How much did Ascendium Education Solutions Inc grant in FY2024?

Ascendium Education Solutions Inc reported 287 grants totaling $119,269,181 in its FY2024 IRS filing.

Where is Ascendium Education Solutions Inc based?

Ascendium Education Solutions Inc is based in WI.

Ascendium Education Solutions Inc

Foundation Dossiers Also receives grants — funding profile →

· Public charity

Ascendium Education Solutions Inc

Supports increased access to and success in post-secondary education as a national grantmaker, a federal student loan guaranty agency and a provider of student success services.

$119M

Granted FY2024

287

Grants

Communities

$7.6M

Largest

01What you fund

0182% classified

What you funded, over time

Every grant clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2017–2024.

Community Improvement$278MEducation$132MEmployment$42MHuman Services$31MSocial Science$28MPhilanthropy$12MCrime & Legal$9.5MEnvironment$6.6MYouth Development$4.7MOther$134M

02beneath the categories

Past the labels — and the year it shifted

Beneath the NTEE codes, this is what the grant descriptions actually say.

…and in their own words, year by year

2018

dash emergencyemergency pellpell recipientscareer readyready internshipscholarshipinternship dash

2019

dash emergencyemergency dashgroupsissuesfree marketscareer readyready internship

2020

response planmadison racialracial justicecovid responsecitizenshipboard regentsdonated registrations

2021

impact dollarsgood neighbortriple impactimpact goodcorporate tripledollars doersrole

2022

law fellowlearners continuationreinstatementevaluability assessmentfellow paralegalparalegal internintern law

2023

neighbor givingtravel conferencetravel studystudy higherhigher conferencebuilding evidenceevidence increase

Words distinctive to each year’s grant purposes (TF-IDF) · event-driven terms in cyan.

03FY2024 · 287 grants

Where the money goes

Your grants by size, and where they go.

By grant size · FY2024

Under $10k25 grants · $160k
$10k–50k100 grants · $2.7M
$50k–250k66 grants · $7.8M
$250k+96 grants · $107M

$69,250

Median grant

States reached

$223M

Total assets

Largest grants

MERIT AMERICA$7,560,000
MDRC$7,363,369
TEACHERS COLLEGE COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY$3,557,052
LOUISIANA BOARD OF REGENTS$3,325,000
AMERICAN INSTITUTES FOR RESEARCH IN THE BEHAVIORAL SCIENCES$3,274,500
BLUE MERIDIAN PARTNERS INC$3,000,000
ACHIEVING THE DREAM INC$2,846,040
NEW VENTURE FUND$2,682,500
SOCIAL FINANCE INC$2,503,500
WISCONSIN REGIONAL TRAINING PARTNERSHIP INC$2,500,000
STATE OF OHIO$2,392,500
VERA INSTITUTE OF JUSTICE INC$2,372,898
THE ASPEN INSTITUTE$2,364,100
JOBS FOR THE FUTURE INC$2,294,402
TEXAS COMMUNITY COLLEGE EDUCATION INITIATIVE$2,118,700

02The need

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.

show:

Your human-services grants (FY17–24, $30.4M) land where the poverty rate runs at 15% — the area typically sits at 10%. 99% of those dollars reach neighborhoods with above-average need. Most of your grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount

Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty line in the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP; grantee ZIP can differ from where services are delivered.

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, United Way ALICE — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.

03Your edge

repeat funding

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.

93%of every dollar goes to organizations you’ve funded before.

$633M · 350 repeat orgs$45M to everyone else

350 repeat relationships — 180 still active in FY2024, 170 since wound down; 106 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

350

118

Total granted

$633M

$17M

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+40%

+56%

Still filing today

72%

66%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 76% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $28M went to new ones.

RenewedFirst-time

Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant

EducationHuman ServicesCommunity ImprovementPhilanthropyCrime & LegalArts & CultureOther

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

SE
Strada Education Network Inc
5× · 2019–2024 · $268M · revenue +114% · 56% of their budget
MDRC
8× · 2017–2024 · $21M · revenue +36%
MA
Merit America
4× · 2021–2024 · $16M · revenue +2097%

Funded once

CF
CENTER FOR BLACK EXCELLENCE AND CULTURE INC
one grant, 2022 · $2.5M · revenue -17%
TU
THE UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE
one grant, 2023 · $1.2M
PA
PUBLIC AGENDA INC
one grant, 2023 · $1.1M · revenue +9% · 86% of their budget

Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.

04Your field

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.

Augustana College

Offer a challenging education that develops the qualities of mind, spirit and body for students.

Education

Columbia College

Columbia college provides educational opportunities that develop students' capacity for critical thought and expression, life-long learning, acceptance of personal responsibilty, and commitment to service and social justice.

Education

National Association for College

Empowering college admission counseling professionals through education, advocacy, and community.

Education

National Association of College and

Advance the practice of higher education attorneys for the benefit of the institutions they serve.

—

University of Denver

A higher educational institution, providing both undergraduate and graduate degrees.

Education

The Common Application Inc

The common application promotes access, equity, and integrity in the college admission process.

Education

Fielding Graduate University

Fielding provides doctoral, master's and graduate-level certificate programs in the fields of educational leadership, organization development, and psychology.

—

Beloit College

Beloit college is a residential, independent, national liberal arts college and wisconsin's oldest continuous institution of higher learning. the college is a national leader in delivering a rigorous, time-tested liberal arts experience…

Education

Boston Architectural College

Founded 131 years ago, the boston architectural college is a recognized institution providing excellence in practice-integrated design education to members of diverse communities with students representing 35 countries. the bac offers…

—

Wilson College

Wilson college is a private, liberal arts institution committed to access and affordability in higher education. degrees are offered in 34 undergraduate majors with 40 minors as well as 10 graduate-level programs of study.

Education

Prescott College Inc

Together, we create interdisciplinary, experiential, and diverse learning environments that inspire future leaders to develop a healthy, just and sustainable world.

—

Illinois College

Illinois college is a co-educational institution of higher learning in the liberal arts.

Education

For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Hudson Link for Higher Education in and the most unlike its peers is Heidelberg University. 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.

the sector your giving your giving is ahead of the sector the sector’s ahead of you· dot size = how much the theme matters to each side

Ordered by the change in your giving — leaning in on top, pulling back at the bottom. The bar between the two dots is how out of step you are with the sector. Hover any row for detail.

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 33 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) — 4% of your grantees by number, and just 1% of your money.

Closures · last 5 years

The orgs you fund almost never close — 2% lost their exemption, against 11% of the field you don’t fund.

orgs you fund

2%9/572

the rest of the field

11%

206,155/1,818,993

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.

05the grantee network

427 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2017–2025.

Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue.

Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)

131

Early backer (in before they grew)

419/427

Grantees still filing

348/427

Grew since you first funded

Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee

Community Improvement$277,748,440Education$132,436,509Other$154,396,811Employment$41,982,276Human Services$31,099,801Social Science$28,090,627Philanthropy$11,935,098

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.

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.

Ecmc FoundationMN77.7× affinity54 shared granteesties to 6 of 11Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Ecmc Foundation · American Indian Higher Education · American Indian College Fund · Lumina Foundation for Education Inc · Strada Education Foundation Inc · United Way of Dane County Inc · Madison Community Foundation · The Evjue Foundation Inc · Madison Gas and Electric Foundation · The Roots and Wings Foundation Inc · Trustage Foundation Inc · Gates Foundation

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 organisation Ascendium Education Solutions Inc 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.

2024

’20’21’22’23’24

no gov moneyreceives it· size = income

5get no government money at all

0rely on government for over half their income

typical government reliance, FY20–24

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. 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.

05Through Plinth

Through Plinth

Your grantmaking, live and operational

This dossier was generated cold from public filings. In Plinth it’s a working system — every applicant assessed and every grant monitored. Here’s a taste, run on one of your grantees: WAKIYA FOUNDATION INC.

Agentic due diligence · confidence × risk

Financial management

medium risk

~4 months of operating runway; revenue grew over 3 filed years.

Track record & reputation

medium risk

3 years of Form 990 filings, still active.

Legal standing

low risk

US 501(c)(3); EIN 873472292 on file with current IRS Form 990 filings.

Governance

Live in Plinth

Board composition & governance documents — verified live in Plinth from the applicant.

Compliance & sanctions

Live in Plinth

OFAC / UN sanctions screening — run live in Plinth at assessment.

Program capacity

Live in Plinth

Staffing, M&E and activity alignment — assessed live in Plinth from submitted proposals.

Live · Plinth’s real DD engine

Run the actual assessment on WAKIYA FOUNDATION INC, cold from public data.

Generated live from public IRS filings + open web sources by Plinth’s agentic engine. Shown as an illustration of the product, not a formal assessment.

Post-award monitoring · continuous checks

WatchFinancial stability— Roughly 4 months of cash on hand.
On trackSustained operations— Filing through 2024; revenue grew over the period.
WatchReliance on your funding— Your grants peaked at 99% of their budget — load-bearing; a dependency Plinth would track.
Awaiting reportEvidence of delivery— Plinth collects the grantee's own monitoring reports post-award.

What you see here is static and public. In Plinth it’s operational — the full six-pillar framework on every applicant (with their own documents + live registry and sanctions checks), monitoring dashboards on every award, custom board reports, and eligibility routing for intake.

Agentic due diligenceMonitoring dashboardsCustom board reportsEligibility routing

Preview generated from this grantee’s public IRS filings and independent reporting. Pillars marked “live in Plinth” require the applicant’s submitted documents. Shown as illustration, not a formal assessment.

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPro

How do I get to Ascendium Education Solutions Inc?

Find your warmest path to Ascendium Education Solutions Inc through people who sit on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the introduction across shared trustees and officers.

Every link is a documented governance overlap in public IRS 990 filings — not a personal network — and each hop carries its own confidence tier. Low-confidence or distant paths are held back rather than guessed.

Ascendium Education Solutions Inc

What you funded, over time

Past the labels — and the year it shifted

Where the money goes

Do your dollars go where the need is?

Who you back again

Backed again, and grew

Funded once

427 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2017–2025.

Government reliance of your grantees

Your grantmaking, live and operational

How do I get to Ascendium Education Solutions Inc?

More from the funding graph

Ascendium Education Solutions Inc

What you funded, over time

Past the labels — and the year it shifted

Where the money goes

Do your dollars go where the need is?

Who you back again

Backed again, and grew

Funded once

427 grantees, every filing reconciled, 2017–2025.

Government reliance of your grantees

Your grantmaking, live and operational

How do I get to Ascendium Education Solutions Inc?

More from the funding graph