· Private foundation
Cole Foundation for Renewing the Culture
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
Read this first · the figures below need context
81% of Cole Foundation for Renewing the Culture’s FY2025 grant dollars went to The Academy Of The New Church, not to grantees.
Its money now reaches organizations through that sponsor, which does not report who recommended each grant. FY2025 names 1 organization directly, so a portfolio cannot be read from it.
Organizations named directly on the return
Amber years are those where most dollars went to a sponsor.
What it funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2020 to 2025.
Where the money goes
Grants by size, and the largest recipients.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k4 grants · $7k
- $10k–50k2 grants · $22k
- $50k–250k1 grant · $125k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| Bryn Athyn College | $125,000 |
| Kempton New Church School | $12,000 |
| New Christian Bible Study | $10,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $2,500 |
| Individual grant recipient | $2,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $1,000 |
| Individual grant recipient | $1,000 |
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 (FY20–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 8%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 30% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.
How this is measured
How this is measured
Where the work is directed
The same grants placed two ways: where each recipient sits, and where its stated purpose sends the money.
About 70% of Cole Foundation for Renewing the Culture’s grant dollars are earmarked for a different county than the recipient’s own address. By recipient address, 92% of the giving stays in PA; by stated purpose, 89%.
How this is measured
Who it funds again
Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.
7 repeat relationships: 3 still active in FY2025, 4 since wound down; 3 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2025, 81% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $6k went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
How this is measured
Backed again, and grew
- NCNEW CHRISTIAN BIBLE STUDY CORP6× · 2020–2025 · $100k · revenue +14%
- PUPRAGER UNIVERSITY FOUNDATION2× · 2022–2023 · $20k · revenue +17%
- LNLibertas Network2× · 2021–2022 · $3k · revenue +60%
Funded once
- GCGENERAL CHURCH OF THE NEW JERUSALEMone grant, 2023 · $7k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2024 · $1k
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.
5 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. 5 of the 14 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.
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: Vanguard Charitable Endowment Program · Amazonsmile Foundation
How this is measured
How much its grantees rely on government
Each dot is one organization Cole Foundation for Renewing the Culture funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Cole Foundation for Renewing the Culture. Bigger dots raise more.
How this is measured
Play a game based on Cole Foundation for Renewing the Culture’s filings →