Illinois · Nonprofit
Grassroots Collaborative
Grassroots Collaborative (Illinois) receives grants from 35 organizations whose IRS filings report $6,902,355 to it, the largest being POWERSWITCH ACTION ($1,491,633). 19 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2024
- $1.1M
- Funders on record
- 35
- Grants received
- $6.9M
- Net assets
- $1.4M
What Grassroots Collaborative does
Mission
Grassroots Collaborative unites eight membership-based organizations in order to create policy change on local and statewide levels. The organization's multi-racial coalition spans a variety of organizing networks; including low-wage service employees, the homeless, senior citizens, immigrants, faith leaders, and residents of poor and working-class neighborhoods.Member organizations include Action Now, American Friends Service Committee, Chicago Coalition to End Homelessness, Chicago Teachers Union, Palenque LSNA, ONE Northside, and Service Employees International Union Healthcare Illinois Indiana.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Program
Grassroots Collaborative conducts and participates in multiple issue campaigns across Illinois, in Chicago, and in Peoria. The organization's main activities in 2024 included coordinating roles in the Illinois Green New Deal coalition, thePeoria Parents Project, the Peoples Unity Platform and the Illinois RevenueAlliance. These activities included public education on the related issues and leadership development of leaders of our member organizations and key ally organizations. We held training and educational programs in Chicago and Peoria related to the above-mentioned work.
$1,071,520 spent$316 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $1,071,520.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2017, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2017, 50 means half. The number beside each label in the key is where it ended. The shaded band is where the middle 50% of its peers' revenue would sit, given their growth.
Balance sheet
Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2020 to 2021, from $545k to $1.3M (+138%).
How it's funded, over time
Each bar is one year's revenue split into where it came from, and every bar is the same height — these are shares, not amounts, so a year that raised twice as much looks the same size. Hover a bar for the split.
Government-grant reliance: 2022 1%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
100% of Grassroots Collaborative’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (48% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 3 of the last 8 reported years ran a deficit.
reserve
Leadership and staff
The officers, directors, trustees and key employees listed on each return. Joined and no longer listed compare each filing with the year before, matching people by surname and first initial; a year after a gap, or a roster under three people, has no comparison.
Chief executive
Carlos Fernandez
Executive Director
As listed on its FY2024 Form 990.
The chief executive listed changed between the FY2022 and FY2023 filings.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 3 funders to 12 funders, grant income rose $142k → $1.2M.
5 of 35 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 21% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
From the IRS filings of Grassroots Collaborative’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 35 funders by total. Association, not causation. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How concentrated its funding is
Grassroots Collaborative has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 22% of grant income, and it takes 3 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 3 funders to its left
78% of the income these shares are computed over arrives through pass-through sponsors or from payers whose filings do not say what kind of payment it is. Concentration is still measured over all of it, because the money is real; what it does not support is a claim about how many institutions have chosen to fund Grassroots Collaborative.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 65% · 2018 41% · 2019 36% · 2020 33% · 2021 25% · 2022 26% · 2023 24% — diversifying over time.
“Effective funders” = inverse Herfindahl index (1 / Σ shareᵢ²) — the number of equal-sized funders that would give the same concentration. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
How long its funders stay
43% of Grassroots Collaborative's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 54% give in more than one year at all.
Share of funders still giving k years after their first recorded grant, pooled across every acquisition cohort. A funder counts as retained in a year only if it made a grant that year. Measured to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving — a funder cannot be counted as lapsed in a year most filers have not reached.
Where its funders are
Grassroots Collaborative draws 64% of its grant income from funders outside Illinois, across 8 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $1.5M arriving through sponsors registered in 4 states is excluded from the map and the split above: a sponsor holds money on a donor’s behalf, so its registered address would place those dollars somewhere no donor need ever have been. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.
Against its field
Grassroots Collaborative holds deeper cash reserves than three-quarters of the 11,761 education nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 11,761 education nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2024
Organizations like Grassroots Collaborative
Organizations whose mission and program text most resemble this one, by semantic similarity over every organization in the US filings — the closest peers, and often the clearest route to shared or prospective funders.
In Illinois
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
90% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
73%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 1 state
Part of a family of 1 related entity
- Grassroots Illinois Action · exempt
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for Grassroots Collaborative: IRS status (Business Master File, Publication 78, auto-revocation), the OFAC sanctions lists, the Internal Revenue Bulletin, and California registration, with the Rev. Proc. 2018-32 §8.01 reliance elements stated element by element. Generated from the current files at the moment you download it.
Screens are triage, not determinations; a source that cannot be read reports not screened, never clear. Screen this nonprofit · How the screen works · on the API as GET /api/screening/{ein}?format=pdf
Questions and answers
- Who funds Grassroots Collaborative?
- Grassroots Collaborative (Illinois) receives grants from 35 organizations whose IRS filings report $6,902,355 to it, the largest being POWERSWITCH ACTION ($1,491,633). 19 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does Grassroots Collaborative have?
- IRS filings report 35 organizations giving $6,902,355 in grants to Grassroots Collaborative, 19 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Grassroots Collaborative?
- POWERSWITCH ACTION is the largest funder on record, with $1,491,633 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Grassroots Collaborative find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Illinois. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.
Play a game about who funds Grassroots Collaborative →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2024 (financials across 2017–2024), and the filings of 35 funders that report grants to it. “On record” means captured in the filings we have parsed — a funder that does not e-file, or whose grant detail is not itemized, will not appear. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind. Trends on this page end at FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving; later years are shown and marked, and move no figure. Data on this page was exported October 22, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing