Tennessee · Nonprofit
EAST TENNESSEE FOUNDATION
EAST TENNESSEE FOUNDATION (Tennessee) receives grants from 97 organizations whose IRS filings report $26,809,729 to it, the largest being NATL CHRISTIAN CHARITABLE FDN INC ($7,575,500). 32 of them have funded it in more than one year. EAST TENNESSEE FOUNDATION administers funds for other donors, so those contributions arrive into funds it holds rather than supporting a program it runs itself.
Hosts funds for others
EAST TENNESSEE FOUNDATION administers funds on behalf of other donors. The grants recorded as coming in are contributions into those funds, so they count custody rather than support for a programEAST TENNESSEE FOUNDATION runs itself. This page therefore states the flows and does not draw the comparisons it would draw for an operating charity: concentration, funder retention, grant dependency and the peer field are all left out, because each of them would read a vehicle as if it were a program.
Paid out
$180M
Recipients
712
Contributions on record
$31M
Donors on record
114
Payments out run 5.8x the contributions on record, which says the incoming side is incomplete rather than that the vehicle is unusually busy: most donors to a fund like this are individuals, who file no return for us to read.
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.
- United Way of Greater Knoxvilleinclocal
- The Ayers Foundation Trustportfolio match
- Ayers Foundationportfolio match
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.
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: 2017 1% · 2018 2% · 2019 1% · 2020 1% · 2021 1% · 2022 1% · 2023 0% · 2024 2%. 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 8 reported years ran a deficit.
reserve
Who funds it, year by year
2017 → 2023: the base broadened from 18 funders to 19 funders, grant income fell $1.1M → $682k.
27 of 97 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 38% 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: $4.2M from 17 payers (the payer shares this organization's board, largest East Tn Supporting Foundation). These are real filings, and they are not money EAST TENNESSEE FOUNDATION raised.
From the IRS filings of EAST TENNESSEE FOUNDATION’s funders (the co-funder graph). Top 30 of 97 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.
Where its funders are
73% of EAST TENNESSEE FOUNDATION's grant income comes from Tennessee funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $10M 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.
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 97 funders put you under-funded among the 400 organizations that share them.
- United Way of Greater KnoxvilleinclocalTN · funds 107 organizations near you
- The Ayers Foundation Trustportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Ayers Foundationportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Wellmont Health Systemportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- William H Frist Family Foundationportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Bob and Susan Wilson Foundationportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Toby S Wilt Family Foundationportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- The James T and Valeria B Robertson Foundationportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Beggerow Miller Family Foundationportfolio matchits grantees resemble your mission
- Akima Club InclocalTN · funds 45 organizations near you
- Covenant HealthlocalTN · funds 34 organizations near you
- United Way of Blount CountylocalTN · funds 28 organizations near you
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.
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
91% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Public support
74%
Share of support from the public (Schedule A) — the basis for its public-charity status.
Footprint & structure
Part of a family of 9 related entities
- 4th Purpose Foundation · exempt
- 4th Purpose Realty LLC · exempt
- East Tennessee Supporting Foundatio · exempt
- Clayton Foundation · exempt
- Education Consumers Foundation · exempt
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for EAST TENNESSEE FOUNDATION: 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. How the screen works · on the API as GET /api/screening/{ein}?format=pdf
Questions and answers
- Who funds EAST TENNESSEE FOUNDATION?
- EAST TENNESSEE FOUNDATION (Tennessee) receives grants from 97 organizations whose IRS filings report $26,809,729 to it, the largest being NATL CHRISTIAN CHARITABLE FDN INC ($7,575,500). 32 of them have funded it in more than one year. EAST TENNESSEE FOUNDATION administers funds for other donors, so those contributions arrive into funds it holds rather than supporting a program it runs itself.
- How many funders does EAST TENNESSEE FOUNDATION have?
- IRS filings report 97 organizations giving $26,809,729 in grants to EAST TENNESSEE FOUNDATION, 32 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of EAST TENNESSEE FOUNDATION?
- NATL CHRISTIAN CHARITABLE FDN INC is the largest funder on record, with $7,575,500 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like EAST TENNESSEE FOUNDATION find more funders?
- Start with the funders already giving here, then look at the foundations that back similar organizations in Tennessee. 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 FY2024 (financials across 2017–2024), and the filings of 97funders 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