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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
8/10 repeat funderspeak grant-dependency 8%
01What it does

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

  1. 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 spent
    19% of program spending
  2. Spero 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 program
    11% of program spending
  3. The 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 spent
    16% of program spending
  4. The 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 spent
    7% of program spending
  5. The 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 spent
    1% of program spending
  6. The 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 spent
    5% of program spending
  7. The 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 spent
    3% of program spending
  8. The 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 spent
    6% of program spending
  9. The 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 spent
    0% of program spending
  10. The 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 spent
    2% of program spending
  11. The 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 spent
    6% of program spending
  12. The 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 spent
    6% of program spending
  13. The 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 spent
    1% of program spending
  14. The 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 spent
    0% of program spending
  15. The 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 spent
    1% of program spending
  16. The nurtuing parent legacy program provides in-home counseling to at-risk families who have youth with social and/or emotional needs.

    $380,552 spent
    3% of program spending
  17. Family 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 spent
    2% of program spending
  18. The 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 program
    10% of program spending

The 18 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $14,944,663.

02The organization over time

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.

100 = 20182018 Revenue 100 ($8.6M) Expenses 100 ($9.1M) Net assets 100 ($2.2M)2019 Revenue 104 ($9.0M) Expenses 104 ($9.5M) Net assets 81 ($1.8M)2020 Revenue 101 ($8.7M) Expenses 101 ($9.2M) Net assets 56 ($1.3M)2021 Revenue 115 ($10.0M) Expenses 112 ($10M) Net assets 62 ($1.4M)2022 Revenue 155 ($13M) Expenses 110 ($9.9M) Net assets 193 ($4.3M)2023 Revenue 141 ($12M) Expenses 130 ($12M) Net assets 226 ($5.1M)2024 Revenue 166 ($14M) Expenses 159 ($14M) Net assets 245 ($5.5M)2025 Revenue 179 ($15M) Expenses 171 ($16M) Net assets 265 ($5.9M)
'18'19'20'21'22'23'24'25
Revenue (179)Expenses (171)Net assets (265)Peer revenue range

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%).

$5.5M
$5.0M
$5.1M
$5.5M
$7.2M
$8.9M
$8.9M
$9.8M
'18'19'20'21'22'23'24'25
Total assetsTotal liabilities

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.

2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
ContributionsProgram revenueInvestmentOther

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).

This organization
Typical peer · 3,400 orgs

Surplus & reserves

Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 6 of the last 8 reported years ran a deficit.

−$424k
’18
−$459k
’19
−$486k
’20
−$159k
’21
$3.5M
’22
$406k
’23
−$76k
’24
−$74k
’25
0.2
months of
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.

'18'19'20'21'22'23'24'25
Listed2117161615161718
Joined·+1+5+0+5+4+4+4
No longer listed·5606333
03Who funds it

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.

89%
largest funder
97%
top three
~1
effective funders

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.

first grant+1y+2y+3y+4y+5y

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.

IL
MA
MO
TX

In-state vs out-of-state, by year

’17
’18
’19
’20
’21
’22
’23
Illinois out of state home

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.

04Its place in the field

Against its field

SPERO FAMILY SERVICES has grown faster than half of the 2,297 human services nonprofits its size.

Operating margin−0% · below the median
Months of reserve0.2mo · bottom quartile
Revenue growth (annualized)9% · above the median

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.

Federal$2.9M
grants $2.9Mcontracts $0
19
22
24
Top agencies
  • 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

05Profile & governance

Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.

Where the money goes

96% of spending goes to programs.

Program 96%Management 3%Fundraising 1%

Governance

17
board members
100%
independent
✓Conflict-of-interest policy✓Whistleblower policy✓Document retention–Board reviewed the 990✓Audited financials

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

IL

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.

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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