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The Abundant Life Foundation at a glance

· Private foundation

The Abundant Life 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.

$800k
Granted FY2024still arriving
7
Grants FY2024still arriving
7
States reached
$200k
Largest
01What it fundsRead
02The needRead
03Its granteesRead
04Its fieldRead
05Through PlinthRead
01What it funds
0190% classified

What it funded, over time

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

Religion$2.1MEducation$755kOther$0
02FY2024 · 7 grants

Where the money goes

Grants by size, and the largest recipients.

$100,000
Median grant
7
States reached
$18M
Total assets
Largest grants
RecipientAmount
GORDON CONWELL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY$200,000
FLOURISH INSTITUTE OF THEOLOGY$100,000
REFORMED BIBLE COLLEGE$100,000
BETHLEHEM COLLEGE & SEMINARY$100,000
CEDARVILLE COLLEGE$100,000
Individual grant recipient$100,000
NORTH PARK UNIV$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 (FY17–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 45% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Its grants spread fairly evenly across need levels.

area typical 11%GORDON CONWELL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY: $475k → 10%BETHLEHEM COLLEGE & SEMINARY: $125k → 11%FLOURISH INSTITUTE OF THEOLOGY: $100k → 14%REFORMED BIBLE COLLEGE: $100k → 11%MONTREAT COLLEGE: $100k → 12%WORLDWIDE DISCIPLESHIP ASSSN: $100k → 6%CEDARVILLE COLLEGE: $100k → 9%SEE ATTACHED LIST: $850k → 16%NORTH PARK UNIV: $100k → 14%GORDON CONWELL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY: $235k → 10%BETHLEHEM COLLEGE & SEMINARY: $100k → 11%FLOURISH INSTITUTE OF THEOLOGY: $100k → 14%MONTREAT COLLEGE: $30k → 12%CEDARVILLE COLLEGE: $100k → 9%NORTH PARK UNIV: $100k → 14%GORDON CONWELL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY: $200k → 10%GORDON CONWELL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY: $200k → 10%GORDON CONWELL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY: $200k → 10%GORDON CONWELL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY: $175k → 10%GORDON CONWELL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY: $150k → 10%GORDON CONWELL THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY: $150k → 10%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

MN
IL
MA
OH
NC
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.

93%of every dollar goes to organizations it has funded before.
$2.7M · 6 repeat orgs$200k to everyone else

6 repeat relationships: 5 still active in FY2024, 1 since wound down; 2 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).

How the two cohorts compare

Re-uppedFunded once

Organizations

6
2

Total granted

$2.7M
$200k

Still filing today

50%
0%

New vs renewed · share of each year

In FY2024, 75% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $200k went to new ones.

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

  • GT
    Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary Inc
    8× · 2017–2024 · $1.8M · revenue +15%
  • BC
    BETHLEHEM COLLEGE & SEMINARY
    2× · 2023–2024 · $225k
  • CC
    CEDARVILLE COLLEGE
    2× · 2023–2024 · $200k

Funded once

  • RB
    REFORMED BIBLE COLLEGE
    one grant, 2024 · $100k
  • IG
    Individual grant recipient
    one grant, 2024 · $100k
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

3 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. 3 of the 8 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)
3/3
Grantees still filing
2/3
Grew since first funded

Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee

Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary Inc: $1,785,000 · EducationGordon-Conwell Theological Seminary IncNORTH PARK UNIVERSITY: $200,000 · EducationNORTH PARK UNIVERSITYMONTREAT COLLEGE: $130,000 · EducationMONTREAT COLLEGEBETHLEHEM COLLEGE & SEMINARY: $225,000 · OtherBETHLEHEM COLLEGE & SEMINARYCEDARVILLE COLLEGE: $200,000 · OtherCEDARVILLE COLLEGEFLOURISH INSTITUTE OF THEOLOGY: $200,000 · OtherFLOURISH INSTITUTE OF THEOLOGYREFORMED BIBLE COLLEGE: $100,000 · OtherREFORMED BIBLE COLLEGEIndividual grant recipient: $100,000 · OtherIndividual grant recipient
Education$2,115,000Other$825,000

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 budgetGordon-Conwell Theological Seminary Inc: $1,785,000 over 8y, 1.6% of budgetNORTH PARK UNIVERSITY: $200,000 over 2y, 0.1% of budgetMONTREAT COLLEGE: $130,000 over 2y, 0.2% 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 Gordon-Conwell Theological Seminary Inc ↗
  • Who funds NORTH PARK UNIVERSITY ↗
  • Who funds MONTREAT COLLEGE ↗

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.

American Endowment Fo…Natl Christian Charit…Donor Advised Charita…Fidelity Investments …Amazonsmile Foundation
American Endowment FoundationOH10.6× affinity4 shared granteesties to 4 of 4Hover any node to trace its alignments.Compare side by side →

Open a dossier: American Endowment Foundation · Natl Christian Charitable Fdn Inc · 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 The Abundant Life Foundation funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from The Abundant Life Foundation. Bigger dots raise more.

2025
’20’21’22’23’24’25
no gov · 10%0%1%3%5%funder's share of their income ↑0%4%8%11%15%share of the org’s income from government →
    no gov moneyreceives it· size = income
    1get no government money at all
    0rely on government for over half their income
    ⤢ axis zoomed · 0–15%
    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 The Abundant Life Foundation?

    Find your warmest path to The Abundant Life 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 8 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 2024, released 2024. Filings run roughly 12 to 24 months behind; figures are dated accordingly.

    Possibly out of date. A more recent filing (FY2025) is on record and reports $850k of grant expense with no grantee named in the published copy. A private foundation itemizes every grant it makes, so a return carrying none has filed its list as an attachment that the public copy does not include. The figures above are therefore from FY2024, the most recent year this funder’s grantee list reached the public record.

    Source object · view filing

    Play a game based on Abundant Life’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