Tennessee · Nonprofit
EMERALD CHARTER SCHOOLS
EMERALD CHARTER SCHOOLS (Tennessee) receives grants from 19 organizations whose IRS filings report $3,921,090 to it, the largest being LAWSON FAMILY FOUNDATION ($1,000,000). 12 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- Revenue FY2025
- $7.2M
- Funders on record
- 19
- Grants received
- $3.9M
- Net assets
- $3.2M
What Emerald Charter Schools does
Mission
To provide free, sustainable, high quality public schools in knoxville's urban neighborhoods, ensuring all enrolled students have access to an outstanding college preparatory education.
As stated on its FY2025 Form 990.
Program
To provide free, sustainable, high quality public schools in knoxville's urban neighborhoods, ensuring all enrolled students have access to an outstanding college preparatory education.
$7,090,765 spent100% of program spending
The program described on its FY2024 Form 990. Program spending in total: $7,090,765.
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 $5.6M to $6.5M (+14%).
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 81% · 2018 85% · 2019 85% · 2020 87% · 2021 70% · 2022 85% · 2023 90% · 2024 96% · 2025 91%. Grants only. Government contracts and fees sit inside program revenue.
99% of EMERALD CHARTER SCHOOLS’s revenue is contributions — more reliant on donations than three-quarters of its peers (48% for the typical peer).
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 4 funders to 8 funders, grant income rose $480k → $541k.
6 of 19 of your funders are donor-advised or pass-through sponsors (tagged DAF) — 12% 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 EMERALD CHARTER SCHOOLS’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
EMERALD CHARTER SCHOOLS has a broad base — no single funder exceeds 26% 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
55% 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 EMERALD CHARTER SCHOOLS.
Largest funder’s share by year: 2017 73% · 2018 43% · 2019 50% · 2020 34% · 2021 30% · 2022 55% · 2023 46% — 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
40% of EMERALD CHARTER SCHOOLS's funders are still giving 3 years after their first grant; 63% 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
94% of EMERALD CHARTER SCHOOLS's grant income comes from Tennessee funders.
In-state vs out-of-state, by year
Funder states come from each funder’s own filing. $455k arriving through sponsors registered in 6 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
EMERALD CHARTER SCHOOLS has grown faster than half of the 9,398 education nonprofits its size.
this organization peer median middle 50% of peers· 9,398 education nonprofits $1M–$10M, FY2025
Organizations like EMERALD CHARTER SCHOOLS
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 Tennessee
Nationally
Read directly from this organization’s own Form 990, as neutral context.
Where the money goes
97% of spending goes to programs.
Governance
Footprint & structure
Files a return copy in 1 state
Screen this organization
A dated, signed PDF of the compliance screen for EMERALD CHARTER SCHOOLS: 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 EMERALD CHARTER SCHOOLS?
- EMERALD CHARTER SCHOOLS (Tennessee) receives grants from 19 organizations whose IRS filings report $3,921,090 to it, the largest being LAWSON FAMILY FOUNDATION ($1,000,000). 12 of them have funded it in more than one year.
- How many funders does EMERALD CHARTER SCHOOLS have?
- IRS filings report 19 organizations giving $3,921,090 in grants to EMERALD CHARTER SCHOOLS, 12 of which have funded it in more than one year.
- Who is the largest funder of EMERALD CHARTER SCHOOLS?
- LAWSON FAMILY FOUNDATION is the largest funder on record, with $1,000,000 in grants. The full list of funders is on this page.
- How can an organization like EMERALD CHARTER SCHOOLS 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.
Play a game about who funds Emerald Charter Schools →
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 19 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