Illinois · Nonprofit
Wooden It Be Lovely
Wooden It Be Lovely (Illinois) receives grants from 12 organizations whose IRS filings report $150,513 to it, the largest being UNITED WAY OF CENTRAL ILLINOIS INC ($56,700). 5 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2024
- $711k
- Funders on record
- 12
- Grants received
- $151k
- Net assets
- $1.2M
What Wooden It Be Lovely does
Mission
Wooden It Be Lovely offers hope and employment to women healing from lives of poverty, addiction, and abuse. We do this by providing transitional employment, housing, mentoring, recovery tools, education, community networking, and a safe community. Our women are employed to refurbish and sell donated wooden furniture and sew unique products. This transitional employment housing empowers women to move towards economic stability and an enhanced wellbeing for themselves and their children.
As stated on its FY2024 Form 990.
Programs
Be Lovely Work Program: Women in transition refurbish donated wood furniture and sell the pieces to the public. Sew Lovely is a branch from the original ministry, Wooden It Be Lovely. This program hires women healing from lives of poverty, addiction and/or abuse. The women are empowered, employed and provided a community of love as they heal and transition. In an effort to hire more women, Sew Lovely was started. The women learn to sew and make unique products for those interested in supporting our ministry. Every purchase offers hope to women and their children.
$418,634 spent$208,729 earned by the program95% of program spendingBe Lovely Home: Residential housing program opened in June 2022 for women in recovery who do not have/custody of children. Women live, work, and are loved all in one program. This is not just a home, it is a sanctuary for healing.
$21,365 spent5% of program spending
The 2 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $439,999.
The organization over time
Each line starts at 100 in 2021, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2021, 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 $845k to $1.1M (+30%).
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.
40% of Wooden It Be Lovely’s revenue is contributions — about as donation-reliant as the typical peer (54% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 0 of the last 4 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
Rev Margaret Ann Jessup
Executive Director/Pastor
As listed on its FY2024 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2020 → 2023: the base broadened from 2 funders to 4 funders, grant income rose $1k → $30k.
3 of 12 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 21% 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 Wooden It Be Lovely’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
Wooden It Be Lovely leans on a few funders — its largest provides 38% of grant income and the top three 64%; half comes from just 2 funders.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 2 funders to its left
78% 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 Wooden It Be Lovely.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2020 50% · 2021 100% · 2022 35% · 2023 63% — 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
25% of Wooden It Be Lovely's funders are still giving 2 years after their first grant; 42% 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
85% of Wooden It Be Lovely's grant income comes from Illinois funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $31k arriving through sponsors registered in 3 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
Wooden It Be Lovely runs a healthier operating margin than half of the 2,276 employment nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 2,276 employment nonprofits $100k–$1M, FY2024
Organizations like Wooden It Be Lovely
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
73% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 1 state
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for Wooden It Be Lovely: 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 Wooden It Be Lovely?
- Wooden It Be Lovely (Illinois) receives grants from 12 organizations whose IRS filings report $150,513 to it, the largest being UNITED WAY OF CENTRAL ILLINOIS INC ($56,700). 5 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does Wooden It Be Lovely have?
- IRS filings report 12 organizations giving $150,513 in grants to Wooden It Be Lovely, 5 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Wooden It Be Lovely?
- UNITED WAY OF CENTRAL ILLINOIS INC is the largest funder on record, with $56,700 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Wooden It Be Lovely 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 Wooden It Be Lovely →
These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2024 (financials across 2021–2024), and the filings of 12 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