Survivors Know Nfp
Nonprofit profile at a glance
- EIN
- 332438469
- IRS 990-EZ coverage
- 2025–2025
- Forms available
- Form 990-EZ 2025
- Location
- Chicago, IL, USA
- Phone
- 2022880028
- Rating
- 50
- Verdict
- MIXED
- Rating confidence
- Moderate
- Sector
- Human Services N.E.C.
Reported finances
- Revenue
- $68,097
- Expenses
- $40,716
- Assets
- $27,381
- Liabilities
- $0
Source: IRS Form 990-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Amounts in USD.
Leadership & pay
8 people listed
People named in this filing
- JoEllen Chernow (Co-founder & Director of Worker Justice)
- Sara Heidbreder (Director of Healing Justice)
- Meher Rehman (Senior Advisor & Board Member)
Selected names, not a complete roster or a statement of current roles. Open leadership details for the complete filed list.
Source: IRS Form 990-EZ. Selected filing: tax year 2025. Names and roles reflect this filing, not necessarily current officeholders.
Overview
Mission
Survivors Know is a survivor-led community, organizing to transform the systems that perpetuate violence. Together, we challenge the status quo and cultivate new ways of supporting each other so all can thrive. We work directly with survivors to organize workplaces and shift the attitudes and systems that sustain violence, beginning within their own circles and expanding outward. We organize frontline anti-violence workers-social workers, advocates, preventionists, organizers, educators, and survivors-who are building survivor-led, non-carceral interventions of safety and justice in the Midwest and beyond.
What it reported doing in 2025
Reimagining Safety & Justice Cohorts (RJSC) is a six-month training session and incubator for frontline anti-violence workers. First cohort training included 14 people. Projects completed during this session include a new community theater project, survivor peer support groups, and a mental health support group for anti-violence/healthcare workers.
Operating model
- Revenue model
- Other-operating. 63% of the money available for current operations came from other operating revenue.
- Distribution model
- Direct operator. The filing allocates 100% 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
MIXED - The filed numbers largely add up and revenue comfortably covers expenses. A relatively small share of available resources goes toward mission work and a relatively small share of total spending goes to programs.
Rating breakdown
- Financial Efficiency: 15
- Transparency & Controls: 100
- Sustainability: 60
- Growth: NotEnoughData
Detailed rating inputs
Financial Efficiency
- Mission deployment rate: 12.4%; rating input score 12
- Program expense ratio: 20.8%; rating input score 21
Transparency & Controls
- Consistency checks: 100%; rating input score 100; 51st percentile among comparable filings
- Major donor itemization: Yes; rating input score 100
Sustainability
- Operating margin: 40.2%; rating input score 86; 86th percentile among comparable filings
- Total-asset coverage ratio: 0.67; rating input score 38; 38th percentile among comparable filings
- Liabilities to assets ratio: 0; rating input score 66; 66th percentile among comparable filings
- Officer compensation ratio: 62.3%; rating input score 2; 2nd percentile among comparable filings
Growth
- Program expense growth: Limited
- Revenue growth: Limited
- Asset growth: Limited
Details
- Where the money goes: 12.4% of revenue deployed · 20.8% of spending went to programs
- Governance: Filed governance answers
- Accomplishments: 2 filed program accomplishments · $8K in reported program spending
- Leadership: top reported pay $0 · 8 people listed
- Consistency: 9 of 9 current checks pass
- Schedules: 3 filed schedules
- Contacts: How to reach this organization
- Money network: 6 filed money-flow records
- 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 — Financial Efficiency: Mission deployment rate scored 12/100.
- High — Financial Efficiency: Program expense ratio scored 21/100.
- Moderate — Sustainability: Total-asset coverage ratio scored 38/100.
- High — Sustainability: Officer compensation ratio scored 2/100.