· Public charity
Bright Promise
To strengthen and sustain partner christian schools by generating new sources of revenue so that more families may experience the benefit from urban christian education.
What it funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.
Where the money goes
Grants by size, and the largest recipients.
By grant size · FY2025
- $10k–50k11 grants · $241k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $50k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| CHICAGO WEST SIDE CHRISTIAN SCHOOL | $50,000 |
| PUI-TAK CHRISTIAN SCHOOL | $42,505 |
| DAYSTAR SCHOOL | $42,500 |
| THE FIELD SCHOOL | $28,000 |
| UNITY CHRISTIAN ACADEMY | $20,500 |
| CALVIN CHRISTIAN SCHOOL | $20,000 |
| SOUTHWEST CHICAGO CHRISTIAN SCHOOLS | $17,000 |
| CAMBRIDGE CLASSICAL ACADEMY | $15,930 |
| CALVARY ACADEMY | $15,000 |
| MIDWESTERN CHRISTIAN ACADEMY | $15,000 |
| CORNERSTONE ACADEMY | $15,000 |
| LANSING CHRISTIAN SCHOOL | $10,000 |
Does the money reach high-need areas?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.
Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 100% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
How this is measured
How this is measured
Who it funds again
Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.
17 repeat relationships: 12 still active in FY2025, 5 since wound down.
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
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.
How this is measured
Backed again, and grew
- DEDAYSTAR EDUCATION ASSOCIATION9× · 2017–2025 · $368k · revenue +38%
- TFTHE FIELD SCHOOL9× · 2017–2025 · $186k · revenue +852%
- UCUNITY CHRISTIAN ACADEMY7× · 2018–2025 · $73k · revenue ×11
Funded once
How this is measured
Repeat means funded in two or more distinct years. Growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
Closest unfunded matches
The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.
Christian education preK-12
Christ Community School strives to provide a superior education in a warm, caring atmosphere that will equip students to serve and lead in Christ.
Covenant Christian School (CCS) is committed to the academic, spiritual, physical, and social growth of our children in a Christ-centered environment. Continued on Schedule O Covenant Christian School cultivates a distinctive generation…
Provides Private Christian Education from Kindergarten through Grade 12.
Covenant Christian School exist to partner with Christian parents in training their children: to provide quality Christ-centered academic education for children, and to actively promote service in the local church, community and nation.
Primary & Secondary Education
The school provides a biblically sound education program of high academic standards in a loving environment that meets the need of the whole child: spiritually, academically, physically, and socially.
The organization operates a non-denominational school providing a christian environment for learning.
The mission is to provide a biblically based classical college preparatory education that inspires a passion for excellence a heart of grace and the character of Christ.
To provide christian education for grades k through 12
Summit Classical Christian School is a PreK-12 school that exists to cultivate generations of joyful disciples of Christ by partnering with faithful Christian families to educate their children from a Biblical worldview using classical…
To provide a comprehensive education and spiritual development for students in the Sycamore/Dekalb, IL area.
How this is measured
11 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.
Each grant beside the grantee’s revenue from every source, year by year.
How this is measured
Counted here: distinct organizations funded across 2017 to 2025, not grant rows in a single year, so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 11 of the 17 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile.
Each grantee is resolved to its own IRS returns. Association, dated; never a causal claim.
Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee
Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing
Grantee by grantee: a decade per organization, before and after funding
A decade per grantee: revenue shaded, grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.
- Who funds CHICAGO WEST SIDE CHRISTIAN SCHOOL ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds DAYSTAR EDUCATION ASSOCIATION ↗
- Who funds THE FIELD SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds Cornerstone Academy co Richard Van der Molen ↗
- Who funds UNITY CHRISTIAN ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds CALVIN CHRISTIAN SCHOOL FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds Southwest Chicago Christian School Foundation ↗
- Who funds Lansing Christian School Foundation ↗
- Who funds Cambridge Classical Academy ↗
- Who funds DEER CREEK CHRISTIAN SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds TRINITY CHRISTIAN COLLEGE ASSOCIATION ↗
Co-funders
Grantmakers whose grantees overlap with this funder’s far more than size alone predicts. Closer means stronger alignment; arcs show where they also fund each other. Here they form a tightly interlocked group: most of these funders back each other's grantees too.
Open a dossier: Barnabas Foundation · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · Network for Good · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Amazonsmile Foundation
How this is measured
How much its grantees rely on government
Each dot is one organization Bright Promise funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Bright Promise. Bigger dots raise more.
How this is measured
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to Bright Promise?
Find your warmest path to Bright Promise through trustees and officers whose names appear on both boards. Search for your organization and Plinth traces the shortest route it can evidence.
Each link is a name appearing on two organizations’ public IRS 990 filings, matched on that name and, where the filings support it, on location. A same-state match has geographic support, which is a second matching feature rather than confirmation that the two are one person; a cross-state one is the likeliest to be two people who share a name. Every hop shows its tier, low-confidence and distant paths are held back rather than guessed, and it is worth confirming the person before you use the introduction.
Play a game based on Bright Promise’s filings →