Illinois · Nonprofit
WOMEN INITIATING NEW DIRECTIONS
WOMEN INITIATING NEW DIRECTIONS (Illinois) receives grants from 9 organizations whose IRS filings report $189,943 to it, the largest being THE CHRISTOPHER FAMILY FOUNDATION ($87,500). 6 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $181k
- Funders on record
- 9
- Grants received
- $190k
- Net assets
- $149k
What Women Initiating New Directions does
Mission
Inspiring women with a history of incarceration or at risk of incarceration to design a thriving life journey using newly learned tools and strategies for success.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990-EZ.
Program
Program content balances practical topics such as interviewing skills, job training and money management with creative problem-solving from the field of design and self-empowerment based on expressive writing. Workshop participants use these new skills to prepare for successful independent living and to avoid recidivism.
$168,049 spent100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990-EZ. Program spending in total: $168,049.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2024, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2024, 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 2024 to 2025, from $138k to $158k (+14%).
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.
97% of WOMEN INITIATING NEW DIRECTIONS’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (91% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 0 of the last 2 reported years ran a deficit.
Leadership and staff
Board chair
Tracy Lawson Mckeith
Board chair & co-founder
As listed on its FY2024 Form 990-EZ.
Who funds it, year by year
2021 → 2023: the base broadened from 3 funders to 5 funders, grant income rose $3k → $47k.
4 of 9 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 23% 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 WOMEN INITIATING NEW DIRECTIONS’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
WOMEN INITIATING NEW DIRECTIONS leans on a few funders — its largest provides 46% of grant income and the top three 83%; half comes from just 2 funders.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left
52% 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 WOMEN INITIATING NEW DIRECTIONS.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2021 83% · 2022 60% · 2023 64% — 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.
Where its funders are
99% of WOMEN INITIATING NEW DIRECTIONS's grant income comes from Illinois funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $43k arriving through sponsors registered in 4 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
WOMEN INITIATING NEW DIRECTIONS has grown faster than three-quarters of the 13,062 human services nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 13,062 human services nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2025
Organizations like WOMEN INITIATING NEW DIRECTIONS
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.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 1 state
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for WOMEN INITIATING NEW DIRECTIONS: 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 WOMEN INITIATING NEW DIRECTIONS?
- WOMEN INITIATING NEW DIRECTIONS (Illinois) receives grants from 9 organizations whose IRS filings report $189,943 to it, the largest being THE CHRISTOPHER FAMILY FOUNDATION ($87,500). 6 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does WOMEN INITIATING NEW DIRECTIONS have?
- IRS filings report 9 organizations giving $189,943 in grants to WOMEN INITIATING NEW DIRECTIONS, 6 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of WOMEN INITIATING NEW DIRECTIONS?
- THE CHRISTOPHER FAMILY FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $87,500 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like WOMEN INITIATING NEW DIRECTIONS 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 Women Initiating New Directions →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2024–2025), and the filings of 9 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