Illinois · Nonprofit
GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY
GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY (Illinois) receives grants from 1132 organizations whose IRS filings report $178,201,566 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($19,983,110). 700 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $242M
- Funders on record
- 1,132
- Grants received
- $178M
- Net assets
- $208M
What Greater Chicago Food Depository does
Mission
The Greater Chicago Food Depository is the nonprofit food bank serving cook county. Our mission - is to end hunger. We believe food is a basic human right. To achieve our mission, we work in partnership with a network of community-based organizations and individuals.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
The Greater Chicago Food Depository provides emergency food assistance in cook county, illinois by distributing food through a network of more than 800 food pantries, soup kitchens, shelters and programs. The food distributed is donated, purchased or received from federal programs.
$205,080,689 spentof which $181,324,341 as grants$8,631 earned by the program91% of program spendingThe Greater Chicago Food Depository provides programs to alleviate hunger among priority populations including children, students, older adults and veterans. The organization also works to address the root causes of hunger by creating pathways to thriving wage jobs and local economic opportunity. Other programs include after-school and summer meals for children, food distributions for older adults, food distributions at schools, and federal benefits outreach.
$14,707,096 spentof which $9,748,621 as grants7% of program spendingMobile responses reach populations that often don't have access to traditional emergency assistance programs. The food depository's produce mobile distributes fresh fruit and vegetables in high-need communities, while the mobile pantry provides produce, protein and shelf-stable groceries to hungry individuals on evenings and weekends. The fresh truck offers produce to food insecure patients of health clinics throughout cook county.
$4,429,424 spentof which $3,899,448 as grants2% of program spending
The 3 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $224,217,209.
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 2019 to 2020, from $128M to $173M (+35%).
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: 2017 26% · 2018 21% · 2019 32% · 2020 38% · 2021 53% · 2022 35% · 2023 29% · 2024 43% · 2025 34%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
95% of GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as the typical peer (97% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 4 of the last 9 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
Katherine Maehr
Executive director and CEO
Board chair
John Jay Shannon Md
Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 196 funders to 466 funders, grant income rose $5.0M → $25M.
68 of 1132 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 39% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
Left out of every figure on this page: $166k from one payer (the same organization on both sides, largest Greater Chicago Food Depository). These are real filings, and they are not money GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY raised.
From the IRS filings of GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 1132 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
GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 11% of grant income, and it takes 10 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 10 funders to its left
57% 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 GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 16% · 2018 43% · 2019 37% · 2020 14% · 2021 16% · 2022 11% · 2023 9% — 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
48% of GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 62% 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
68% of GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY's grant income comes from Illinois funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $70M arriving through sponsors registered in 25 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
GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY is better cushioned than half of the 31 food & nutrition nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 31 food & nutrition nonprofits over $100M, FY2025
Government funding GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $450k on record.
- Department of Housing and Urban Development$450k
Federal grants vs contracts are distinguished; state line items keep their reported category. Matched by name + geography (the BMF), so coverage is partial and precision-first.
Organizations like GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY
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
92% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
98%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 50 states
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY: 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 GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY?
- GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY (Illinois) receives grants from 1132 organizations whose IRS filings report $178,201,566 to it, the largest being FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND ($19,983,110). 700 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY have?
- IRS filings report 1132 organizations giving $178,201,566 in grants to GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY, 700 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY?
- FIDELITY INVESTMENTS CHARITABLE GIFT FUND is the largest funder on record, with $19,983,110 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like GREATER CHICAGO FOOD DEPOSITORY 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.
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2017–2025), and the filings of 1132 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