· Public charity
American Indian College Fund
The AMERICAN INDIAN COLLEGE FUND invests in native students and tribal college education to transform lives and communities.
What you funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year — across FY2017–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 38 grants below total $13,887,686 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $38,385,304 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $24,497,618 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2025
- $10k–50k1 grant · $26k
- $50k–250k9 grants · $1.1M
- $250k+28 grants · $13M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| NUETA HIDATSA SAHNISH COLLEGE | $634,551 |
| TURTLE MOUNTAIN COMMUNITY COLLEGE | $631,482 |
| SINTE GLESKA UNIVERSITY | $618,432 |
| UNITED TRIBES TECHNICAL COLLEGE | $577,554 |
| NAVAJO TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY | $569,548 |
| SALISH KOOTENAI COLLEGE | $543,045 |
| BAY MILLS COMMUNITY COLLEGE | $536,006 |
| KEWEENAW BAY OJIBWA COMMUNITY COLLEGE | $534,533 |
| DINE COLLEGE | $515,632 |
| NORTHWEST INDIAN COLLEGE | $493,132 |
| AANIIIH NAKODA COLLEGE | $477,391 |
| LAC COURTE OREILLES OJIBWAY COMMUNITY COLLEGE | $473,462 |
| LITTLE PRIEST TRIBAL COLLEGE | $466,447 |
| RED LAKE NATION COLLEGE | $459,632 |
| COLLEGE OF THE MENOMINEE NATION | $436,632 |
Do your dollars go where the need is?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, then read against the area’s typical level.
Your human-services grants (FY21–21, $4k) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 0% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty linein the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP; grantee ZIP can differ from where services are delivered.
Which US states your grants reach
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are actually delivered. Need from public data — U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.
Who you back again
Which organizations you funded more than once, and which you funded a single time. Each grantee is matched to its own filings.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +43% since the first grant, against +2% for the ones you funded once.
41 repeat relationships — 38 still active in FY2025, 3 since wound down.
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Median revenue growth · since first grant
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2025, 100% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $0 went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
First-time = a grantee’s first year in your filing window; renewed = funded in an earlier year too. As a portfolio matures the renewed share naturally climbs — once funded, an org stays “renewable” — so the signal is the years that buck it (a new-grantee intake wave). The earliest year is left-censored: relationships that predate the data read as “new.” Theme is the grantee’s IRS cause.
Backed again, and grew
- SKSALISH KOOTENAI COLLEGE INC9× · 2017–2025 · $2.9M · revenue +24%
- UTUNITED TRIBES TECHNICAL COLLEGE9× · 2017–2025 · $2.8M · revenue +39%
- OLOGLALA LAKOTA COLLEGE9× · 2017–2025 · $2.8M · revenue +22%
Funded once
- TNTHE NATIVE WAYS FEDERATION INCone grant, 2021 · $140k · revenue -23%
- DHDODSON HIGH SCHOOLone grant, 2023 · $11k
- EREL RENO PUBLIC SCHOOLSone grant, 2023 · $11k
Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
The map has a center of gravity: the average direction from the rest of the sector toward the organizations the foundation funds — the shape of its giving. Scoring every nonprofit along that direction surfaces the ones that look most like the portfolio. These are the closest matchesthat aren’t grantees — a resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.
California Indian college (cinc), is dedicated to building educational strength and will provide educational opportunities leading to degrees for American Indians and all students with indigenous backgrounds
To provide education and instruction in the scholarly study and preservation of indian art to empower creativity and leadership in native arts and cultures through higher education, life-long learning and outreach.
Advancing tribal colleges through collaboration and shared goals. ndtcs leverages the higher education experience by sharing ideas and broadening networks and alliances, toward improving students' outcomes.
Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities accredits institutions of higher education by applying evidence-informed standards and processes to support continuous improvements and promote equitable student achievement and success.
Apu provides a world-class, hands-on, culturally-responsive educational experience in collaboration with our students, communities, and tribal partners.
The american indian institute's mission is to perpetuate the ancient wisdom and cultural heritage of north america's native people and to promote a greater understanding of that wisdom amoung all people.
We're dedicated to helping Native Americans have access to a quality education, while still preserving their culture and honoring their heritage. Our mission is to provide preparatory programs for youth and financial assistance for those…
The american indian college fund invests in native students and tribal college education to transform lives and communities.
To offer postsecondary education in acupuncture and chinese herbal medicine
The northwest indian college foundation is committed to addressing the financial gap faced by students attending northwest indian college and assist them in realizing their goals and dreams.
North american university (nau) is a private and non-profit institution offering bachelor's and master's degrees. the university is committed to teaching excellence and being student centered. nau strives to provide an environment…
To build, promote, and honor self-sustaining tribal citizen communities through education and leadership.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Northwest Indian College and the most unlike its peers is American Indian Science and Engineering Society. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 42 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 5% of your grantees by number, and just 3% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 5% lost their exemption, against 13% of the field you don’t fund.
Age = years since IRS exemption (a founding proxy). “Closed” = auto-revocation for 3 years of non-filing — a floor on closure, not proof, and bigger established orgs lapse least. Association, not causation.
37 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.
Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue from every source. Association, dated; never a causal claim.
Counted here: distinct organizations you funded across 2017–2025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 37 of the 61 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile; the rest are funded organizations whose filings we could not track year by year.
Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee
Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing
Go grantee by grantee — a decade per org, and how each moved after you funded them
A decade per grantee — revenue shaded, your grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.
- Who funds SALISH KOOTENAI COLLEGE INC ↗
- Who funds UNITED TRIBES TECHNICAL COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds OGLALA LAKOTA COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds COLLEGE OF THE MENOMINEE NATION ↗
- Who funds NAVAJO TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds TURTLE MOUNTAIN COMMUNITY COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds SITTING BULL COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds NORTHWEST INDIAN COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds TOHONO O'ODHAM COMMUNITY COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds AANIIIH NAKODA COLLEGE (FORT BELKNAP COLLEGE) ↗
- Who funds LAC COURTE OREILLES OJIBWE UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds Board of RegentsSouthwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute ↗
- Who funds FORT PECK COMMUNITY COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds STONE CHILD COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds CANKDESKA CIKANA COMMUNITY COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds BLACKFEET COMMUNITY COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds LITTLE PRIEST TRIBAL COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds Ilisagvik College ↗
- Who funds WHITE EARTH TRIBAL AND COMMUNITY COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds RED LAKE NATION COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds INSTITUTE OF AMERICAN INDIAN ARTS TRUST ↗
- Who funds CHIEF DULL KNIFE COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds LEECH LAKE TRIBAL COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds American Indian Higher Education Consortium Inc ↗
- Who funds INDIGENOUS EDUCATION INC ↗
- Who funds NATIVE FORWARD SCHOLARS FUND ↗
- Who funds THE NATIVE WAYS FEDERATION INC ↗
The grantmakers whose grantees overlap with yours far more than size alone predicts. Each orbits closer the stronger the alignment; the arcs between them show where they also fund each other. Here it reads as a tightly interlocked camp — most of these funders back each other's grantees too.
Open a dossier: Ascendium Education Solutions Inc · American Indian Higher Education Consortium Inc · First Nations Development Institute · Achieving the Dream Inc · Theodore R and Vivian M Johnson Scholarship Foundation Inc · Native American Agriculture Fund · Sovereign Equity Fund · Northwest Area Foundation · Helen Gough Fdn Trust · Ndn Collective Inc · North Dakota Tribal College System · American Indian Youth Running Strong Inc
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. A research starting point: overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.
Government reliance of your grantees
Every dot is one organization American Indian College Fund funds. Left–right is the share of its income from government; up–down is the share from you. Bigger dots raise more. Filter to federal or a single department — and drag the year to watch it move.
Government income is each org’s traced federal awards (USASpending — grants and contracts) plus state payments (open checkbooks) as a share of its total revenue (IRS Form 990); the self-reported government-grant line (990 line 1e) is carried for cross-check: a grantee that reports government grants we could not trace to a source is left off the chart rather than shown as receiving none. An association, not a claim that your grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first — a floor, not a census; state records exist for 9 states, so a grantee outside them shows no state figure (dimmed) rather than a false zero. Federal award amounts are obligations, which can span years, so a single-year share is indicative. 990 filings lag 12–24 months.