Illinois · Nonprofit
LIVING WORKS
LIVING WORKS (Illinois) receives grants from 9 organizations whose IRS filings report $374,811 to it, the largest being LOYOLA UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO ($189,075). 6 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $193k
- Funders on record
- 9
- Grants received
- $375k
- Net assets
- $81k
What Living Works does
Mission
Mission of livingworks is to develop the whole person, cultivating within each of our students a desire to learn, and equipping them through mentoring, one-on-one teaching, and play. Livingworks afterschool fosters holistic development in local elementary school students by addressing the needs of the whole child through academic enrichment and extracurricular activities that allow students to explore their own interests and potential. Musicworks offers affordable music lessons and classes. These are available to anyone, but particular attention is given to the local immigrant and refugee community, with the goal of applying developing skills to the music of their culture.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990-EZ.
Program
After-school program with tutoring and mentoring services; music school offering music lessons.
$171,197 spent100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990-EZ. Program spending in total: $171,197.
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 2021 to 2022, from $31k to $81k (+162%).
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.
67% of LIVING WORKS’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as the typical peer (83% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 3 of the last 6 reported years ran a deficit.
Leadership and staff
Board chair
Susan Ormesher
Chair
As listed on its FY2024 Form 990-EZ.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 2 funders to 4 funders, grant income fell $45k → $25k.
3 of 9 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 23% 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 LIVING WORKS’s funders (the co-funder graph). 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
LIVING WORKS leans on a few funders — its largest provides 50% of grant income and the top three 78%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
75% 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 LIVING WORKS.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 80% · 2018 94% · 2019 94% · 2020 97% · 2021 54% · 2022 56% · 2023 60% — 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
50% of LIVING WORKS's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 67% 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
100% of LIVING WORKS's grant income comes from Illinois funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $86k arriving through sponsors registered in 3 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
LIVING WORKS runs a healthier operating margin than half of the 3,482 youth development nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 3,482 youth development nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2025
Organizations like LIVING WORKS
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.
Public support
78%
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 LIVING WORKS: 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 LIVING WORKS?
- LIVING WORKS (Illinois) receives grants from 9 organizations whose IRS filings report $374,811 to it, the largest being LOYOLA UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO ($189,075). 6 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does LIVING WORKS have?
- IRS filings report 9 organizations giving $374,811 in grants to LIVING WORKS, 6 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of LIVING WORKS?
- LOYOLA UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO is the largest funder on record, with $189,075 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like LIVING WORKS 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 Living Works →
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 9 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 14, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing