· Public charity
The Fund for Theological Education Inc
The fund for theological education (fte) cultivates diverse, young adults to be faithful, wise and courageous leaders for the church and academy.
What you funded, over time
By grantee IRS cause code (NTEE).
A cause breakdown isn’t shown here: 68% of THE FUND FOR THEOLOGICAL EDUCATION INC’s grantee dollars fall outside its nine largest cause areas, whether because the recipient carries no IRS cause code or because its cause sits in the long tail. A chart would be mostly one residual band and misrepresent the portfolio.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
The 55 grants below total $1,344,000 — the rows itemised in this filing. The $1,908,710 headline is the total grant expense reported on the return, so the remaining $564,710 is giving the schedule does not break out: grants under the $5,000 itemisation floor, grants to individuals, and grants reported on other schedules. Every figure below describes the itemised rows only.
By grant size · FY2024
- $10k–50k37 grants · $444k
- $50k–250k18 grants · $900k
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| BARCLAY COLLEGE | $50,000 |
| AZUSA PACIFIC UNIVERSITY | $50,000 |
| WESTMONT COLLEGE | $50,000 |
| GEORGETOWN COLLEGE | $50,000 |
| TREVECCA NAZARENE UNIVERSITY | $50,000 |
| HUNTINGTON UNIVERSITY INC | $50,000 |
| CATAWBA COLLEGE | $50,000 |
| GORDON COLLEGE | $50,000 |
| SOUTHWESTERN COLLEGE - THE SUMMIT | $50,000 |
| GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS COLLEGE | $50,000 |
| CENTER FOR YOUTH MINISTRY TRAINING | $50,000 |
| LEWIS UNIVERSITY | $50,000 |
| GRAND VIEW UNIVERSITY | $50,000 |
| BOSTON COLLEGE | $50,000 |
| HENDRIX COLLEGE | $50,000 |
Do your dollars go where the need is?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, then read against the area’s typical level.
Your human-services grants (FY19–19, $10k) land where the poverty rate runs at 10%, against an area that typically sits at 11%. 0% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Your grants skew toward lower-need ZIPs.
Matched: human-services grants are those whose grantee’s IRS cause code is Human Services. Placed by people below the poverty linein the grantee’s ZIP, averaged from the tracts in that ZIP; grantee ZIP can differ from where services are delivered.
Which US states your grants reach
US grants placed by each grantee’s ZIP, which can differ from where services are actually delivered. Need from public data — U.S. Census/ACS, CDC PLACES, Eviction Lab, USDA — shown as context about the area, never attributed to your giving.
Who you back again
Which organizations you funded more than once, and which you funded a single time. Each grantee is matched to its own filings.
24 repeat relationships — 3 still active in FY2024, 21 since wound down; 50 grantees were first funded in FY2024 (too recent to call).
How the two cohorts compare
Organizations
Total granted
Median revenue growth · since first grant
Still filing today
New vs renewed · share of each year
In FY2024, 6% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $1.3M went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
First-time = a grantee’s first year in your filing window; renewed = funded in an earlier year too. As a portfolio matures the renewed share naturally climbs — once funded, an org stays “renewable” — so the signal is the years that buck it (a new-grantee intake wave). 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
- MLMINISTRY LEADERSHIP CENTER FKA CENTER FOR YOUTH MINISTRY TRAINING2× · 2019–2024 · $60k · revenue +289%
- FUFordham University3× · 2017–2020 · $40k · revenue +47%
- UOUNIVERSITY OF DENVER3× · 2017–2020 · $40k · revenue +33%
Funded once
- CSCLAREMONT SCHOOL OF THEOLOGYone grant, 2022 · $200k
- TAThe Art of Communityone grant, 2018 · $29k
- TOTHE OHIO STATE UNIVERSITYone grant, 2019 · $25k
Repeat = funded in two or more distinct years; growth and survival are read from each grantee’s own subsequent IRS filings.
The map has a center of gravity: the average direction from the rest of the sector toward the organizations the foundation funds — the shape of its giving. Scoring every nonprofit along that direction surfaces the ones that look most like the portfolio. These are the closest matchesthat aren’t grantees — a resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.
Regent University serves as a center of Christian thought and action to provide excellent education through a Biblical perspective and global context equipping Christian leaders to change the world.
Asbury Theological Seminary is a community called to prepare theologically educated, sanctified, Spirit-filled men and women to evangelize and to spread scriptural holiness throughout the world through the love of Jesus Christ, in the…
Evangel is a comprehensive christian university that is committed to excellence in educating and equipping students to become spirit empowered servants of god who will impact the church and society globally.
Loyola University New Orleans, a Jesuit and Catholic institution of higher education, welcomes students of diverse backgrounds and prepares them to lead meaningful lives with and for others; to pursue truth, wisdom, and virtue; and to work…
John brown university (jbu) provides christ-centered education that prepares students to honor god and serve others by developing their intellectual, spiritual, and professional lives. (continued on schedule o)jbu serves traditional…
Arizona christian university provides a biblically-integrated, liberal arts education equipping graduates to serve the lord jesus christ in all aspects of life, as leaders of influence and excellence.
Pacific school of religion prepares a diverse cadre of spiritually rooted leaders with the vision, resilience, and skill to create a world where all can thrive. grounded in the rigorous study and faithful practice of progressive christian…
Union university provides christ-centered education that promotes excellence and character development in service to church and society.
Greensboro College provides a liberal arts education grounded in the traditions of the United Methodist Church and fosters the intellectual, social, and spiritual development of all students while supporting their individual needs.
Union college is a seventh-day adventist community of higher education, inspired by jesus christ, and dedicated to empowering students to learn, serve, and lead.
Is to provide educational opportunities for gifted students who have limited academic experiences and resources but unlimited potential for leadership in society.
To foster the vitality of community through learning and the pursuit of wisdom.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Fuller Theological Seminary and the most unlike its peers is Relevant Resources. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
For each theme you fund, this compares how the sector’s money is shifting with how your own giving is shifting.
Sector change and giving change are each shown relative to their own range, growing (right) or shrinking (left); both normalized, so inflation isn’t mistaken for growth.
Your grantees are a median of 49 years old; the field is 16. You back the established end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 22% startups (under 5 years old) — 3% of your grantees by number, and just 2% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 2% lost their exemption, against 13% of the field you don’t fund.
Age = years since IRS exemption (a founding proxy). “Closed” = auto-revocation for 3 years of non-filing — a floor on closure, not proof, and bigger established orgs lapse least. Association, not causation.
70 grantees tracked through their own filings, 2017–2025.
Each one resolved to its own IRS returns and tracked year by year — your grant beside their revenue from every source. Association, dated; never a causal claim.
Counted here: distinct organizations you funded across 2017–2025, not grant rows in a single year — so this will not match the grant count on the cover. 70 of the 258 grantees resolved in that span have returns of their own we could reconcile; the rest are funded organizations whose filings we could not track year by year.
Where your money sits — by cause, then by grantee
Showing your 200 largest grantees by grant value.
Each org by its size and your share of it — top-left is where you’re load-bearing
Go grantee by grantee — a decade per org, and how each moved after you funded them
A decade per grantee — revenue shaded, your grants as bars, all rows on one timeline.
- Who funds MINISTRY LEADERSHIP CENTER FKA CENTER FOR YOUTH MINISTRY TRAINING ↗
- Who funds Lewis University ↗
- Who funds THE WESTMONT COLLEGE FOUNDATION ↗
- Who funds HOPE COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds GORDON COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds BARCLAY COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds TREVECCA NAZARENE UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds AZUSA PACIFIC UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds GRAND VIEW UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds AUGSBURG UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds TRUSTEES OF BOSTON COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds CATAWBA COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds GEORGETOWN COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds HENDRIX COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds GUSTAVUS ADOLPHUS COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds Ignatian Solidarity Network ↗
- Who funds Huntington University ↗
- Who funds THE SOUTHWESTERN COLLEGE ↗
- Who funds Fordham University ↗
- Who funds FULLER THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY ↗
- Who funds Southern California School Of Theology ↗
- Who funds UNIVERSITY OF DENVER ↗
- Who funds Jesus Family Network ↗
- Who funds YOUNG LEADERS INITIATIVE MOTOWN MISSION EXPERIENCE ↗
- Who funds CALL TO ACTION ↗
- Who funds 4 MARKET SQUARE INC ↗
The grantmakers whose grantees overlap with yours far more than size alone predicts. Each orbits closer the stronger the alignment; the arcs between them show where they also fund each other. Here it reads as a tightly interlocked camp — most of these funders back each other's grantees too.
Open a dossier: Lilly Endowment Inc · Interfaith America · Council of Independent Colleges · Je and le Mabee Foundation Inc · Ibm International Foundation · Christian Community Foundation of Memphis · Tulsa Community Foundation · Community Foundation of Greater Memphis Inc · The Kresge Foundation · The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee Inc · The US Charitable Gift Trust · T Rowe Price Program for Charitable Giving Inc
Affinity is a Gamma-Poisson posterior co-funding rate, re-centered on the typical rate, so thin evidence shrinks toward no signal. A research starting point: overlap is association, not proof of shared intent.
Government reliance of your grantees
Every dot is one organization The Fund for Theological Education Inc funds. Left–right is the share of its income from government; up–down is the share from you. Bigger dots raise more. Filter to federal or a single department — and drag the year to watch it move.
- Jesuit Volunteer Corps Northwest — 38% of income from government
- Trustees of Boston University — 12% of income from government
- Bma Tenpoint Inc — 7% of income from government
- Trustees of Boston College — 3% of income from government
- Gordon College — 1% of income from government
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 your grant caused the public funding. Coverage is precision-first — a floor, not 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 12–24 months.
Warm introductions · Powered by PlinthPlus
How do I get to The Fund for Theological Education Inc?
Find your warmest path to The Fund for Theological Education 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.