Sterling Today Inc.

Sterling Today Inc. is a hyper-local place-based funder, not a national or regional grantmaker — its entire exempt purpose is confined to downtown Sterling, Illinois (Whiteside County), and it has never expanded geographically since incorporating in 1991-92. It is best understood as a hybrid entity: part grantmaker, part real-estate developer. Roughly half its energy goes to acquiring and rehabbing commercial buildings itself (e.g., the 1877 Mercantile building restoration), and the rest flows as grants to closely aligned downtown-development partners — chiefly Main Street of Sterling Inc. and the City of Sterling. With zero paid staff and an all-volunteer board of roughly a dozen local business and civic figures (President Mary Benson, Vice President Bryce Mead, Treasurer Jessica Macklin, Secretary Elizabeth Klahn, plus directors including Kevin Wahl, Dan Hawkins, and Heather Sotelo), decisions are made informally and relationally rather than through a competitive RFP process. There is no public grants portal, no published guidelines, and no listed application deadline — 'accepting_applications' is technically true in IRS data, but in practice the pathway is a direct conversation with Executive Director Janna Groharing (jgroharing@sterlingtoday.org, 815-626-8610), not a form. First-time applicants should not expect a formal LOI-to-full-proposal pipeline; instead, expect an initial phone or in-person conversation, likely followed by a site visit given the foundation's focus on physical building improvements, and a board decision at one of its periodic meetings. Given that its only recorded grantees in the DB (Main Street of Sterling and City of Sterling) are quasi-governmental/downtown-management entities, an outside nonprofit's best entry point is to align a proposal explicitly with downtown Sterling's physical redevelopment — facade improvements, streetscape, historic preservation, or holiday/marketplace programming — rather than general operating support or programs outside the 4-5 block downtown core.

Sterling Today's giving is small in dollar terms but steady. FY2023 (most recent full year in the DB) shows total giving of $853,141 against total assets of $7,038,590 and grants actually paid of $287,857 — the gap reflects that 'total_giving' in 990-PF filings includes program-related building expenses, not just cash grants. Total assets have been essentially flat to slightly declining over the past decade: $4.68M (2011) to $7.6M (2019) to $7.04M (2023), with net investment income swinging widely (a $1.3M spike in 2021, near-zero in most other years), indicating assets are concentrated in illiquid real estate rather than a diversified endowment. The DB's matched grantee data records only two funded organizations for a combined $484,393 across 4 grants: Main Street of Sterling Inc. ($399,339 across 2 grants — historical preservation and facade improvements) and City of Sterling ($85,054 across 2 grants — landscaping, Christmas decor, and marketplace grant funding). That yields an average grant size of $121,098, though the foundation's own self-reported 'typical grant size' metadata shows a tighter band: minimum $41,047, median $74,564, average $80,964, maximum $127,280 (n=3). CauseIQ's FY2024 filing shows a single documented $106,657 grant to Main Street of Sterling in December 2024, consistent with this range. All 100% of matched grant dollars in the DB went to Illinois recipients within Sterling itself — there is no evidence of giving outside Whiteside County. Grants paid fluctuate year to year without a clear upward or downward trend (a low of $73,849 in 2015 to a high of $340,963 in 2013), suggesting funding decisions track specific building/streetscape projects coming up for board approval rather than a fixed annual grants budget or percentage-of-assets payout formula.

Sterling Today sits squarely in the middle of its asset-size peer group ($6.4M-$7.2M range), all five peers being similarly small, single-focus Community Development funders spread across five different states. What differentiates Sterling Today is specificity: while peers likely serve broader regional or thematic community-development missions, Sterling Today's charter is narrowed to a single downtown business district, giving it an unusually concentrated, hyperlocal grant footprint compared to typical Community Development peer foundations of this asset size.

The clearest recent signal is the FY2024 grant to Main Street of Sterling ($106,657, December 2024) for historical preservation and facade improvement work, confirming the foundation's core program — the Main Street facade grant pipeline — remained active into 2024/2025. The Mercantile, a ground-up restoration of a three-story 1877 brick building at 117 W 3rd Street into mixed commercial and residential loft space, is the organization's most prominently showcased recent capital project, reflecting continued direct investment (versus pass-through grants) in downtown Sterling real estate. Leadership is stable: Janna Groharing continues as the unpaid Executive Director, and the board — chaired by President Mary Benson with Bryce Mead as Vice President — shows only incremental turnover (Anne M. Kenney and Shelley Gottel appear as more recent director additions in filing history, while earlier officer rosters show Dan Hawkins previously serving as President before Mary Benson's tenure). No major press coverage, leadership shakeups, or new program launches were found via web search; the one non-routine news item — an eviction complaint filed against tenant operators of The Mercantile Ballroom & Cocktail Lounge — signals the foundation is actively managing (and enforcing lease terms on) its own developed properties, underscoring its dual identity as landlord and grantmaker. No new funding priorities, RFPs, or application deadlines were announced in any source reviewed.

Sterling Today does not run a competitive grant cycle in the conventional sense — there is no online portal, published RFP, listed deadline, or downloadable guidelines anywhere on sterlingtoday.org, and web searches turned up no third-party grant-tracking sites with process detail beyond basic 990 data. The single actionable path is direct outreach to Executive Director Janna Groharing (jgroharing@sterlingtoday.org, 815-626-8610, 15 E 3rd St, Sterling, IL 61081) to start a conversation before submitting anything in writing. Because the foundation's only documented grantees are Main Street of Sterling Inc. and the City of Sterling — both downtown-management/government entities working the same four to five blocks the foundation itself develops — an outside nonprofit's strongest positioning is to frame a request in the foundation's own language: 'promote and generate development in the greater Sterling, Illinois area,' 'improve the economic conditions and employment opportunities,' and specifically tie the ask to a physical, visible improvement (facade, streetscape, historic building rehab, holiday/marketplace beautification) rather than general operating or programmatic funding. Given the median matched grant size of roughly $75,000-$121,000 and typical range of $41,000-$127,000, requests should be scaled to a discrete capital project, not an annual budget ask. Common mistakes to avoid: submitting a generic cold-call proposal with no prior relationship (the board is small, volunteer, and local — cold submissions from outside Whiteside County are very unlikely to be a fit); requesting funding for programs outside the downtown Sterling geographic footprint; and treating this like a typical foundation with a grants department — there are zero paid staff, so response times may be slow and informal. Best timing is unclear since no fiscal cycle or deadline is published; given board decisions appear tied to specific capital projects (e.g., the December 2024 grant), reaching out well ahead of any construction season (winter/early spring) to discuss a summer/fall project is a reasonable approach. Building a relationship with Sterling Main Street first (the on-the-ground administrator of the facade grant program funded by Sterling Today) may be the more practical entry point than approaching the foundation cold.