Illinois · Nonprofit
RefuSHE Inc
RefuSHE Inc (Illinois) receives grants from 39 organizations whose IRS filings report $5,120,724 to it, the largest being TIDES FOUNDATION ($1,136,000). 16 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2024
- $1.2M
- Funders on record
- 39
- Grants received
- $5.1M
- Net assets
- $789k
What RefuSHE Inc does
Mission
RefuSHE specializes in identifying, protecting and providing resources for long-term support to unaccompanied and separated refugee children and youth, especially girls, young women, and their children living in Nairobi, Kenya.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Programs
Girls Empowerment Program (GEP) - Multi-phase accelerated education and empowerment program that allows participants to access basic education and vocational opportunities, learn about their human rights, and cultivate their leadership skills. GEP is a community that provides safety, healing, and skill-enhancement for girls and young women on their journey to self-reliance. Participants engage in alternative education, life skills, vocational training, and income-generating projects.
$621,199 spent47% of program spendingSafe House (SH) - Provides protection and transitional shelter for unaccompanied and separated refugee girls under 18 years old and their children who lack adequate or safe living conditions. On occasion, we also shelter refugee women over 18 and young refugee boys under the age of 9 on a short-term basis with extremely vulnerable security cases. All residents receive intensive case management and psychosocial counseling in addition to shelter, nutritious meals, and material supplies to address their basic needs.
$241,832 spent18% of program spendingCase Management Program (CM) - RefuSHE's Case Management Program provides girls with access to psychosocial counselling, medical care, legal aid, and resettlement assistance. The program is designed to build girls' capacity to access services independently so that they know how to access them in the future, understand what to expect, and know how they should be treated. Girls in need also receive care packages with basic necessities, including clothes, hygiene kits, food, and diapers and enriched nutrition formula for new mothers.
$147,760 spent11% of program spendingSexual and Gender Based Violence - Trainings on health, human rights and peace building, leadership, and community resources are structured in a way so girls gain self-confidence and a voice in the decisions that affect their lives. Topics include sexual and reproductive health, sexual and gender-based violence prevention and response, HIV/AIDS prevention, peacebuilding, leadership and human rights, and community collaboration.
$142,244 spent11% of program spendingLivelihoods / Artisan Collective - The Artisan Collective is RefuSHE's social enterprise and income-generating component. Young women design, create, and manage a line of unique, hand-dyed fabrics, and other textiles while gaining production, manufacturing, and marketing knowledge. The Artisan Collective's business skills and financial literacy training curriculum serves as a foundation to their future success as entrepreneurs. Participants earn a stipend and are required to save $10 each month in a savings account. Through monthly earnings, members of the Collective can pay their rent, feed their families, and cover household expenses, while their savings help them to eventually launch their own businesses. Products from the Artisan Collective are sold in local and international markets and the revenue generated is invested back into our programs.
$119,716 spent$5,261 earned by the program9% of program spendingEarly Childhood Development Center (ECDC) - The ECDC program intervention responds to the needs of young mothers with children below 5 years. The children are attended to while their mothers are engaged in the GEP learning or production in the artisan collective. Learning, development of motor skills through play, meals provision, provision of diapers, medical intervention and exposure trips- outdoor activities are some of the key activities.
$35,766 spent3% of program spendingCommunity Outreach Program - Educates men and women in refugee-hosting communities about sexual and gender-based violence (SGBV) prevention and response, women's rights, and refugee rights to reduce the protection risks our target population faces in Nairobi. The program's Women Ambassador Groups (WAGS) empower refugee women in the community to become community mobilizers and peer educators on these topics and provides them with business skills training and seed grants to grow their businesses. They in turn serve as protection advocates and foster care parents to refugee girls living in their community, as well as business mentors to girls transitioning out of RefuSHE's GEP and Artisan Collective.
$24,713 spent2% of program spending
The 7 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $1,333,230.
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 2023 to 2024, from $1.7M to $962k (−43%).
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: 2018 53% · 2019 58% · 2020 55% · 2021 56% · 2022 44% · 2023 36% · 2024 1%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
99% of RefuSHE Inc’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (97% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 5 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
Helen Altshul
Chief Executive Officer (part year)
As listed on its FY2024 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base narrowed from 11 funders to 10 funders, grant income rose $399k → $522k.
10 of 39 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.
From the IRS filings of RefuSHE Inc’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 39 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
RefuSHE Inc 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
64% 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 RefuSHE Inc.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 62% · 2018 53% · 2019 86% · 2020 54% · 2021 44% · 2022 64% · 2023 34% — 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
25% of RefuSHE Inc's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 41% 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
RefuSHE Inc draws 96% of its grant income from funders outside Illinois, across 14 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $2.0M arriving through sponsors registered in 9 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
RefuSHE Inc's funding has concentrated — grant income rose while the number of funders held roughly flat.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 1,608 international nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2024
Government funding RefuSHE Inc receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $8.2M on record.
- Department of State$8.2M
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 RefuSHE 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
67% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
80%
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
- Heshima Kenya · exempt
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for RefuSHE 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 RefuSHE Inc?
- RefuSHE Inc (Illinois) receives grants from 39 organizations whose IRS filings report $5,120,724 to it, the largest being TIDES FOUNDATION ($1,136,000). 16 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does RefuSHE Inc have?
- IRS filings report 39 organizations giving $5,120,724 in grants to RefuSHE Inc, 16 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of RefuSHE Inc?
- TIDES FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $1,136,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like RefuSHE 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 RefuSHE →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2024 (financials across 2018–2024), and the filings of 39 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