Illinois · Nonprofit
Youth Guidance
Youth Guidance (Illinois) receives grants from 189 organizations whose IRS filings report $85,789,057 to it, the largest being The Chicago Community Trust ($25,812,479). 104 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 53% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- Revenue FY2025
- $44M
- Funders on record
- 189
- Grants received
- $86M
- Net assets
- $40M
What Youth Guidance does
Mission
A leader in social and emotional development, community engagement, and positive youth development, Youth Guidance has strategically created programs to address community needs across four delivery areas: Community & Afterschool Programs (CAP), Counseling & Prevention, and Career Readiness & Success (CRS), and EVOLVE.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Community & After-School Programs (CAP): CAP offers services and support to meet students' academic, health, and family needs. CAP integrates the Community School philosophy of student support and systemic change into school-based opportunities for students. Our holistic approach improves school climate and engages parents and/or guardians, teachers, and the community to develop critical skills and strategies to help students.
$4,277,576 spent10% of program spendingCareer Readiness & Success (CRS): CRS focuses on supporting young adults in honing the skills necessary to thrive in the 21st-century workforce. Through a range of programs, including @Work, Project Prepare, Project Prepare Blue, Alumni Engagement, and The Fellowship Initiative, CRS provides a curriculum that leverages clinical expertise in social and emotional development to guide participants through the practice and internalization of durable 21st-century skills that are necessary for success in the workplace.
$4,227,741 spent9% of program spendingCounseling and prevention is core to all Youth Guidance programs. Our school-based mental health programs work with students who are at higher risk of school withdrawal and antisocial behaviors, to gain the skills and resources necessary to improve school engagement and thrive in and beyond school.Our flagship group counseling programs are Becoming a Man (BAM) and Working on Womanhood (WOW). BAM and WOW are in-school strength-based, trauma-informed group counseling and clinical mentoring programs that seek to change the life trajectories of boys and young men of color and girls and young women of color in grades 6-12, who have been exposed to cycles of intergenerational poverty, violence, and trauma.We also implement STRIVE, which is specific to youth ages 14-21 who are in Illinois' foster care system, Community Connections, a case management and resource provision program designed to connect Youth Guidance students and families to resources to meet immediate needs, and in-school Counseling programs, which includes both 1:1 and group counseling models. Our newest offering within the Counseling & Prevention program is the EVOLVE program. Drawing on core content and processes from…
$36,149,834 spentof which $165,420 as grants$1,264,952 earned by the program81% of program spending
The 3 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $44,655,151.
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. 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 2021 to 2022, from $37M to $53M (+44%).
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: 2017 39% · 2018 32% · 2019 48% · 2020 48% · 2021 54% · 2022 36% · 2023 58% · 2024 70% · 2025 65%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
94% of Youth Guidance’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (23% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 3 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.
Board chair
Jim Mills
Chair
As listed on its FY2025 Form 990.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 26 funders to 82 funders, grant income rose $3.5M → $10M.
31 of 189 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 53% 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 Youth Guidance’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 189 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
Youth Guidance has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 30% of grant income, and it takes 4 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 4 funders to its left
75% 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 Youth Guidance.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 44% · 2018 23% · 2019 36% · 2020 44% · 2021 15% · 2022 69% · 2023 20% — 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
45% of Youth Guidance's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 55% 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
53% of Youth Guidance's grant income arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors, whose addresses record where the money is held rather than where the donor is. Of the $40M that is directly attributable, 70% of it comes from funders outside Illinois, across 30 states.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $45M arriving through sponsors registered in 19 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
Youth Guidance has grown faster than half of the 3,794 education nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 3,794 education nonprofits $10M–$100M, FY2025
Government funding Youth Guidance receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $3.6M on record — $3.0M federal, $561k state.
- Department of Justice$2.5M
- Department of Education$500k
- (PP) STATE AID/POL SUB$522k
- (JJ) OPERATIONAL SERVICES$39k
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 Youth Guidance
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
82% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
98%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 30 states
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for Youth Guidance: 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 Youth Guidance?
- Youth Guidance (Illinois) receives grants from 189 organizations whose IRS filings report $85,789,057 to it, the largest being The Chicago Community Trust ($25,812,479). 104 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 53% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
- How many funders does Youth Guidance have?
- IRS filings report 189 organizations giving $85,789,057 in grants to Youth Guidance, 104 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of Youth Guidance?
- The Chicago Community Trust is the largest funder on record, with $25,812,479 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like Youth Guidance 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 Youth Guidance →
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 189 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 22, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing