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Minnesota · Nonprofit

BETHEL UNIVERSITY

BETHEL UNIVERSITY (Minnesota) receives grants from 134 organizations whose IRS filings report $18,337,605 to it, the largest being NATL CHRISTIAN CHARITABLE FDN INC ($4,698,805). 77 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 54% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.

$138M
Revenue FY2025
134
Funders on record
$18M
Grants received
$172M
Net assets
77/134 repeat funderspeak grant-dependency 2%

Against its field

BETHEL UNIVERSITY receives grants from 134 organizations whose IRS filings report $18M to it.

Operating margin4% · below the median
Months of reserve0.5mo · bottom quartile
Revenue growth (annualized)−0% · bottom quartile

this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 671 education nonprofits over $100M, FY2025

Three funders worth looking at

Grantmakers with no record of funding this organization, ranked by how strongly the co-funder graph and the mission embeddings agree. The evidence is in section 03.

See all 12 prospects and why each one surfaced →
01The organization over time

The organization over time

Each line starts at 100 in 2017, so what you read is the shape rather than the size: 150 means half as much again as 2017, 50 means half. The number beside each label in the key is where it ended. The shaded band is where the middle 50% of its peers' revenue would sit, given their growth.

100 = 20172017 Revenue 100 ($141M) Expenses 100 ($137M) Net assets 100 ($104M)2018 Revenue 100 ($142M) Expenses 105 ($143M) Net assets 103 ($108M)2019 Revenue 99 ($140M) Expenses 105 ($143M) Net assets 93 ($97M)2020 Revenue 104 ($147M) Expenses 105 ($143M) Net assets 82 ($86M)2021 Revenue 97 ($137M) Expenses 103 ($140M) Net assets 113 ($118M)2022 Revenue 116 ($164M) Expenses 101 ($137M) Net assets 136 ($142M)2023 Revenue 89 ($125M) Expenses 92 ($126M) Net assets 135 ($141M)2024 Revenue 90 ($127M) Expenses 92 ($125M) Net assets 153 ($160M)2025 Revenue 98 ($138M) Expenses 97 ($132M) Net assets 165 ($172M)
'17'18'19'20'21'22'23'24'25
Revenue (98)Expenses (97)Net assets (165)Peer revenue range

How it's funded, over time

Each bar is one year's revenue split into where it came from, and every bar is the same height — these are shares, not amounts, so a year that raised twice as much looks the same size. Hover a bar for the split.

2017
2018
2019
2020
2021
2022
2023
2024
2025
ContributionsProgram revenueInvestmentOther

Government-grant reliance: 2017 1% · 2018 0% · 2019 1% · 2020 2% · 2021 4% · 2022 5% · 2023 1% · 2024 1% · 2025 1%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.

17% of BETHEL UNIVERSITY’s revenue is contributions — more donation-reliant than the typical peer (14% for the typical peer).

This organization
Typical peer · 729 orgs

Surplus & reserves

Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 4 of the last 9 reported years ran a deficit.

$4.4M
17
$1.8M
18
$2.7M
19
$3.5M
20
$3.6M
21
$27M
22
$690k
23
$2.0M
24
$6.2M
25
0.5
months of
reserve
02Who funds it

Who funds it, year by year

2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 37 funders to 48 funders, grant income rose $880k → $2.1M.

29 of 134 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF)54% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.

Left out of every figure on this page: $4.1M from 2 payers (the payer shares this organization's board, largest Bethel University Foundation). These are real filings, and they are not money BETHEL UNIVERSITY raised.

From the IRS filings of BETHEL UNIVERSITY’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 134 funders by total. Association, not causation. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.

How concentrated its funding is

BETHEL UNIVERSITY has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 26% of grant income, and it takes 4 funders to reach half.

the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 4 funders to its left

60% of the income these shares are computed over arrives through pass-through sponsors or from payers whose filings do not say what kind of payment it is. Concentration is still measured over all of it, because the money is real; what it does not support is a claim about how many institutions have chosen to fund BETHEL UNIVERSITY.

26%
largest funder
45%
top three
~10
effective funders

Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 33% · 2018 23% · 2019 21% · 2020 32% · 2021 38% · 2022 40% · 2023 19%diversifying over time.

“Effective funders” = inverse Herfindahl index (1 / Σ shareᵢ²) — the number of equal-sized funders that would give the same concentration. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.

How long its funders stay

42% of BETHEL UNIVERSITY's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 57% give in more than one year at all.

first grant+1y+2y+3y+4y+5y+6y

Share of funders still giving k years after their first recorded grant, pooled across every acquisition cohort. A funder counts as retained in a year only if it made a grant that year. Measured to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving — a funder cannot be counted as lapsed in a year most filers have not reached.

Where its funders are

54% of BETHEL UNIVERSITY's grant income arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors, whose addresses record where the money is held rather than where the donor is. Of the $8.3M that is directly attributable, 58% of it comes from funders outside Minnesota, across 26 states.

ND
MN
IL
WI
MI
NY
MA
OR
NV
IA
IN
OH
PA
CT
RI
CA
UT
CO
VA
AR
SC
DC
OK
AL
TX
FL

In-state vs out-of-state, by year

17
18
19
20
21
22
23
Minnesota out of state home

Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $10.0M arriving through sponsors registered in 18 states is excluded from the map and the split above: a sponsor holds money on a donor’s behalf, so its registered address would place those dollars somewhere no donor need ever have been. Trends are read to FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving. FY2024–FY2026 are still being filed and are shown unshaded; they do not move any figure on this page.

03Its place in the field

Funders to approach

Grantmakers that don’t fund you yet, surfaced two ways: they back organizations that share your funders, or their grantees resemble your mission. The ones both signals agree on come first. Your 134 funders put you under-funded among the 400 organizations that share them.

From the co-funder graph (funders backing at least two comparable organizations, shrunk for grantee count, donor-advised and mega-funds excluded) and the universe embeddings. A research starting point; overlap is association, not a guarantee of fit.

Government funding BETHEL UNIVERSITY receives

Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $14.1M on record.

Federal$14.1M
grants $14.1Mcontracts $500
17
18
19
20
21
25
Top agencies
  • Department of Education$12.7M
  • National Science Foundation$1.4M
  • Department of Commerce$18k
  • Department of Defense$500

Federal grants vs contracts are distinguished; state line items keep their reported category. Matched by name + geography (the BMF), so coverage is partial and precision-first.

Organizations like BETHEL UNIVERSITY

Nonprofits whose mission and program text most resemble this one, by semantic similarity over the universe of US filings — the closest peers, and often the clearest route to shared or prospective funders.

In Minnesota

Nationally

04Profile & governance

Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.

Where the money goes

74% of spending goes to programs.

Program 74%Management 25%Fundraising 1%

Governance

29
board members
97%
independent
Conflict-of-interest policyWhistleblower policyDocument retentionBoard reviewed the 990Audited financials

Public support

55%

Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.

Footprint & structure

Files a return copy in 2 states

MN
CA

Part of a family of 2 related entities

  • Bethel University Foundation · exempt
  • Royals Investment Fund LLC · partnership

Screen this organization

A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for BETHEL UNIVERSITY: IRS status (Business Master File, Publication 78, auto-revocation), the OFAC sanctions lists, the Internal Revenue Bulletin, and California registration, with the Rev. Proc. 2018-32 §8.01 reliance elements stated element by element. Generated from the current files at the moment you download it.

A paid feature, included from the $75 plan up. Sign in to download.

Screens are triage, not determinations; a source that cannot be read reports not screened, never clear. How the screen works · on the API as GET /api/screening/{ein}?format=pdf

Questions and answers

Who funds BETHEL UNIVERSITY?
BETHEL UNIVERSITY (Minnesota) receives grants from 134 organizations whose IRS filings report $18,337,605 to it, the largest being NATL CHRISTIAN CHARITABLE FDN INC ($4,698,805). 77 of them have funded it in more than one year, and 54% of the money arrives through donor-advised or pass-through sponsors rather than from an institution directly.
How many funders does BETHEL UNIVERSITY have?
IRS filings report 134 organizations giving $18,337,605 in grants to BETHEL UNIVERSITY, 77 of which have funded it in more than one year.
Who is the largest funder of BETHEL UNIVERSITY?
NATL CHRISTIAN CHARITABLE FDN INC is the largest funder on record, with $4,698,805 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
How can an organization like BETHEL UNIVERSITY find more funders?
Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Minnesota. The funding by cause and by state pages list the largest funders for a given area and how to approach them.

These figures are read directly from IRS Form 990 / 990-PF e-file XML: this organization’s own return for FY2025 (financials across 2017–2025), and the filings of 134funders that report grants to it. “On record” means captured in the filings we have parsed — a funder that does not e-file, or whose grant detail is not itemized, will not appear. Filings run roughly 12–24 months behind. Trends on this page end at FY2023, the last fiscal year that has finished arriving; later years are shown and marked, and move no figure. Data on this page was exported August 27, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing