· Public charity
The Opportunity Trust D/B/A Zest Education
The opportunity trust invests in educators and school systems eager to build the capacity required to make significant and measurable change.
What you funded, over time
Every grant clustered by its grantee’s IRS cause code (NTEE), by year — across FY2019–2025.
Where the money goes
Your grants by size, and where they go.
By grant size · FY2025
- Under $10k6 grants · $40k
- $10k–50k7 grants · $131k
- $50k–250k8 grants · $1.2M
- $250k+15 grants · $11M
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| BELIEVE SCHOOLS | $1,488,050 |
| GATEWAY SCIENCE ACADEMY OF ST LOUIS | $1,307,077 |
| KAIROS ACADEMIES | $1,265,207 |
| THE LEADERSHIP SCHOOL | $991,848 |
| ST LOUIS VOICES ACADEMY | $842,131 |
| ATLAS PUBLIC SCHOOLS | $819,270 |
| FRIENDLY ACADEMY | $746,607 |
| THE FOUNDATION FOR BARNES JEWISH HOSPITAL | $740,000 |
| PREMIER CHARTER SCHOOL | $714,750 |
| BRIDGE 2 HOPE | $650,000 |
| MOMENTUM ACADEMY | $497,200 |
| BROOKSIDE CHARTER SCHOOL | $376,187 |
| THE SCHOOL DISTRICT OF UNIVERSITY CITY | $353,850 |
| MISSOURI CHARTER PUBLIC SCHOOL ASSOCIATION | $350,000 |
| CITY GARDEN MONTESSORI | $273,610 |
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 (FY21–25, $257k) land where the poverty rate runs at 21%, against an area that typically sits at 12%. 98% of those dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of your grants land in higher-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.
And the relationships you keep tend to grow: grantees you re-up on have seen median revenue of +57% since the first grant, against +53% for the ones you funded once.
33 repeat relationships — 23 still active in FY2025, 10 since wound down; 13 grantees were first funded in FY2025 (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 FY2025, 84% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2.1M 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
- KAKAIROS ACADEMIES7× · 2019–2025 · $3.3M · revenue ×31 · 28% of their budget
- CGCITY GARDEN MONTESSORI SCHOOL7× · 2019–2025 · $2.7M · revenue +173%
- NSNavigate STL Schools5× · 2021–2025 · $2.4M · revenue +182% · 100% of their budget
Funded once
- FTFORWARD THROUGH FERGUSONone grant, 2020 · $81k · revenue -25%
- CCOUNTERPUBLICgraduatedone grant, 2023 · $50k · revenue +109%
- ESEDHUB STLone grant, 2021 · $50k
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.
Thomas jefferson school engages its students in the education necessary to live as responsible citizens of the world. through the strongest possible college-prepatory program and within a nurturing community, students develop a…
See schedule o.city academy transforms children, families and our community through exceptional education and bold expectations that empower children to overcome barriers.
La salle middle school is a public charter school located in st. louis. la salle is committed to transforming children and our community through innovative education. students at la salle are pushed to achieve excellence academically,…
The mission of the siue east st. louis charter high school is to prepare sudents, who are career - and college - ready, upon graduation.
The mission of st. louis voices academy of media arts is to leverage media arts and storytelling to equip students with the agency to excel academically, author their own futures, and make meaningful contributions in their communities.
To provide a world-class neighborhood school whose students excel in a culture of academic rigor, character development, and caring relationships.
Louisville collegiate school inspires academic excellence, extraordinary character and global citizenship.
By tapping the intrinsic motivation and curiosity of every child, we deliver higher than usual growth.
Wla combines best practices in teaching and learning, with the latest in educational technology to create an unparalleled high school experience. students will graduate from wla prepared for college, career, and lives of public leadership.
The mission of Grace Christian Academy is to first serve families and children by giving them a Biblically-based education centered on a growing relationship with Jesus Christ, imparting a Christian world view and emphasizing Godly…
The biome is a new kind of k-5 school, for the next generation. one that offers customized, project-based and student-centered learning opportunities with an emphasis on a growth mindset and steam (science, technology, engineering, art and…
City view is a public charter school following the philosophies and practices of expeditionary learning.
For reference, the grantee most central to the portfolio’s shape is Friendly Academy and the most unlike its peers is LitShop. Resemblance is measured on each organization’s own IRS 990 mission text; it reflects how work is described, not its quality or impact.
Your grantees are a median of 13 years old; the field is 21. You back the younger end — and your money leans older still.
The field is 19% startups (under 5 years old) — 11% of your grantees by number, and just 10% of your money.
The orgs you fund almost never close — 6% lost their exemption, against 14% 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.
45 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. 45 of the 76 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
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 KAIROS ACADEMIES ↗
- Who funds CITY GARDEN MONTESSORI SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds Navigate STL Schools ↗
- Who funds BELIEVE CIRCLE CITY HIGH SCHOOL INC ↗
- Who funds THE LEADERSHIP SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds ATLAS PUBLIC SCHOOLS ↗
- Who funds TEACH ST LOUIS ↗
- Who funds KIPP ST LOUIS ↗
- Who funds NEW VENTURE FUND ↗
- Who funds PREMIER CHARTER SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds MOMENTUM ACADEMY INC ↗
- Who funds GATEWAY SCIENCE ACADEMY OF ST LOUIS ↗
- Who funds Teach for America Inc ↗
- Who funds ASSOCIATION OF MISSOURI CHARTER SCHOOLS ↗
- Who funds FRIENDLY ACADEMY ↗
- Who funds THE FOUNDATION FOR BARNES-JEWISH HOSPITAL ↗
- Who funds BSDS INC BROOKSIDE CHARTER SCHOOL ↗
- Who funds HAWTHORN LEADERSHIP SCHOOL FOR GIRLS ↗
- Who funds WEPOWER ↗
- Who funds ST LOUIS UNIVERSITY ↗
- Who funds PROGRESS IN EDUCATION INC ↗
- Who funds Greenhouse E3 ↗
- Who funds SOUTHSIDE EARLY CHILDHOOD CENTER ↗
- Who funds Beginning Futures 2 Inc ↗
- Who funds FORWARD THROUGH FERGUSON ↗
- Who funds St Louis Black Authors of Childrens Literature ↗
- Who funds ACTIVATE STL ↗
- Who funds COUNTERPUBLIC ↗
- Who funds EDHUB STL ↗
- Who funds Lafayette Preparatory Academy Inc ↗
- Who funds CAMELBACK VENTURES ↗
- Who funds ST LOUIS LANGUAGE IMMERSION SCHOOL ↗
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: St Louis Community Foundation Inc · Commerce Bancshares Foundation · St Louis Community Foundation · United Way of Greater St Louis Inc · Youthbridge Community Foundation · Employees Community Fund of the Boeing Company · Innovative Technology Education Fund · St Louis Philanthropic Organization · William T Kemper Foundation Commerce Bank Trustee · Charter Fund Inc D/B/A Charter School Growth Fund · Trio Foundation of St Louis · Moneta Group Charitable Foundation
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 Opportunity Trust D/B/A Zest Education 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.
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.