· Public charity
Women's Business Development Center
The mission of the WOMEN'S BUSINESS DEVELOPMENT CENTER (wbdc) is to support and accelerate business development and growth, serving all business owners to strengthen their participation in, and impact on, the economy.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2021–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 50 grants below total $5,548,700 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $5,884,199 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $335,499 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
- $10k–50k1 grant · $17k
- $50k–250k45 grants · $4.2M
- $250k+4 grants · $1.3M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| ILLINOIS HISPANIC CHAMBER OF COMMERCE | $368,105 |
| ILLINOIS RESTAURANT ASSOCIATION | $321,693 |
| BERWYN DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION | $311,116 |
| ALLIES FOR COMMUNITY BUSINESS FKA ACCION CHICAGO INC | $303,771 |
| SOUTHLAND DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY | $168,509 |
| CHICAGO MINORITY SUPPLIER DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL INC | $156,817 |
| SEA CRAFT LLC | $150,000 |
| HT23 CUSTOM CRAFTERS LLC | $150,000 |
| PUBLIC SQUARE LLC | $150,000 |
| 33RD DIVISION A MINORITY VETERANS UNIT LLC | $150,000 |
| GALAXY LABS LLC | $150,000 |
| CHICAGO URBAN LEAGUE | $142,946 |
| GREATER SOUTHWEST DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION | $121,237 |
| ORGANIC URBAN REVITALIZATION SOLUTIONS LLC | $100,000 |
| IMPERIAL PRODUCTS LLC | $100,000 |
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 (FY22–24, $187k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 27% 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.
147 repeat relationships — 10 still active in FY2025, 137 since wound down; 39 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, 37% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $3.5M 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
- MAMEXICAN AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERC4× · 2022–2025 · $1.1M · revenue +59%
- AFALLIES FOR COMMUNITY BUSINESS INC4× · 2022–2025 · $996k · revenue +11%
- IRILLINOIS RESTAURANT ASSOCIATION3× · 2023–2025 · $893k · revenue +0%
Funded once
- HMHELEN MILLER - SEIU MEMBER EDUCATION AND TRAINING CENTERone grant, 2022 · $158k · revenue +5%
- QCQUAD COUNTY URBAN LEAGUE INCgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $137k · revenue +84%
- STSEIZE THE FUTURE DEVELOPMENT FOUNDATIONgraduatedone grant, 2022 · $106k · revenue +127%
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.
Promote economic development in the west ridge area community of chicago
To represent and advance its business community striving with constant integrity fairness and cooperation to promote and improve the economic atmosphere business climate and image of Oak Lawn
To ensure that access and opportunities are shared to benefit residents and business owners of chicagos southside. we aim to foster growth of local businesses and leaders, attract new investment, develop our local labor workforce and…
The center promotes and grows chicagos entrepreneurial community.
The Chamber is a member organization proud to serve businesses in Oak Park, River Forest , Forest Park and the surrounding areas. We Provide leadership, information, events, workshops and opportunities for networking and relationship…
The Edgewater Chamber of Commerce's mission is to create and support a thriving business environment, contributing to a vibrant Edgewater community. We present marketing, networking, education, and one-on-one assistance to businesses.
The melrose park chamber of commerce and community development mission as a non-profit is to provide economic opprtunities.
North Branch Works is a membership-supported nonprofit neighborhood organization that for more than three decades has promoted balanced, job-creating economic development along the North Branch of the Chicago River.
To advance civic, economic, industrial, professional, and cultural welfare of the business community.
Over 150 business members in Logan Square Area served through technical assistance, events, marketing and advocacy opportunities and services through the Chamber of Commerce.
Employment support and exchange for veterans
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Southland Development Authority Nfp and the most unlike its peers is American Legion Post 365. 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 27 years old; the field is 17. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 21% startups (under 5 years old) — 8% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 0.1% lost their exemption, against 15% 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.
29 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. 29 of the 2,000 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
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
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 MEXICAN AMERICAN CHAMBER OF COMMERC ↗
- Who funds BERWYN DEVELOPMENT CORPORATION ↗
- Who funds ALLIES FOR COMMUNITY BUSINESS INC ↗
- Who funds ILLINOIS RESTAURANT ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds SOUTHLAND DEVELOPMENT AUTHORITY NFP ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO URBAN LEAGUE ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO MINORITY SUPPLIER DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL ↗
- Who funds HELEN MILLER - SEIU MEMBER EDUCATION AND TRAINING CENTER ↗
- Who funds DEVCORP NORTH DBA ROGERS PARK BUSINESS ALLIANCE ↗
- Who funds CHICAGO NEW BUSINESS NFP ↗
- Who funds GREATER SOUTHWEST DEVELOPMENT CORP ↗
- Who funds QUAD COUNTY URBAN LEAGUE INC ↗
- Who funds SEIZE THE FUTURE DEVELOPMENT 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 loosely connected circle, clustered around a few shared anchors.
Open a dossier: Small Business Advocacy Council · Illinois Action for Children · Choose Chicago Foundation · Chicago Food Policy Action Council · Chicago Urban League · Center for Neighborhood Technology · Somercor 504 Inc · Latinos Progresando · Public Health Institute of Metropolitan Chicago · Marquette Bank Affordable Housing Foundation · Fifth Third Chicagoland Foundation · Allies for Community Business Inc
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 Women's Business Development Center 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.