Illinois · Nonprofit
The Cradle Society
The Cradle Society (Illinois) receives grants from 62 organizations whose IRS filings report $3,246,261 to it, the largest being MARY EMMA FISHER TRUST XXXXX3001 ($459,803). 35 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $5.3M
- Funders on record
- 62
- Grants received
- $3.2M
- Net assets
- $18M
What The Cradle Society does
Mission
Building families through adoption. Supporting families through life's challenges. Strengthening communities through education.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Adoption & family support: cradle staff provides emotional support and options counseling for expectant parents free of charge.cradle staff provide home study assessment and prepartion for hopeful adoptive families. Lifelong emotional and educational support services for birth parents, adoptive families, and adopted individuals is available through post adoption groups, workshops and therapy. In fy2025, trained cradle counselors responded to 145 helpline inquiries from expectant parents, received 47 expectant-parent referrals from hospitals and other professionals, wrote 36 home studies for prospective adoptive parents, provided 391 adoption-competent counseling sessions, provided 69 post-adoption consultations, facilitated post adoption groups/workshops to 76 individuals, and wrote 20 post adoption background reports.
$1,484,790 spentof which $5,475 as grants$715,100 earned by the program46% of program spendingEducation & engagement: the cradle hosts webinars, courses, and workshops to help families increase their understanding of the joys and challenges of adoption and parenting. In fy2025, the cradle received 11,071 enrollments for interactive, adoption-related courses and webinars. The cradle also conducted community based presentations, 4 focused on adoption and 1 designated to help parents and child well-being professionals support children's emotional well-being. The cradle also provides outreach and adoption education to illinois-based clinic and hospital professionals who work with expectant parents and adoptive families. In fy2025, we awarded 164 ce/cu credits to professionals working with expectant parents following 4 in-service and 6 virtual presentations for hospital staff and 3 in-person and 1 virtual presentation to nursing and doctorate students and case managers. The cradle also conducted 1 non-ceu professional development training for mental health on adoption.
$804,738 spent$267,314 earned by the program25% of program spendingNursery and interim care: in fy2025, the cradle transitioned from an onsite nursery to newborn interim care provided through a collaborative agreement with a chicago area human service agency. - the nursery provides a safe, neutral place for infants to stay while their parents take time to decide if adoption will be the plan for their child. This is available at no cost, regardless of the parents' decision. In fy2025, 18 infants received 373 nights of care in our nursery, and 17 infants were placed into their permanent adoptive homes.
$917,648 spent29% of program spending
The 3 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $3,207,176.
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 $20M to $15M (−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: 2021 12%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 0 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.
Chief executive
Jason Friedman
CEO
Board chair
John Luce
Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 9 funders to 25 funders, grant income rose $208k → $492k.
11 of 62 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 20% 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: $27M from one payer (the payer shares this organization's board, largest The Cradle Foundation). These are real filings, and they are not money The Cradle Society raised.
From the IRS filings of The Cradle Society’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 62 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
The Cradle Society has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 14% of grant income, and it takes 5 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 5 funders to its left
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 68% · 2018 61% · 2019 52% · 2020 22% · 2021 19% · 2022 19% · 2023 17% — 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
57% of The Cradle Society's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 56% 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
67% of The Cradle Society's grant income comes from Illinois funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $635k arriving through sponsors registered in 11 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 The Cradle Society
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
71% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
90%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 2 states
Part of a family of 1 related entity
- The Cradle Foundation · exempt
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for The Cradle Society: 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 The Cradle Society?
- The Cradle Society (Illinois) receives grants from 62 organizations whose IRS filings report $3,246,261 to it, the largest being MARY EMMA FISHER TRUST XXXXX3001 ($459,803). 35 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does The Cradle Society have?
- IRS filings report 62 organizations giving $3,246,261 in grants to The Cradle Society, 35 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of The Cradle Society?
- MARY EMMA FISHER TRUST XXXXX3001 is the largest funder on record, with $459,803 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like The Cradle Society 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 Cradle Society →
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 62 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