMMUNITY CENTER ↗
- Who funds UNITED CEREBRAL PALSY CENTER FOR DISABILITY SERVICES ↗
- Who funds MARCY NEWBERRY ASSOCIATION INC ↗
- Who funds VILASECA JOSEPHINE CENTER ↗
- Who funds EASTER SEALS OF JOLIET REGION INC ↗
- Who funds American National Red Cross & Its Constituent Chapters and Branches ↗
- Who funds WARREN SHARPE COMMUNITY CENTER ↗
- Who funds BIG BROTHERS - BIG SISTERS OF WILL AND GRUNDY COUNTIES ↗
- Who funds Boy Scouts of America Rainbow Council ↗
- Who funds CRISIS LINE OF WILL COUNTY ↗
- Who funds CORNERSTONE SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds WILL GRUNDY MEDICAL CLINIC ↗
- Who funds AGAPE MISSIONS NFP ↗
- Who funds South Suburban Council on Alcoholism and Substance Abuse ↗
- Who funds Joliet Area Community Hospice Corp ↗
- Who funds Girl Scouts of Greater Chicago and Northwest Indiana ↗
- Who funds FRIENDS OF THE WILL COUNTY CHILDRENS ADVOCACY CENTER ↗
- Who funds COMMUNITY SERVICE COUNCIL OF NORTHERN WILL COUNTY ↗
- Who funds CASA OF RIVER VALLEY ↗
- Who funds GUARDIAN ANGEL COMMUNITY SERVICES ↗
- Who funds PRAIRIE STATE LEGAL SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds WILL COUNTY HABITAT FOR HUMANITY ↗
- Who funds WILL-GRUNDY CENTER FOR INDEPENDENT LIVING ↗
- Who funds SOCIAL SERVICES AND COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT FOUNDATION INC ↗
- Who funds NORTHERN ILLINOIS FOOD BANK ↗
- Who funds BAGS OF HOPE ↗
- Who funds KANKAKEE COUNTY COMMUNITY SERVICES INC ↗
- Who funds NAMI WILL-GRUNDY ↗
- Who funds FARMWORKER AND LANDSCAPER ADVOCACY PROJECT ↗
- Who funds MEALS ON WHEELS CHICAGO ↗
- Who funds Service Inc of Illinois ↗
- Who funds Shady Oaks Camp for People with Disabilities ↗
- Who funds AUNT MARTHA'S HEALTH AND WELLNESS INC ↗
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 Grundy County · The Community Foundation of Will County · United Way of Metropolitan Chicago Inc · Northern Illinois Food Bank · The Dupage Community Foundation · Midland States Bank Foundation · Community Foundation of Grundy County · George M Eisenberg Foundation for Charities · Crane Fund for Widows and Children · Rubino Family Foundation · Silver Cross Healthy Community Commission · Ageguide Northeastern Illinois Area on Aging
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 Will County 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.