· Private foundation
Wilson Scholarship Fund
Its FY2025 filing reports that it accepted unsolicited grant applications.
What it funded, over time
Every grant placed by its stated purpose and the recipient’s mission, by year, FY2018 to 2025.
Where the money goes
Grants by size, and the largest recipients.
| Recipient | Amount |
|---|---|
| UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN | $4,000 |
| LANSING COMMUNITY COLLEGE | $2,000 |
| GRAND VALLEY STATE UNIVERSITY | $2,000 |
| ALMA COLLEGE | $1,000 |
| CENTRAL MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY | $1,000 |
| TRINE UNIVERSITY | $1,000 |
| HOPE COLLEGE | $1,000 |
| NORTHERN MICHIGAN UNIVERSITY | $1,000 |
| GWINNETT TECHNICAL COLLEGE | $1,000 |
Does the money reach high-need areas?
Each grant placed by the hardship in its grantee’s ZIP, against the area’s typical level.
Dollar for dollar, its grants (FY25–25) land where the poverty rate runs at 12%, against an area that typically sits at 8%. 100% of its dollars go to grantees based in above-average-need neighborhoods. Most of its grants land in higher-need ZIPs.
How this is measured
How this is measured
Who it funds again
Organizations funded in more than one year, against those funded once.
Grantees it renews have grown median revenue +7% since the first grant, against -11% for those funded once.
26 repeat relationships: 7 still active in FY2025, 19 since wound down; 2 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, 86% of grant dollars renewed an existing relationship; $2k went to new ones.
Where new relationships form · theme of each grantee’s first grant
How this is measured
Backed again, and grew
- UOUniversity of Michigan5× · 2021–2025 · $17k · revenue +96%
Samford University3× · 2020–2022 · $5k · revenue +59%- TUTrine University4× · 2022–2025 · $4k · revenue +70%
Funded once
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2018 · $1k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2018 · $1k
- IGIndividual grant recipientone grant, 2019 · $1k
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.
Closest unfunded matches
The nonprofits that most resemble its grantees but are not funded by it, scored along the direction from the rest of the field toward the portfolio. A resemblance in what they say they do, not a recommendation.
Bates is a college of the liberal arts and sciences, and is a coeducational, nonsectarian, residential college with special commitments to academic rigor, and to assuring in all of its efforts the dignity of each individual, and access to…
Walsh university is an independent, coeducational catholic, liberal arts and sciences institution dedicated to educating its students to become leaders in service to others through a values-based education with an international perspective…
The university's goal in the coming decade is to advance learning through the integration of teaching, research and service to others. the core of this goal is to prepare graduates to engage with the world and lead lives of meaning. to do…
Inspired by lutheran scholarly tradition and the liberal arts, augustana provides an education of enduring worth that challenges the intellect, fosters integrity and integrates faith with learning and service in a diverse world.
Education - lagrange college challenges the minds and inspires the souls of its students. founded in 1831 and committed to its relationship with the united methodist church and its wesleyan and liberal arts traditions, the college supports…
Benedictine University is an inclusive academic community dedicated to teaching and learning, scholarship and service, truth and justice, as inspired by the Catholic intellectual tradition, the social teaching of the Church, and the…
Excelsior University provides educational opportunity to adult learners with an emphasis on those historically underrepresented in higher education. The University meets students where they are - academically and geographically, offering…
The mission of Taylor University is to develop servant-leaders marked with a passion to minister Christ's redemptive love, grace, and truth to a world in need.
The bac is committed to provide excellence in design education grounded in practice and accessible to diverse communities.
As a Catholic, Jesuit university our mission is to search for truth, discover shareknowledge, foster personal professional excellence, promote a life of faith and developleadership expressed in service to others. See Schedule O.
Trinity university is an independent co-educational university whose mission is excellence in the interrelated areas of teaching, research and services.
Wabash college is a liberal arts college for men that educates them to think critically, act responsibly, lead effectively, and live humanely.
How this is measured
9 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. 9 of the 42 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.
Where the money sits, by cause and then by grantee
Each grantee by its size and the funder’s share of it; top left is load-bearing
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.
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 set of overlaps that mostly run through this funder rather than between each other.
Open a dossier: Fred & Florence Dengler Scholarship Fund
How this is measured
How much its grantees rely on government
Each dot is one organization Wilson Scholarship Fund funds: left to right is the share of its income from government, bottom to top the share from Wilson Scholarship Fund. Bigger dots raise more.
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology: 26% of income from government
How this is measured
Play a game based on Wilson Scholarship’s filings →