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Education Loan Finance Inc at a glance

· Public charity

Education Loan Finance Inc

Provides funding for postsecondary student loans and grants for scholarships through its subsidiary.

$252k
Granted FY2021
2
Grants FY2021
1
States reached
$152k
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its granteesRead
04Its fieldRead
05Through PlinthRead
01What it funds
01100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2021.

Education$882kHealth$100kCommunity Improvement$21k
02FY2021 · 2 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

$152,000
Median grant
1
States reached
$2.0B
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
The University of Tennessee Foundation Inc$152,000
Shangri-La Therapeutic Academy Riding Inc$100,000
02The need
03

Does the money reach high-need areas?

Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.

show:

Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY17–21) land where the poverty rate runs at 13%, against an area that typically sits at 10%. 96% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 10%The Lampo Group LLC: $21k → 4%Shangri-La Therapeutic Academy Riding Inc: $100k → 10%Pellissippi State Foundation: $9k → 12%UT Chattanooga Foundation: $51k → 12%Lee University: $30k → 13%Bryan College: $26k → 14%Tennessee Wesleyan College: $30k → 15%Tennessee Tech University: $45k → 19%Pellissippi State Foundation: $7k → 12%UT Chattanooga Foundation: $35k → 12%Lee University: $30k → 13%Bryan College: $24k → 14%Tennessee Wesleyan College: $30k → 15%Tennessee Tech University: $33k → 19%Southern Adventist University: $30k → 12%Cookeville Higher Education Campus Fdn: $16k → 19%Southern Adventist University: $30k → 12%Chattanooga State Foundation: $7k → 12%0%20%40%50%more need →
grant to an above-average-need area below average· circle size = grant amount
How this is measured
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.
How this is measured
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are delivered. Need from public data (U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA), shown as context about the area, never attributed to the funder’s giving.
03Its grantees
repeat funding

Who it funds again

Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.

86%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$859k · 9 repeat orgs$144k to everyone else

Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +49% since the first grant, against +2% for those funded once.

9 repeat relationships: 1 still active in FY2021, 8 since wound down; 1 grantees were first funded in FY2021 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

9
3

Total granted

$859k
$44k

Median revenue growth · since first grant

+49%
+2%

Still filing today

44%
33%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2021, 60% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $100k went to new ones.

50%100%’17’18’21
RenewedFirst-time

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

’17’18’21
EducationHealthOther
How this is measured
First-time means a grantee’s first year in the filing window; renewed means funded in an earlier year too. The renewed share climbs naturally as a portfolio matures, so the signal is a year that bucks it (a wave of new grantees). 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

  • TU
    THE UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE FOUNDATION INC
    3× · 2017–2021 · $403k · revenue +178%
  • LU
    LEE UNIVERSITY
    2× · 2017–2018 · $60k · revenue +16%
  • TW
    TENNESSEE WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY
    2× · 2017–2018 · $60k · revenue +49%

Funded once

  • TL
    The Lampo Group LLC
    one grant, 2017 · $21k
  • VS
    VOLUNTEER STATE COMMUNITY COLLEGE
    one grant, 2017 · $16k
  • CS
    CHATTANOOGA STATE COMMUNITY COLLEGE FOUNDATION
    one grant, 2018 · $7k · revenue +2%
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.

04Its field
04the grantee network

6 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. 6 of the 13 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.

0
Load-bearing (≥25% of a budget)
0
Early backer (in before they grew)
6/6
Grantees still filing
6/6
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

THE UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE FOUNDATION INC: $403,000 · EducationTHE UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE FOUNDATION INCTENNESSEE WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY: $60,000 · EducationTENNESSEE WESLEYAN UNIVERSITYBRYAN COLLEGE: $50,000 · EducationBRYAN COLLEGE+1 more: $7,000 · EducationTHE UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE: $86,000 · OtherTHE UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEETennessee Technological University: $77,500 · OtherTennessee Technological UniversityLEE UNIVERSITY: $60,000 · OtherLEE UNIVERSITYSOUTHERN ADVENTIST UNIVERSITY: $60,000 · OtherSOUTHERN ADVENTIST UNIVERSITYCLEVELAND STATE COMMUNITY COLLEGE: $46,000 · OtherCLEVELAND STATE COMMUNITY COLLEGEThe Lampo Group LLC: $21,000 · OtherThe Lampo Group LLCVOLUNTEER STATE COMMUNITY COLLEGE: $16,438 · OtherPELLISSIPPI STATE COMMUNITY COLLEGE: $16,000 · OtherSHANGRI-LA THERAPEUTIC ACADEMY OF RIDING INC: $100,000 · HealthSHANGRI-LA …
Education$520,000Other$382,938Health$100,000

Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing

25%50%75%100%$10M$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetTHE UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE FOUNDATION INC: $403,000 over 3y, 0.2% of budgetSHANGRI-LA THERAPEUTIC ACADEMY OF RIDING INC: $100,000 over 1y, 9.1% of budgetLEE UNIVERSITY: $60,000 over 2y, 0.0% of budgetTENNESSEE WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY: $60,000 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetBRYAN COLLEGE: $50,000 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetCHATTANOOGA STATE COMMUNITY COLLEGE FOUNDATION: $7,000 over 1y, 0.3% of budget
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 THE UNIVERSITY OF TENNESSEE FOUNDATION INC ↗
  • Who funds SHANGRI-LA THERAPEUTIC ACADEMY OF RIDING INC ↗
  • Who funds LEE UNIVERSITY ↗
  • Who funds TENNESSEE WESLEYAN UNIVERSITY ↗
  • Who funds BRYAN COLLEGE ↗
  • Who funds CHATTANOOGA STATE COMMUNITY COLLEGE FOUNDATION ↗

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.

Donor Advised Charita…Fidelity Investments …Amazonsmile Foundation
Donor Advised Charitable Giving IncCO4.3× affinity4 shared granteesties to 2 of 2Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: Donor Advised Charitable Giving Inc · Fidelity Investments Charitable Gift Fund · Amazonsmile Foundation

How this is measured
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. Overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Education Loan Finance Inc funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Education Loan Finance Inc. Bigger dots raise more.

2024
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 00%1%3%6%10%funder's share of their income ↑0%5%10%15%20%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    2report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–20%
    typical government reliance, FY20–25
    How this is measured
    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 a grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first, a floor rather than 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 to 24 months.
    05Through Plinth

    Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

    How do I get to Education Loan Finance Inc?

    Find your warmest path to Education Loan Finance Inc 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.

    On method. Every financial figure here is read from IRS e-file XML, the funder’s own 990/990-PF, and from the multi-year returns of the 13 grantees we resolved, each linked to its source. Grantee outcomes are each organization’s own program-service reporting (Form 990, Part III), read as association with funding, never as caused by it. Low-confidence name matches are suppressed rather than guessed. How we build these →

    How this is measured
    Each figure carries one of six labels. Filed is what the funder reported on its return. Official is another government record about an organization, such as a federal award or a charity register, joined by name where no shared identifier exists. Resolved is an identity we worked out where the filing named a recipient without an EIN, kept only above a measured confidence threshold. Computed is arithmetic over those, like themes, portfolio clusters and co-funder strength. Context is a statistic about a place rather than about an organization, which is what the need overlay is: it describes the area a grantee’s address sits in, not where its work lands. Inferred is drawn by a model from text, like the partnerships read out of public news and organization websites. Each is labeled where it appears.

    Generated from the IRS Form 990 e-file return for fiscal year 2021, released 2021. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Possibly out of date. A more recent filing (FY2024) is on record and reports no grant expense, so the figures above are from FY2021, the most recent year this funder made grants.

    Source object · view filing

    Play a game based on Education Loan Finance’s filings →

    More from the funding graph

    The unnamed billions
    grants reported with no recipient in the public record
    The regranting layer
    51% of grant dollars land in the regranting layer
    The DAF merry-go-round
    $9.7B circulates between donor-advised funds
    The endowment market
    who holds foundation money, and what just moved
    The camps
    funders cluster by geography, not ideology
    By state
    where grant money is based, and what stays home