Empower Illinois

Nonprofit profile at a glance

EIN
272479414
IRS 990 coverage
2012–2025
Official website data refreshed
Sep 2026
Forms available
Form 990 2025, Form 990-EZ 2011
Location
Chicago, IL, USA
Phone
8722029242
Rating
70
Verdict
SUPPORTED
Rating confidence
Moderate
Sector
Alliance/Advocacy Organizations

Official website

Reported finances

Revenue
$211,640
Expenses
$1,019,168
Assets
$241,243
Liabilities
$20,134

Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.

Leadership & pay

11 people listed

Executive titles in this filing

  • ANTHONY HOLTER (PRESIDENT)
  • JONATHAN GREENBERG (CEO)

Highest reported compensation

  • JONATHAN GREENBERG (CEO): $233,877 total reported compensation
  • LINDSEY O'BRIEN (DIRECTOR OF OPERATIONS): $150,027 total reported compensation
  • ANTHONY HOLTER (PRESIDENT): $90,040 total reported compensation

Source: IRS Form 990. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.

Overview

Mission

Empowering students, families, schools and communities through expert scholarship granting and educational policy advancement.

What it reported doing in 2025

The organization advocates for tax credit scholarships, tax credits for teachers' out of pocket expenses on supplies and other policy to help students attend qualified non-public schools throughout Illinois. The organization continues to provide scholarships to middle and low income class families and works to increase families' access to high quality school options through public policy advocacy. During 2025, the organization granted scholarships to children of low income and working-class families to attend grades k-12 in private schoolsthroughout Illinois.

Operating model

Revenue model
Donor-supported. 100% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.
Distribution model
Direct operator. The filing allocates 82% of reported program-service expenses outside its grant, affiliate-payment, and member-benefit lines. This expense classification does not rule out separately announced grant awards.

The verdict

SUPPORTED - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. Few specific pay-setting methods are documented in the filing; unanswered boxes are not proof of absence and some filing-based governance responses are negative or unanswered.

Rating breakdown

  • Financial Efficiency: 80
  • Transparency & Controls: 65
  • Accountability: 74
  • Sustainability: 7
  • Growth: 60

Detailed rating inputs

Financial Efficiency

  • Mission deployment rate: 100%; rating input score 100
  • Program expense ratio: 69.3%; rating input score 69
  • Fundraising efficiency: $2.07 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 10; 10th percentile among comparable filings

Transparency & Controls

  • Consistency checks: 93.3%; rating input score 93; 27th percentile among comparable filings
  • Pay-setting controls: 0 of 6 controls in place; rating input score 0
    • Compensation committee: Missing
    • Independent consultant: Missing
    • Other Form 990s reviewed: Missing
    • Written employment contract: Missing
    • Compensation survey or study: Missing
    • Board or committee approval: Missing
  • Foreign activity oversight: Limited
  • Grant itemization coverage: 98.8%; rating input score 99; 61st percentile among comparable filings
  • Major donor itemization: Limited
  • Related-party transparency: Limited

Accountability

  • Independent voting board: 100%; rating input score 100; 64th percentile among comparable filings
  • Governance controls: 3 of 8 controls in place; rating input score 38
    • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
    • Whistleblower policy: Fail
    • Document-retention policy: Fail
    • CEO compensation review process: Fail
    • Other executive compensation review process: NotApplicable
    • Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
    • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
    • Audit committee oversight: Missing
    • Independent financial-statement audit: Fail

Sustainability

  • Operating margin: -381.6%; rating input score 0; 0th percentile among comparable filings
  • Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.24; rating input score 14; 14th percentile among comparable filings
  • Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.08; rating input score 23; 23rd percentile among comparable filings
  • Officer compensation ratio: 46.5%; rating input score 4; 4th percentile among comparable filings

Growth

  • Program expense growth: -0.3% per year; rating input score 0; 27th percentile among comparable filings
  • Revenue growth: 7.1% per year; rating input score 100; 58th percentile among comparable filings
  • Asset growth: 7.2% per year; rating input score 100; 53rd percentile among comparable filings

Details

  • What they do: 1 programs and campaigns described on the official site · 1 operating location identified
  • Where the money goes: 100% of revenue deployed · 69.3% of spending went to programs
  • Governance: 8 of 8 board members independent · 3 of 8 filing controls reported
  • Programs: 1 filed program accomplishment · $706K in reported program spending
  • Leadership: top reported pay $234K · 11 people listed · 0 of 6 pay-setting controls reported
  • Consistency: 26 of 28 current checks pass · 2 findings to review
  • Schedules: 6 filed schedules · includes grants and executive pay
  • Filing history: 9 filing years from 2012 to 2025
  • Contacts: How to reach this organization
  • Money network: 10 filed money-flow records
  • Related organizations: 7 filed related-organization links
  • Grant readiness: Federal tax and exclusion status, award history, and grant-maker relationships.
  • People: Everyone the filings name, and which of them the filings identify by more than a name.

Key Signals

Signals prioritize questions for review. They are not findings of misconduct.

  • High — Transparency & Controls: Pay-setting controls scored 0/100.
  • Moderate — Accountability: Governance controls: 4 of 7 not reported.
  • High — Financial Efficiency: Fundraising efficiency scored 10/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 0/100.
  • High — Growth: Program expense growth scored 0/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 14/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 4/100.
  • Moderate — Transparency & Controls: Schedule A contributions reconciliation did not reconcile in the filed values.
  • Review — Transparency & Controls: Domestic grant itemization did not reconcile in the filed values.
  • High — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 23/100.