Greater Chatham Initiative

Nonprofit profile at a glance

EIN
813276803
IRS 990 coverage
2017–2025
Forms available
Form 990 2025, Form 990-EZ 2016
Location
Chicago, IL, USA
Phone
7736756880
Rating
83
Verdict
STRONG
Rating confidence
Standard

Official website

Reported finances

Revenue
$2,318,000
Expenses
$2,234,367
Assets
$1,541,476
Liabilities
$460,107

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

Leadership & pay

15 people listed

Highest reported compensation

  • NEDRA SIMS FEARS (Executive Dir.): $130,500 total reported compensation
  • TENNILLE D WHITE (DIR CULTURAL DEVEL): $111,272 total reported compensation

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

Overview

Mission

Greater chatham initiative, inc. (gci)is a collaboration among local and regional stakeholders to develop a comprehensive set of activities and enterprises tailored to help set the chicago south side neighborhoods of auburn gresham, avalon park, chatham, and greater grand crossing on a path to long-term economic growth and community vitality. Since its 2016 founding, gci has worked to reverse decades of disinvestment by building an integrated strategy across business development, corridor development, climate resilience and green initiatives, and public safety.

What it reported doing in 2025

Business development foodlab chicagobusiness development is one of gcis core activities. In 2019, gci launched foodlab chicago, a program that supports food-based entrepreneurs in greater chatham and surrounding south side communities through industry-specific cohort-based programming, peer learning, and one-on-one technical assistance. In 2025, the foodlab chicago program reached a milestone of serving 105 entrepreneurs across six cohorts, helping the secure $8.2 million in capital and create or sustain nearly 500 jobs, with 67% of alumni reporting improved profitability.in may 2025, 21 businesses, including restaurants, caterers, bakers, and a food truck operator, graduated from foodlab chicagos 6.0 cohort. The 2025 cohort programming included expanded financial management training and featured three large public workshops: a menu engineering workshop in january with 121 attendees (90 virtual), storytelling and menus workshop in april with 285 attendees (258 virtual), and an access to capital workshop in may with 211 attendees (167 virtual).in 2025, foodlab chicago expanded its alumni programming through a six-session ai and automations accelerator (august to september 2025) and a four-session financial management accelerator (october 2025), both designed to deepen business skills and foster ongoing alumni engagement. In october 2025, foodlab chicago received national recognition through a joint report with the association for enterprise opportunity (aeo), plate by plate: how foodlab chicago builds stronger businesses and communities, demonstrating the programs economic, social, and cultural impact and documenting that the number of food-based businesses in greater chatham increased up to 24% between 2018 and 2023, significantly outpacing comparable communities. Access to capitalgci provides access-to-capital technical assistance, helping businesses apply for funding including the city of chicagos neighborhood opportunity fund (nof), small business improvement fund (sbif), and related grant programs and business loans. Gci assists small business owners along gcis commercial corridors improve their physical spaces and grow their operations. Gcis access to capital efforts reached a key milestone in 2025: gci has assisted 85 businesses in securing over $10.7 million in grants and loans (out of 176 applications for a total of $35.2 million in funding requested). In 2025 alone, gci provided 1,015 hours of access-to-capital coaching to 133 unique businesses. During 2025, three sbif projects for which gci provided application assistance received conditional commitment letters totaling $450,000 in grant commitments, with 11 additional gci-assisted sbif projects continuing to advance through the process.

Operating model

Revenue model
Donor-supported. 71% of the money available for current operations came from contributions and gifts.
Distribution model
Direct operator. The filing allocates 99% 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.
  • Includes noncash contributions: Reported contributions include donated property or goods.

The verdict

STRONG - A large share of available resources goes toward mission work and the filed numbers largely add up. Expenses are high relative to revenue and total assets are small relative to annual expenses; liquid coverage is unknown.

Rating breakdown

  • Financial Efficiency: 79
  • Transparency & Controls: 87
  • Accountability: 95
  • Sustainability: 31
  • Growth: 100

Detailed rating inputs

Financial Efficiency

  • Mission deployment rate: 78.6%; rating input score 79
  • Program expense ratio: 82.1%; rating input score 82
  • Fundraising efficiency: $34.99 raised per $1 spent on fundraising; rating input score 72; 72nd percentile among comparable filings

Transparency & Controls

  • Consistency checks: 93.3%; rating input score 93; 18th percentile among comparable filings
  • Pay-setting controls: Limited
  • Foreign activity oversight: Limited
  • Grant itemization coverage: 66.7%; rating input score 67; 23rd percentile among comparable filings
  • Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
  • Related-party transparency: Limited

Accountability

  • Independent voting board: 100%; rating input score 100; 63rd percentile among comparable filings
  • Governance controls: 8 of 9 controls in place; rating input score 89
    • Conflict-of-interest policy: Pass
    • Whistleblower policy: Pass
    • Document-retention policy: Pass
    • CEO compensation review process: Pass
    • Other executive compensation review process: Fail
    • Form 990 shared with the board: Pass
    • Board meeting minutes documented: Pass
    • Audit committee oversight: Pass
    • Independent financial-statement audit: Pass

Sustainability

  • Operating margin: 3.6%; rating input score 38; 38th percentile among comparable filings
  • Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.69; rating input score 23; 23rd percentile among comparable filings
  • Liabilities to assets ratio: 0.3; rating input score 27; 27th percentile among comparable filings
  • Officer compensation ratio: 10.8%; rating input score 31; 31st percentile among comparable filings

Growth

  • Program expense growth: 20.5% per year; rating input score 100; 84th percentile among comparable filings
  • Revenue growth: 22.2% per year; rating input score 100; 89th percentile among comparable filings
  • Asset growth: 16.4% per year; rating input score 100; 77th percentile among comparable filings

Details

  • Where the money goes: 78.6% of revenue deployed · 82.1% of spending went to programs
  • Governance: 13 of 13 board members independent · 8 of 9 filing controls reported
  • Programs: 6 filed program accomplishments · $1.8M in reported program spending
  • Leadership: top reported pay $130K · 15 people listed
  • Consistency: 31 of 32 current checks pass · 1 finding to review
  • Schedules: 7 filed schedules · includes major donors and grants
  • Filing history: 9 filing years from 2017 to 2025
  • Contacts: How to reach this organization
  • Money network: 3 filed money-flow records
  • Related organizations: 5 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.

Grant-readiness screening is separate from the live rating, not a measure of program quality. Review the source records before making a grant decision.

  • Moderate — Sustainability: Operating margin scored 38/100.
  • High — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 23/100.
  • Review — Accountability: Governance controls: Other executive compensation review process not reported.
  • Review — Transparency & Controls: Domestic grant itemization did not reconcile in the filed values.
  • High — Sustainability: Liabilities to assets ratio scored 27/100.
  • Moderate — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 31/100.
  • High — Grant Readiness: Federal audit findings: this organization reported findings in its latest federal Single Audit.