As June 2024 came to a close, Gov. JB Pritzker was characteristically bullish while he marked the end of Pride Month by signing into law a requirement that Illinois’ largest nonprofit foundations disclose the demographic makeup of their boards of directors and officers.

“Here in Illinois, we reject hate, bigotry, and discrimination and embrace the ethos of Pride through not only our laws but through our actions and shared values,” Pritzker said in a statement released after a bill signing event at the Fat Cat bar and restaurant in Uptown. He soon added that the disclosure requirement represented an expansion of his “administration’s work to better serve the LGBTQ+ community of Illinois.”

But nearly two years later, the measure has shed little light on who actually runs these organizations — and may never do so.

As of mid-April, only three of the largest grantmaking foundations in Illinois had published the required demographic information on their websites as the law outlines — disclosing the makeup of their leadership across categories including LGBTQ+ identity, gender, race and ethnicity, disability status and military service: the MacArthur Foundation, the Polk Bros. Foundation and the Lloyd A. Fry Foundation, according to a Tribune review. A fourth, the Chicago Community Trust, had some demographic information available on its website and added more data after being contacted by the Tribune.

The reasons the law hasn’t had as dramatic an effect as originally advertised are multifold.

Some cited the Pritzker administration’s slow pace in releasing “a standardized list of demographic classifications” for nonprofits to report. One nonprofit said it simply didn’t know the requirement existed.

“Frankly, it’s a bit of a head-scratcher that we’re hearing about this from you and not the state, or our compliance partner, or our attorney,” Jim O’Kelley, the director of the Elks National Foundation, told the Tribune.

While the Chicago Community Trust declined to comment on why complete demographic data had not been posted before the Tribune inquired, the Paul M. Angell Family Foundation said it requested demographic information from its board members, but they all declined, which the law allows. Still others noted that there’s legal uncertainty about the law stemming from challenges made by diversity, equity and inclusion opponents, including Republican President Donald Trump’s Justice Department, that are now pending before a federal appeals court.

A few organizations said they were working to compile the data and would make it available on their websites soon. The Gaylord & Dorothy Donnelley Foundation, for one, posted its data online after the Tribune reached out. But even if other organizations don’t, there appear to be no repercussions, as the law lacks enforcement mechanisms or sanctions for noncompliance.

In a filing this spring in the case before the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, the Illinois attorney general’s office noted two unnamed nonprofit groups challenging the law “will not have to post any demographic information on their websites because their officers and directors are not inclined to voluntarily disclose their demographic information.”

‘Still very new’

The law, which was approved along party lines in the Democratic-controlled legislature, applies to nonprofits required to file annual charitable organization reports with the Illinois attorney general and report issuing grants totaling $1 million or more to other charitable organizations. It took effect Jan. 1, 2025.

State Sen. Adriane Johnson, a Buffalo Grove Democrat, sponsored the proposal on behalf of LGBTQ+ rights group Equality Illinois and defended the measure.

“This is still very new,” she said of the law during an interview with the Tribune. “I think we require a little bit more time in order for us to rate the effectiveness of it.”

She said the law’s intent was “really designed to support diversity and inclusion in the nonprofit sector,” adding that “I think it’s great when … you’re able to amplify the leadership of those boards” and show people from diverse backgrounds that “there’s an opportunity for them” to help steer some of the state’s largest and most prominent charitable organizations.

In addition, Johnson said, the measure wasn’t meant as a stand-alone. It was supposed to build on previous state efforts to make leadership diversity more transparent, including a law that since 2015 has required the governor’s office to report aggregated demographic information about appointees to state boards and commissions and another law that since 2020 has required Illinois-based publicly traded companies to report the demographic makeup of their boards of directors.

While neither includes penalties for noncompliance, both require more comprehensive public reporting of the data collected. In the case of the governor’s office, demographic data must be reported annually to the state legislature and published online. Public companies must report their demographic breakdowns to the Illinois secretary of state’s office, and the data is then compiled and analyzed each year in a report issued by the University of Illinois’ School of Labor and Employment Relations.

The most recent report on corporate board diversity shows, for instance, that in 2025, nine companies disclosed having at least one director who identified as a member of the LGBTQ+ community. That was an increase from two companies in 2022, the first year data on the LGBTQ+ identity of directors was included in the reporting.

Requirements in the more recent law pertaining to nonprofits are less stringent.

Because the law applies only to charitable organizations that file annual reports and make grants totaling at least $1 million to other nonprofits, some organizations, such as the religiously affiliated Barnabas Foundation in Crete, are exempt.

The foundation — which made $104 million in grants in 2024, according to data compiled by Crain’s Chicago Business — “is structured with the IRS as an association of churches” and “classified as a religious organization in the state,” Heather Day, the group’s marketing director, wrote in an email responding to questions from the Tribune. Due to its classification, the group doesn’t file annual reports with the attorney general.

“Based on this status and our legal counsel’s opinion, we are not subject to” the law’s demographic disclosure requirements, Day wrote.

Neither does the law apply to foundations that lack a public-facing website, exempting, for example, the Zell Family Foundation, which made $69.3 million in grants in 2024 but has no web presence.

Slow to provide classifications

For nonprofits that do meet the criteria that should trigger disclosure, there is no process for submitting the information to the state and no apparent effort to ensure compliance.

While the secretary of state collects the data from for-profit companies, the only responsibility assigned to the state under the law was for Pritzker’s Illinois Department of Human Rights to publish a standardized list of demographic classifications that nonprofits should report. It took the department more than a year after the law was signed — and more than six months after it took effect — to publish that list.

The list includes common racial and ethnic identities along with other classifications, such as “straight or heterosexual,” “gay or lesbian,” “bisexual,” or “not listed (write in if desired)” within the sexual orientation category.

A spokesperson for the Department of Human Rights did not respond to multiple requests for comment on the agency’s role in implementing the law.

Some nonprofits cited the delayed guidance as the reason their information hadn’t been posted yet.

The Jewish United Fund, for example, noted that “classification information and reporting details were not available from the Illinois Department of Human Rights until after” the organization’s deadline for filing its annual paperwork with the attorney general.

“We are in compliance with the law,” Jewish United Fund spokeswoman Elizabeth Abrams wrote in an email.

The Brinson Foundation, a Chicago-based private philanthropic organization whose focus is “encouraging personal initiative, advancing individual freedoms and liberties, and positively contributing to society in the areas of education and scientific research,” similarly pointed to the lack of state guidance as the reason its demographic information was not yet online.

The foundation’s president, Christy Uchida, wrote in an email that the organization had “not been able to poll its directors and officers about their demographics since the Illinois Department of Human Rights didn’t release its guidance … until last fall” but planned to disclose the data after filing this year’s annual report with the attorney general.

What little demographic information has been disclosed so far under the law shows room for improvement toward proponents’ stated goal of increasing representation, particularly for LGBTQ+ individuals.

Among the five nonprofits that had published demographic data to date, only the Chicago Community Trust reported anyone identifying as a member of the LGBTQ+ community.

Some of the state’s largest nonprofits, including the McCormick Foundation, the Joyce Foundation, the Terra Foundation for American Art, the Steans Family Foundation, the Coleman Foundation and the Irving Harris Foundation, did not respond to multiple requests for comment regarding their lack of posted demographic information.

Legal challenges cloud issue

The increasing political and legal backlash against DEI efforts since Trump’s return to the White House also has played a role in stymying the law’s implementation.

Roughly three weeks after the law took effect, and a day after Trump was sworn in for a second term, the American Alliance for Equal Rights — a Texas-based organization founded by anti-affirmative action activist Edward Blum — filed a federal lawsuit against Illinois. Suing on behalf of two unnamed groups subject to the disclosure requirement, Blum’s organization argued the law violated constitutional rights to free speech and equal protection under the First and 14th amendments.

“By forcing nonprofits to publicize their demographic data,” Blum’s group argued in a court filing, the law “pressures them to discriminate when choosing board members. That discrimination is by design.”

To support its argument, the group cited as evidence statements from Pritzker’s bill-signing news release as well as a Johnson statement that said the law was intended to “encourage more diversity.”

Trump’s Justice Department joined the fight in March 2025 with a lawsuit echoing the allegation that the law violates the 14th Amendment’s equal protection clause.

“The United States cannot and will not sit idly while a state denies its citizens equal protection under the guise of diversity,” then-U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said in a statement announcing the Justice Department’s move to join the case. “Discrimination in all its forms is abhorrent and must be eliminated. The Department of Justice will continue to exercise its statutory right to intervene in cases whenever a state encourages DEI instead of merit.”

The state argued in its defense that the law did not compel anyone to disclose personal information. “If the directors and officers provide no such information, then the statute does not require the organizations to post anything at all on their websites, and there is no injury to the anonymous organizations,” the state said in a court filing.

In August, U.S. District Judge Sharon Johnson Coleman dismissed the Justice Department’s lawsuit and partially dismissed the suit brought by the American Alliance for Equal Rights, finding, in part, that the plaintiffs lacked standing. Both challengers appealed to the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, where the consolidated cases are pending.

Illinois Attorney General Kwame Raoul’s office could not provide a breakdown of the cost to state taxpayers of defending the law and declined to comment on the ongoing litigation.

Several nonprofits — including the Brinson Foundation; the Spencer Foundation, a Chicago organization that supports education research; and the Grand Victoria Foundation, the charitable arm of Elgin’s Grand Victoria Casino, whose website says it is “committed to being a statewide leader in fostering racial justice throughout Illinois” — cited the pending litigation in explaining why their demographic information was not online.

“As the law continues to be reviewed and interpreted, the Foundation is taking a thoughtful approach to compliance,” Grand Victoria Foundation spokesman Landon Williams wrote in response to the Tribune, adding that the issue would be addressed in its next annual filing with the attorney general.

“In doing so, we are also considering how to appropriately respect the privacy, consent, and dignity of our directors and officers in relation to any demographic disclosures,” Williams wrote.

Even if the law survives the legal challenge, questions remain about whether largely voluntary transparency requirements are an effective tool for achieving the goals of increasing diversity among nonprofit leadership and, therefore, better serving diverse communities.

“Transparency requirements can be an important first step, but disclosure alone is unlikely to produce substantial change without stronger accountability mechanisms or incentives,” said Lindsey L. Evans, an assistant professor of public administration and policy at Virginia Commonwealth University’s L. Douglas Wilder School of Government and Public Affairs.

Evans, who was unfamiliar with Illinois’ law, studies diversity on nonprofit boards and last year published a study with two co-authors that found, based on an analysis of a representative national survey of nonprofit executives, “diverse boards have more inclusive governance practices, and board diversity practices are positively related to nonprofit performance.”

“What our research shows is that board diversity matters, but it’s not a silver bullet,” Evans said. ”The key issue isn’t just who is at the table, but whether diverse perspectives actually shape decision-making. Without that, diversity risks becoming symbolic rather than substantive.”

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