Illinois · Nonprofit
SPERO FAMILY SERVICES
SPERO FAMILY SERVICES (Illinois) receives grants from 10 organizations whose IRS filings report $6,209,316 to it, the largest being START EARLY ($5,536,353). 8 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $15M
- Funders on record
- 10
- Grants received
- $6.2M
- Net assets
- $5.9M
What Spero Family Services does
Mission
Spero Family Services offers hope, help, and healing by providing christ-centered human services to meet the ever-changing needs of individuals, families, and communities.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
The qualified residential treatment program promotes healing and provides a compassionate environment with the support of caring people. Youth are cared for and supervised by a multi-disciplinary treatment team that includes therapists, psychiatrists, psychiatric nurses (certified in mental health), case managers and other trained para-professional staff. A consulting psychologist is also available. This program serves 12 youth (males and females) and places them in youth homes on a 25 acre campus. Youth in the program range from 12 to 18 years of age. Spero Family Services consistently strives for excellence as they seek to help youth and families grow through services provided in a nurturing environment of trust and open communication.
$2,867,504 spent19% of program spendingSpero counsling and wellness provides outpatient counseling and training services to individuals, families and groups of all ages on a fee for service basis.
$1,587,863 spent$119,586 earned by the program11% of program spendingThe rap immersion site program provides intensive community-based services and support through team facilitation and service coordination to families involved in department of children and family services intact or reunification services.
$2,323,687 spent16% of program spendingThe group home program promotes healing and provides a compassionate environment with the support of caring people. Youth are cared for and supervised by a multi-disciplinary treatment team that includes therapists, psychiatrists, psychiatric nurses (certified in mental health), case managers and other trained para-professional staff. A consulting psychologist is also available. This program serves 8 youth (males and females) and places them in youth homes on a 25 acre campus. Youth in the program range from 12 to 18 years of age. Spero Family Services consistently strives for excellence as they seek to help youth and families grow through services provided in a nurturing environment of trust and open communication.
$1,101,762 spent7% of program spendingThe independent living program is a department of children and family services program that assists successful transitional living program youth in achieving independence by moving the youth into a community based apartment and out of the on-campus housing.
$111,399 spent1% of program spendingThe traditional foster care program allows Spero Family Services to oversee department of family and children services cases when youth are placed in a licensed foster care home or in a home of a relative or fictive kin.
$784,051 spent5% of program spendingThe specialized foster care program allows Spero Family Services to place youth in a licensed foster care home which provides a loving and structured home for the youth.
$498,441 spent3% of program spendingThe transitional living program is for youth ages 17 1/2 to 21 years of age who live on campus while continuing their education, gaining employment and developing life skills to live independently.
$948,372 spent6% of program spendingThe adolescent foster care program allows Spero Family Services to place youth in a licensed foster care home which provides a loving and structured home for the youth.
$65,605 spent0% of program spendingThe flex funds cash assistance program is a fiscal agent program. Spero Family Services is the fiscal agent and receives an administrative fee for the services provided.
$265,394 spent2% of program spendingThe parents as teachers program provides an evidence-based approach to building strong families and communities. It also matches parents and caregivers with trained parent educators who make regular personal home visits during a child's earliest years from prenatal to 3 years old.
$918,363 spent6% of program spendingThe youthbuild program helps high school dropouts who are unemployed or live in low-income households obtain their ged and provide them with the skills to get a job or obtain post-secondary education.
$923,786 spent6% of program spendingThe mental health juvenile justice program helps youth who are involved with the juvenile justice system or are at risk of involvement in juvenile justice through mentoring and connection to referral sources in an attempt to minimize involvement or re-involvement in the justice system.
$165,372 spent1% of program spendingThe in-home intensive services program provides intensive in-home crisis intervention, counseling, and life skills education for families who have children at imminent risk of placement in the child welfare or juvenile justice systems.
$57,525 spent0% of program spendingThe nurturing parent family first program is an extension of the nurturing parent legacy program which is a preventative program that provides in-home counseling to at-risk families who have youth with social and/or emotional needs.
$120,191 spent1% of program spendingThe nurtuing parent legacy program provides in-home counseling to at-risk families who have youth with social and/or emotional needs.
$380,552 spent3% of program spendingFamily foundations is a preventative program that provides in-home counseling to at-risk families who have youth with social and/or emotional needs.
$366,875 spent2% of program spendingThe bright start program is a daycare center that is licensed for 122 youth ages infant through 5. Approximately 50% of the families are low income and their fees are subsidized by the project child grant.
$1,457,921 spent$261,761 earned by the program10% of program spending
The 18 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $14,944,663.
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 2022 to 2023, from $7.2M to $8.9M (+24%).
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 79% · 2019 83% · 2020 86% · 2021 91% · 2022 68% · 2023 87% · 2024 88% · 2025 92%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
96% of SPERO FAMILY SERVICES’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (21% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 6 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.
Chief executive
Joe Benard
CEO
Board chair
Doug Hoffman
Chairperson
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
The chief executive listed changed between the FY2021 and FY2022, and between the FY2022 and FY2023 filings.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 3 funders to 6 funders, grant income rose $532k → $926k.
2 of 10 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 2% 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 SPERO FAMILY SERVICES’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
SPERO FAMILY SERVICES leans on a few funders — its largest provides 89% of grant income and the top three 97%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
92% 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 SPERO FAMILY SERVICES.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 87% · 2018 92% · 2019 93% · 2020 80% · 2021 92% · 2022 90% · 2023 92% — 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
57% of SPERO FAMILY SERVICES's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 80% 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
96% of SPERO FAMILY SERVICES's grant income comes from Illinois funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $97k arriving through sponsors registered in 2 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
SPERO FAMILY SERVICES has grown faster than half of the 2,297 human services nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 2,297 human services nonprofits $10M–$100M, FY2025
Government funding SPERO FAMILY SERVICES receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $2.9M on record.
- Department of Labor$2.9M
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 SPERO FAMILY SERVICES
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
96% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
99%
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 SPERO FAMILY SERVICES: 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 SPERO FAMILY SERVICES?
- SPERO FAMILY SERVICES (Illinois) receives grants from 10 organizations whose IRS filings report $6,209,316 to it, the largest being START EARLY ($5,536,353). 8 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does SPERO FAMILY SERVICES have?
- IRS filings report 10 organizations giving $6,209,316 in grants to SPERO FAMILY SERVICES, 8 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of SPERO FAMILY SERVICES?
- START EARLY is the largest funder on record, with $5,536,353 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like SPERO FAMILY SERVICES 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 Spero Family Services →
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 10 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