Illinois · Nonprofit
SPARC
SPARC (Illinois) receives grants from 19 organizations whose IRS filings report $449,820 to it, the largest being LEVI RAY & SHOUP FOUNDATION ($300,000). 10 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $15M
- Funders on record
- 19
- Grants received
- $450k
- Net assets
- $-5573016
What Sparc does
Mission
To help individuals with developmental disabilities improve the quality of their lives.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
Developmental training center, community integrated living arrangement, and supported employment.
$12,732,405 spent$13,434,045 earned by the program100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2023 Form 990. Program spending in total: $12,732,405.
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.
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 $2.0M to $2.7M (+36%).
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 2% · 2018 1% · 2019 1% · 2020 1% · 2021 1% · 2022 17% · 2024 1%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 6 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.
Board chair
Steve Nardulli
Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 3 funders to 5 funders, grant income rose $20k → $54k.
5 of 19 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 10% 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: $2.6M from one payer (the payer shares this organization's board, largest Sparc Endowment Fund Inc). These are real filings, and they are not money SPARC raised.
From the IRS filings of SPARC’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
SPARC leans on a few funders — its largest provides 67% of grant income and the top three 80%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 55% · 2018 64% · 2019 41% · 2020 80% · 2021 70% · 2022 82% · 2023 93% — 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
55% of SPARC's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 53% 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
97% of SPARC's grant income comes from Illinois funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $46k arriving through sponsors registered in 5 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.
Organizations like SPARC
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
83% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
70%
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
- Sparc Endowment Fund · exempt
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for SPARC: 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 SPARC?
- SPARC (Illinois) receives grants from 19 organizations whose IRS filings report $449,820 to it, the largest being LEVI RAY & SHOUP FOUNDATION ($300,000). 10 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does SPARC have?
- IRS filings report 19 organizations giving $449,820 in grants to SPARC, 10 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of SPARC?
- LEVI RAY & SHOUP FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $300,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like SPARC 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 Sparc →
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 19 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