Illinois · Nonprofit
HFS CHICAGO SCHOLARS
HFS CHICAGO SCHOLARS (Illinois) receives grants from 44 organizations whose IRS filings report $2,472,721 to it, the largest being DONOR ADVISED CHARITABLE GIVING INC ($428,075). 29 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 68% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $1.7M
- Funders on record
- 44
- Grants received
- $2.5M
- Net assets
- $5.3M
What Hfs Chicago Scholars does
Mission
Hfs Chicago Scholars (hfs) was created for the express purpose of supporting the educational aspiration of economically disadvantaged, but academically motivated chicago inner-city youth. Hfs grants partial scholarships to qualifying students, works with other unrelated scholarship funds and the chosen high school of the scholarship recipients to address full tuition and other school cost needs of the recipients and provides an active mentor for each recipient to help the recipient successfully achieve his or her educational goals.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
During fiscal year 2025, hfs provided partial high school scholarships to 246 students.
$1,187,281 spentof which $650,072 as grants100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $1,187,281.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2018, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2018, 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 $2.2M to $3.2M (+48%).
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.
92% of HFS CHICAGO SCHOLARS’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (48% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 0 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.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 9 funders to 23 funders, grant income rose $132k → $307k.
12 of 44 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 68% 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 HFS CHICAGO SCHOLARS’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 44 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
HFS CHICAGO SCHOLARS has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 17% of grant income, and it takes 4 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 4 funders to its left
73% 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 HFS CHICAGO SCHOLARS.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 53% · 2018 57% · 2019 27% · 2020 27% · 2021 51% · 2022 20% · 2023 18% — 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
42% of HFS CHICAGO SCHOLARS's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 66% 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 HFS CHICAGO SCHOLARS'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 $786k that is directly attributable, 65% of it comes from Illinois funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $1.7M arriving through sponsors registered in 11 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
HFS CHICAGO SCHOLARS runs a healthier operating margin than three-quarters of the 9,615 education nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 9,615 education nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Organizations like HFS CHICAGO SCHOLARS
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
93% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
93%
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 HFS CHICAGO SCHOLARS: 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 HFS CHICAGO SCHOLARS?
- HFS CHICAGO SCHOLARS (Illinois) receives grants from 44 organizations whose IRS filings report $2,472,721 to it, the largest being DONOR ADVISED CHARITABLE GIVING INC ($428,075). 29 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 68% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does HFS CHICAGO SCHOLARS have?
- IRS filings report 44 organizations giving $2,472,721 in grants to HFS CHICAGO SCHOLARS, 29 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of HFS CHICAGO SCHOLARS?
- DONOR ADVISED CHARITABLE GIVING INC is the largest funder on record, with $428,075 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like HFS CHICAGO SCHOLARS 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 2018–2025), and the filings of 44 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