Skip to content

· 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 FY2025still arriving
39
Grants FY2025still arriving
17
States reached
$100k
Largest
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 2025.

Education$2.2MPhilanthropy$151kArts & Culture$107kOther$0
02FY2025 · 39 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

By grant size · FY2025

  • Under $10k31 grants · $113k
  • $10k–50k3 grants · $38k
  • $50k–250k5 grants · $325k
$3,750
Median grant
17
States reached
$5.3M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
Dollywood Foundation$100,000
Oak Park River Forest Community Foundation$75,000
Loyola University Arrupe College$50,000
Colorado College$50,000
Friends of McHenry Community College$50,000
Hopi JrSr High School$16,377
Shiwi Ts'Ana Elementary School$10,996
Dzilth-Na-O-Dith-Hle School$10,155
Blackwater Community School$9,439
Atsa Biyaazh Community School$7,093
Zuni Middle School$6,794
D Simmons$5,000
C Neely$4,959
V Novy$4,375
A Talley$4,250
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 (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 14%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 69% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.

area typical 12%Blackwater Community School: $9k → 11%K Aponte: $4k → 15%G Eckl: $4k → 7%A Varney: $4k → 12%Nay Ah Shing Bia School: $4k → 11%D Bryant: $4k → 16%C Villapando: $4k → 14%J McGraw: $4k → 16%Hopi JrSr High School: $16k → 10%Dzilth-Na-O-Dith-Hle School: $10k → 22%Haaku Community School: $4k → 30%Shiwi Ts'Ana Elementary School: $11k → 32%R Haymaker: $4k → 19%J Glover: $4k → 16%L Talley: $4k → 18%K Peley: $4k → 13%S Ewoldt: $4k → 7%J Ward: $4k → 15%C Neely: $5k → 32%K Moyer: $4k → 5%R Uhl: $4k → 10%T Hrubes: $4k → 17%Dollywood Foundation: $100k → 12%A Talley: $4k → 13%K Moore: $4k → 13%B Merriman: $4k → 15%H Kaniewski: $4k → 19%X Hernandez: $5k → 7%V Novy: $4k → 13%Trickster Cultural Center: $4k → 14%M PITTS: $4k → 18%K Billups: $4k → 13%Atsa Biyaazh Community School: $7k → 22%Zuni Middle School: $7k → 32%J Glover: $4k → 16%L Talley: $4k → 18%J Ward: $4k → 15%A Talley: $4k → 13%E Ewoldt: $4k → 15%J Glover: $4k → 16%Friends of McHenry Community College: $50k → 6%N Raymond: $6k → 14%M Weber: $4k → 15%K McGraw: $4k → 13%C Hernadez Mancilla: $5k → 7%Oak Park River Forest Community Foundation: $75k → 14%Oak Park River Forest Community Foundation: $42k → 14%Oak Park River Forest Community Foundation: $32k → 14%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.

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
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.

68%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$1.6M · 213 repeat orgs$742k to everyone else

213 repeat relationships: 19 still active in FY2025, 194 since wound down; 19 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

213
197

Total granted

$1.6M
$403k

Still filing today

0%
1%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2025, 16% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $339k went to new ones.

50%100%’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25
RenewedFirst-time

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

’17’18’19’20’21’22’23’24’25
Arts & CultureEducationInternationalOther
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

  • RH
    R Haymaker
    6× · 2017–2022 · $30k
  • AJ
    A JUAREZ
    3× · 2017–2019 · $15k
  • CU
    C Uhl
    5× · 2018–2022 · $15k

Funded once

  • XH
    X Hernandez
    one grant, 2024 · $5k
  • SE
    S Ewoldt
    one grant, 2022 · $4k
  • MP
    M PITTS
    one grant, 2017 · $4k
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 430 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)
2
Early backer (in before they grew)
6/6
Grantees still filing
4/6
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

THE DOLLYWOOD FOUNDATION: $100,000 · OtherTHE DOLLYWOOD FOUNDATION+196 more: $1,658,530 · Other+196 moreOAK PARK-RIVER FOREST COMMUNITY FOUNDATION: $151,000 · PhilanthropyTHE COLORADO COLLEGE: $50,000 · EducationTRICKSTER ART GALLERY: $4,200 · Arts & Culture
Other$1,758,530Philanthropy$151,000Education$50,000Arts & Culture$4,200

Showing the 200 largest grantees by grant value.

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

25%50%75%100%$100Mgrantee revenue →↑ funder's share of their budgetOAK PARK-RIVER FOREST COMMUNITY FOUNDATION: $151,000 over 4y, 1.1% of budgetTHE COLORADO COLLEGE: $50,000 over 1y, 0.0% 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 OAK PARK-RIVER FOREST COMMUNITY FOUNDATION ↗
  • Who funds THE DOLLYWOOD FOUNDATION ↗
  • Who funds THE COLORADO COLLEGE ↗

How much its grantees rely on government

Each dot is one organization Follett Educational Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Follett Educational Foundation. 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%19%38%56%75%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    0get no government money at all
    1report government grants on their 990 we could not trace to a source (not plotted)
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–75%
    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 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.

    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

    Play a game based on Follett Educational’s filings →

    More from the funding graph