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Illinois · Private foundation

Follett Educational Foundation

Its FY2025 filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and did not take unsolicited requests; check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.

$476k
Granted FY2025(still arriving)
39
Grants FY2025
32
Organizations funded FY2024
13%
First-time grantees FY2024
Read the full brief
Median grant, FY2025
$3,750
Largest grant, FY2025
$100,000
Organizations funded a year
32 to 131
FY2018 to FY2024
States reached, FY2025
17
Total assets, FY2025
$5.3M
Applications
Preselected organizations only
Per its most recent filing; check its own site

How open it is to new grantees

In FY2024, 13% of the organizations Follett Educational Foundation funded were first-time grantees, receiving 18% of its grant dollars.

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 82% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $18k went to new ones.

50%100%’18’19’20’21’22’23’24
RenewedFirst-time

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

’18’19’20’21’22’23’24
Arts & CultureInternationalOther
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.
The numbers by year
Fiscal yearOrganizations fundedTo those organizationsFirst-time grantees
FY2025still arriving38$401k50%
FY202432$101k13%
FY202346$125k7%
FY2022107$247k53%
FY2021115$272k40%
FY2020126$318k38%
FY2019126$306k54%
FY2018131$289k51%
100% classified

What it funded, over time

Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2017 to 2025.

Education$2.2MPhilanthropy$151kArts & Culture$107kOther$0

Where its grants go

Grant dollars by states, across the years we hold.

Which US states its grants reach

ME
VT
NH
ID
MN
IL
WI
MI
NY
MA
OR
NV
SD
IA
IN
OH
PA
NJ
CT
RI
CA
UT
CO
NE
MO
VA
MD
DE
AZ
NM
KS
AR
TN
NC
SC
OK
LA
MS
AL
GA
TX
FL

Top grantees

Largest recipients by total granted, FY2017 to FY2025, and the share of each one’s budget the grants supplied at peak.

GranteeTotal grantedYearsShare of their budget
The Dollywood Foundation$100,0001n/a
The Colorado College$50,00010%
Trickster Art Gallery$4,2001n/a
The Avalon Theatre Foundation Inc$2,50013%
Ruby Jolliffe Scholarship Foundation$1,00016%

Plus 424 recipients with no EIN on record ($2.2M), not named here.

Compare Follett Educational Foundation with peer funders

Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus

How do I get to Follett Educational Foundation?

Find your warmest path to Follett Educational Foundation 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.

About Follett Educational Foundation

How much does Follett Educational Foundation give?
Follett Educational Foundation reported 39 grants totaling $475,919 in its FY2025 IRS filing. It funded between 32 and 131 organizations a year over FY2018 to FY2024.
What does Follett Educational Foundation fund?
By grant dollars over FY2017 to FY2025, its largest causes are Education (90%), Philanthropy (6%), Arts & Culture (4%).
Who are Follett Educational Foundation's largest grantees?
By total granted over FY2017 to FY2025: The Dollywood Foundation ($100k), The Colorado College ($50k), Trickster Art Gallery ($4k).
Does Follett Educational Foundation fund new organizations?
In FY2024, 13% of the organizations it funded were first-time grantees.
Does Follett Educational Foundation accept unsolicited applications?
Its most recent filing reports that it funds preselected organizations and does not take unsolicited requests. Check the foundation's own site before ruling it out.
Where is Follett Educational Foundation based?
Follett Educational Foundation is based in IL.

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 430 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-PF e-file return for fiscal year 2025, released 2025. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

Source object · view filing

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