Massachusetts · Nonprofit
BOSTON SCHOOLS FUND
BOSTON SCHOOLS FUND (Massachusetts) receives grants from 33 organizations whose IRS filings report $14,890,352 to it, the largest being THE LYNCH FOUNDATION ($3,274,142). 19 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $3k
- Funders on record
- 33
- Grants received
- $15M
- Net assets
- $0
What Boston Schools Fund does
Mission
Boston Schools Fund (bsf) is a non-profit organization that advances educational equity through opportunity and access to high-quality schools. The bsf team wakes up every day with one goal: increase the number of children in boston attending a high-quality school. We accomplish this by providing capacity and resources for high-quality schools to expand and improve; sharing data and information; collaborating with families and partners; influencing policy; and committing to values of diversity, equity, inclusion, and anti-racism in our work. We have worked closely with city and state leaders to ensure that boston advances policies which expand access to high-quality schools for historically marginalized students.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990-EZ.
Programs
On its FY2023 return the organization reported a significant change in how it conducts a program.
Despite its best efforts, bsf has been unable to secure sufficient funding to fully cover its projected operating expenses and meet its grantmaking obligations on a long-term basis, as currently constituted. In lieu of dramatically changing bsf's mission, practices, and operations in a manner that would sustain bsf, the board of directors has determined that it is in bsf's best interests to pay or adequately provide for all of bsf's known debts and liabilities and for bsf to be wound up and dissolved in an orderly manner. On march 11, 2024, the board of directors voted to commence an operational wind down, which included staff notice and offboarding. This occurrence resulted in management's determination that liquidation was imminent subsequently, on october 17, 2024, the board of directors voted to dissolve bsf. Management expects to complete its bsf's liquidation and dissolution, including approvals and notices to the massachusetts attorney general and secretary of the commonwealth of massachusetts and the filing of a final form 990 with the internal revenue service, in 2025.
Its own explanation, from Schedule O of that return (Part III, line 3).
School investment - includes all of bsf's financial and non-financialsupport of high-quality, boston-based schools, that serve a highproportion of economically disadvantaged students, black and/or latinostudents, students with disabilities, or english learners, as they planfor growth and execute expansion or redesign plans.
$2,079,148 spentof which $868,642 as grants77% of program spendingData and research - intended to perform research, build organizational data capacity, and maintain boston school finder web tool to assist families in learning about schools and finding the school that best meets their needs.
$402,868 spent15% of program spendingPolicy and advocacy - includes all of bsf's financial and non-financialsupport to community-based organizations to advance education as aprimary issue for boston residents and support policies that will drivegreater access for boston's families to high-quality schools,especially those who have the least access today.
$209,576 spent8% of program spending
The 3 programs described on its FY2023 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $2,691,592.
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.
Balance sheet
Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2019 to 2020, from $4.6M to $3.4M (−25%).
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.
Government-grant reliance: 2021 6% · 2022 7%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
0% of BOSTON SCHOOLS FUND’s revenue is contributions — more earned-revenue than three-quarters of its peers (65% for the typical peer).
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 7 of the last 9 reported years ran a deficit.
reserve
Leadership and staff
The officers, directors, trustees and key employees listed on each return. Joined and no longer listed compare each filing with the year before, matching people by surname and first initial; a year after a gap, or a roster under three people, has no comparison.
Chief executive
William Austin
Founder & CEO
Board chair
Lisa Jackson
Chair
As listed on its FY2024 Form 990-EZ.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 7 funders to 19 funders, grant income rose $1.7M → $1.8M.
4 of 33 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 29% of grant dollars received. That money is really individual donors directing a sponsor; the institutions to cultivate are the non-DAF funders.
From the IRS filings of BOSTON SCHOOLS FUND’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 33 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
BOSTON SCHOOLS FUND has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 22% of grant income, and it takes 3 funders to reach half.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 3 funders to its left
32% 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 BOSTON SCHOOLS FUND.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 60% · 2018 71% · 2019 49% · 2020 29% · 2021 24% · 2022 38% · 2023 31% — 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
63% of BOSTON SCHOOLS FUND's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 58% give in more than one year at all.
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
89% of BOSTON SCHOOLS FUND's grant income comes from Massachusetts funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $4.3M arriving through sponsors registered in 2 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.
Against its field
BOSTON SCHOOLS FUND's funding base is broadening — from 7 funders to 19 as grant income climbed.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 17,277 education nonprofits under $100k, FY2025
Organizations like BOSTON SCHOOLS FUND
Organizations whose mission and program text most resemble this one, by semantic similarity over every organization in the US filings — the closest peers, and often the clearest route to shared or prospective funders.
In Massachusetts
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Public support
58%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 1 state
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for BOSTON SCHOOLS FUND: 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.
Screens are triage, not determinations; a source that cannot be read reports not screened, never clear. Screen this nonprofit · How the screen works · on the API as GET /api/screening/{ein}?format=pdf
Questions and answers
- Who funds BOSTON SCHOOLS FUND?
- BOSTON SCHOOLS FUND (Massachusetts) receives grants from 33 organizations whose IRS filings report $14,890,352 to it, the largest being THE LYNCH FOUNDATION ($3,274,142). 19 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does BOSTON SCHOOLS FUND have?
- IRS filings report 33 organizations giving $14,890,352 in grants to BOSTON SCHOOLS FUND, 19 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of BOSTON SCHOOLS FUND?
- THE LYNCH FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $3,274,142 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like BOSTON SCHOOLS FUND find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Massachusetts. 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 33 funders 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 October 14, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing