Washington, D.C. · Nonprofit
COUNCIL OF INDEPENDENT COLLEGES
COUNCIL OF INDEPENDENT COLLEGES (Washington, D.C.) receives grants from 16 organizations whose IRS filings report $62,035,476 to it, the largest being LILLY ENDOWMENT INC ($49,953,800). 12 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $22M
- Funders on record
- 16
- Grants received
- $62M
- Net assets
- $69M
What Council of Independent Colleges does
Mission
The Council of Independent Colleges is an association of nonprofit independent colleges and universities, state- based councils of independent colleges, and other higher education affiliates, that works to support college and university leadership, advance institutional excellence, and enhance public understanding of private higher education's contributions to society. Cic is the major national organization that focuses on providing services to leaders of independent colleges and universities. Cic offers conferences, seminars, and other programs that help institutions improve educational quality, administrative and financial performance, student outcomes, and institutional visibility.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Programs
Networks, programs, projects, and services cic's networks, programs, projects, and services support academic programs and institutional development in key areas through leadership development for mid-level and senior campus officers and faculty development as well as through programs and services for state council members.institutional development programs and services legacies of american slavery: reckoning with the pastthis initiative, generously funded by the andrew w. Mellon foundation and offered in partnership with the gilder lehrman center for the study of slavery, resistance, and abolition (glc) at yale university's macmillan center, was designed to help cic member institutions and their local communities explore the continuing impact of slavery on american life and culture. Seven colleges and universities served as regional collaboration partners. Each partner focused on a theme of local and national significance, organizing regional activities while contributing to a national conversation through research activities, undergraduate courses, curricular development, and public events. In summer 2020, the project received supplemental funding from the national endowment for…
$8,372,779 spentof which $6,663,845 as grants51% of program spendingConferences and other events cic's institutes, conferences, seminars, and workshops provide ongoing professional development opportunities. The 2025 presidents institute explored the theme "engaging communities and participants explored ways colleges and universities can effectively engage communities and acquire tools to help reframe disruption and pursue new opportunities. Plenary panels offered direction and strategic advice on mitigating conflict, preserving cultures of free expression, and effectively navigating the federal policy agenda. Concurrent sessions and workshops provided insights and interaction from peers on subjects such as financial sustainability, legal challenges, belonging, data management and technology, graduate programming, and more. Cic again offered a parallel program for spouses and partners of college presidents, as well as the new presidents program. Two workshops were held after the institute, "president-board relations and "financial challenges and strategies to combat them." the 2024 institute for chief academic officers, with the theme of "academic leadership now & next," invited chief academic officers and their teams to collaborate on ways to…
$2,389,258 spent$966,726 earned by the program15% of program spendingOther programs and initiatives webinarscic offers webinars on a variety of topics, including a series on mergers and collaborations. Listservscic provides listservs for various campus constituencies. All of the listservs are reserved exclusively for employees from cic member institutions.
$2,198,924 spent$20,181 earned by the program13% of program spendingFaculty development programs workshops for department and division chairswith support from academic search, cic offers an annual series of professional development workshops for department and division chairs. Session topics include understanding the departmental or divisional budget, dealing with difficult conversations, managing the faculty hiring and evaluation process, strategies for collecting and sharing data, and building and maintaining a collegial department. The workshops are led by experienced chief academic officers, department chairs, and attorneys specializing in higher education. In 2025, 165 participants attended workshops at three in-person locations and 15 participants from international members attended the online workshop. Teaching interfaith understandingin partnership with interfaith america and with funding from lilly endowment inc., cic offers seminars for faculty members who are teaching and designing courses on interfaith subjects. A resource base of teaching materials for use by faculty members and a virtual community that encourages faculty members to share best practices, curricula, and pedagogies extends the seminar throughout the year. In 2025, 24…
$1,814,315 spent11% of program spendingNetworks ai ready networkai ready is a 12-month network to foster learning, share resources, and increase effective adoption related to artificial intelligence (ai). The network focuses on both pedagogical and business uses for ai, bringing the current conversation about ai to key areas of campus. The network included program 1: all campus essentials, an opportunity to learn about and engage with nine pressing topics, (members in 202425 cohort: 91) and program 2: build your own, a small, space-limited, pilot program for institutions ready to implement generative ai on campus (members in 202425 cohort: 20). Year two launched in august 2025.belong: an inclusive learning communitythe belong community is a network of cic members dedicated to making their campuses more welcoming and inclusive. Belong's suite of professional development resources for faculty and staff included credentials by the association of college and university educators (acue), all campus cornerstone webinars, belong's unique and popular "push" resource library, and monthly community of practice meetings. In 2025, the belong network had 66 institutional members. Netvuewith generous support from lilly endowment…
Online course sharing consortiumthe online course sharing consortium allows participating colleges and universities to share courses, transfer credits and financial aid, and arrange for tuition payments through an online platform maintained by cic's partner acadeum, with which cic signed a new five-year agreement in 2024. The initiative helps students complete their degrees by enrolling in online courses offered by other consortium participants, avoiding the burden of transferring courses from outside institutions and filling excess capacity at partner institutions. In 2025, the consortium included 333 member institutions sharing a broad catalog of 21,007 courses. Cic's tuition exchange programa network of member colleges and universities that accepts full-time employees and their family members as full-time students, tuition-free, at participating institutions. An online portal facilitates the student application tracking and review processes. Nearly two-thirds of cic member institutions participated in 202425 and that number is expected to increase in the future: as of june 2025, cic waived the annual fee for participation in the tuition exchange program to increase the value of…
$823,014 spent$1,661,855 earned by the program5% of program spendingLeadership development programs presidential vocation and institutional mission programwith lilly endowment inc. Support, cic offers presidential vocation and institutional mission - a yearlong program of readings, consultations, and seminars to help prospective presidents and their spouses or partners reflect on personal calling as it relates to the missions of the institutions they might lead. Twenty senior administrators participated in 202425 cohort. Presidential renewal programwith lilly endowment inc. Support, the presidential renewal program is designed to support the personal renewal of experienced member presidents at cic institutions who will continue to serve in the vital role of the college presidency. Participants are guided by experienced peer mentors through an introspective journey that includes experiential renewal practices and the construction of a personal sustainability plan. Eleven presidents, most accompanied by spouses or partners, participated in the 202425 presidential renewal program. New presidents programeach year cic offers a program for college presidents in their first or second year - and concurrently a program for their spouses or partners - that…
$704,903 spent4% of program spending
The 7 programs described on its FY2024 Form 990, listed largest first by expense. Program spending in total: $16,303,193.
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.
Balance sheet
Total assets and total liabilities at each year end, in dollars. The largest one-year move in total assets was 2022 to 2023, from $71M to $88M (+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 10% · 2022 1%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
Surplus & reserves
Operating surplus or deficit each year, and months of liquidity in hand. 4 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.
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 5 funders to 7 funders, grant income fell $2.8M → $2.5M.
2 of 16 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 0% 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: $250k from one payer (the payer shares this organization's board, largest American Academic Leadership Institute Inc). These are real filings, and they are not money COUNCIL OF INDEPENDENT COLLEGES raised.
From the IRS filings of COUNCIL OF INDEPENDENT COLLEGES’s funders (the co-funder graph). 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
COUNCIL OF INDEPENDENT COLLEGES leans on a few funders — its largest provides 81% of grant income and the top three 94%; half comes from just 1 funder.
the vertical line marks half of all grant income — 1 funder to its left
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 43% · 2018 88% · 2019 77% · 2020 88% · 2021 51% · 2022 94% · 2023 51% — growing more concentrated.
“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
11% of COUNCIL OF INDEPENDENT COLLEGES's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 75% 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
COUNCIL OF INDEPENDENT COLLEGES draws 99% of its grant income from funders outside Washington, D.C., across 9 states in all.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $46k 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.
Government funding COUNCIL OF INDEPENDENT COLLEGES receives
Grants and contracts to this organization from federal (USASpending) and state checkbooks, reconciled to its EIN. $544k on record.
- National Endowment for the Humanities$321k
- National Science Foundation$223k
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 COUNCIL OF INDEPENDENT COLLEGES
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 Washington, D.C.
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
79% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
68%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Part of a family of 1 related entity
- American Academic Leadership Institute Inc · exempt
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for COUNCIL OF INDEPENDENT COLLEGES: 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 COUNCIL OF INDEPENDENT COLLEGES?
- COUNCIL OF INDEPENDENT COLLEGES (Washington, D.C.) receives grants from 16 organizations whose IRS filings report $62,035,476 to it, the largest being LILLY ENDOWMENT INC ($49,953,800). 12 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does COUNCIL OF INDEPENDENT COLLEGES have?
- IRS filings report 16 organizations giving $62,035,476 in grants to COUNCIL OF INDEPENDENT COLLEGES, 12 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of COUNCIL OF INDEPENDENT COLLEGES?
- LILLY ENDOWMENT INC is the largest funder on record, with $49,953,800 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like COUNCIL OF INDEPENDENT COLLEGES find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Washington, D.C.. 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 16 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 22, 2026. What this page cannot tell you · view filing