Illinois · Nonprofit
GROWING HOME INC
GROWING HOME INC (Illinois) receives grants from 90 organizations whose IRS filings report $10,068,512 to it, the largest being The Chicago Community Trust ($2,524,233). 57 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 51% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $3.9M
- Funders on record
- 90
- Grants received
- $10M
- Net assets
- $8.6M
What Growing Home Inc does
Mission
Growing home is a nonprofit usda-certified organic farm and workforce development center, serving the greater englewood community of chicago through innovative paid employment training and nutritious, affordable produce. We believe everyone deserves access to a good job and good food.our innovative workforce development programs aim to increase employment opportunities for individuals with justice involvement, low education, lack of work history, and other extreme barriers to workforce entry. Each year we enroll approximately 120 individuals seeking to gain job skills and secure long-term employment. Through hands-on field work, classroom training, and individualized case management, our 12-week program provides the tools, skills, and support participants need to find and keep good jobs. Our programs also include a 10-week comptia certified information technology training program. In 2024, we harvested 42,000 pounds of produce, served 15,879 people.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
In 2025, growing home enrolled 148 participants in its transitional job training and certified it training programs. Participants earned 217 industry-recognized credentials, including sarvsafe, ged, forklift, cisco it essentials, and comp tia certifications, while receiving career coaching, resume assistance, networking opportunities, and mock interviews. Growing home supported 61 justice-involved participants in progressing toward parole or probation discharge, and 60% of active job seekers secured full-time employment. The organization also cultivated 61 crops (113 varieties) and distributed 142,976 servings of fresh produce, with 86% reaching food-insecure communities and 73% remaining in greater englewood.
$2,122,709 spent$131,895 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2025 Form 990. Program spending in total: $2,122,709.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2019, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2019, 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 2022 to 2023, from $4.4M to $6.3M (+44%).
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: 2019 16% · 2020 23% · 2021 25% · 2022 24% · 2023 13% · 2024 18% · 2025 14%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
95% of GROWING HOME INC’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (16% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 0 of the last 7 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
Janelle St John
Executive director
Board chair
Karl Riley
Board president
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 16 funders to 39 funders, grant income rose $289k → $2.0M.
18 of 90 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 51% 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 GROWING HOME INC’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 90 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
GROWING HOME INC has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 25% of grant income, and it takes 5 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 5 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 GROWING HOME INC.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 36% · 2018 36% · 2019 24% · 2020 15% · 2021 20% · 2022 27% · 2023 58% — growing more concentrated.
“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
54% of GROWING HOME INC's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 63% 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
51% of GROWING HOME INC's grant income arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors, whose addresses record where the money is held rather than where the donor is. Of the $4.9M that is directly attributable, 79% of it comes from Illinois funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $5.2M arriving through sponsors registered in 14 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
GROWING HOME INC runs a healthier operating margin than three-quarters of the 1,060 employment nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 1,060 employment nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Government funding GROWING HOME INC receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $25k on record.
- Department of Agriculture$25k
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 GROWING HOME INC
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
75% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
81%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 1 state
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for GROWING HOME INC: 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 GROWING HOME INC?
- GROWING HOME INC (Illinois) receives grants from 90 organizations whose IRS filings report $10,068,512 to it, the largest being The Chicago Community Trust ($2,524,233). 57 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 51% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does GROWING HOME INC have?
- IRS filings report 90 organizations giving $10,068,512 in grants to GROWING HOME INC, 57 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of GROWING HOME INC?
- The Chicago Community Trust is the largest funder on record, with $2,524,233 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like GROWING HOME INC 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 Growing Home →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2019–2025), and the filings of 90 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